Nursery Manager - MAT Cover

MP Training and Recruitment; Eltham; On-site; GBP 41,000 - 50,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Childcare discount

Enhanced parental leave

25 days annual leave

Pension

Health & wellbeing support

Job summary

Bright Horizons Elizabeth Terrace Nursery in Eltham, London, seeks a Nursery Manager for maternity cover from December 2026 to September 2027. The role leads a team to deliver high-quality care and education, with safeguarding responsibility and collaboration with support offices to drive performance and growth.

You will support high standards, ensure regulatory compliance, and foster partnerships with parents and staff to sustain excellent outcomes.

Qualifications

• Full and relevant Level 3 or above Early Years qualification
• Experience in an Early Years leadership role (Nursery Manager/Deputy/Assistant)
• Experience with regulatory inspections leading to Good/Outstanding
• Experience leading high-performance teams with regulatory compliance and quality improvement
• Confident decision maker with ability to support change in a regulated setting
• Strong safeguarding/child protection knowledge
• Ability to build trust with colleagues and parents/carers

Responsibilities

• Lead a team to deliver outstanding care and education to all children in the setting
• Drive employee engagement, retention and performance
• Act as Designated Safeguarding Lead and manage safeguarding policies
• Collaborate with support office teams to recruit and develop staff
• Identify and implement commercial plans to deliver growth
• Optimise nursery performance, revenue and cost efficiency while maintaining staff ratios

Education

Level 3 Early Years qualification

Leadership experience

Regulatory compliance knowledge

Safeguarding knowledge

Team development

Commercial awareness

Decision making

Job description

Nursery – Bright Horizons Elizabeth Terrace Day Nursery and Preschool Job Type – Maternity Cover – Dec 2026 – Sep 2027 Salary – From £45,510 per annum (dependant on qualification/s and experience) Location – Eltham, London

Are you looking to work for an organisation whose culture is driven by our HEART principles – Honesty, Excellence, Accountability, Respect, and Teamwork? Where you can be yourself, feel supported, and help to make a difference to the next generation? Somewhere you can say: "I did that." We’re looking for a Nursery Manager to join our Elizabeth Terrace Nursery, situated in Eltham, London.

This is a maternity cover position starting in December 2026 and ending in September 2027. Our lovely nursery is based in the heart of Eltham high street and proudly holds an Ofsted rating 'Good'. We are a small community-based nursery who have built an amazing togetherness with our parent partnerships and homely environment. We have great transport links with a variety of bus routes on the high street and a 10-minute walk to Eltham station.

Our Benefits From £45,510 per annum

• Childcare discount of 100% for first child
• Enhanced parental leave
• 25 days annual leave, plus bank holidays and paid Christmas closure.
• Ability to also purchase additional leave*
• Pension
• Financial and wellbeing benefits including 24/7 virtual GP appointments, early access to wages, and more
• Professional development programme access for every stage of your career, including access to a careers coach
• Shift options: 40 hours over 4 or 5 days *Subject to T&Cs

The Role As a Nursery Manager, you will lead a team to deliver outstanding care and education to all the children in your setting, and through inspirational leadership drive employee engagement, retention and performance. You will act as Designated Safeguarding Lead, holding overall responsibility for the day to day running of the nursery, and management of safeguarding policies. You will work in partnership with support office teams to recruit, nurture, and continuously develop high performing colleagues, as well as identify and implement commercial plans and strategies to deliver FTE growth. You will optimise nursery performance, revenue generation, and cost efficiency in line with staff ratio requirements.

What we’re looking for

• Full and relevant Level 3 or above Early Years qualification
• Experience within an Early Years leadership role (ideally as a Nursery Manager, Deputy Manager, Assistant Manager or similar)
• Experience of participating with a regulatory inspection, leading to a ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ outcome
• Experience of developing high performance teams, with effective regulatory compliance, quality improvement, delivery of high-quality pedagogy, innovation and service excellence
• Confident decision maker, with ability to support change and understanding of complex relationship between commercial and service excellence within a regulated setting
• Strong knowledge and understanding of Safeguarding, Child Protection, and the wider legislative requirements for working with children
• Ability to develop trust and strong working partnerships with both colleagues and parents/ carers

Bright Horizons is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. This post is subject to safer recruitment practice and pre-employment checks, including an enhanced DBS check, which will be undertaken before any appointment is confirmed.

We are an inclusive employer and welcome people from all ages and backgrounds to apply. We will consider reasonable adjustments required by applicants.

Please note, due to our sector all roles are subject to an Enhanced DBS.

We’re proud to be a Great Place to Work for 20 years.

At Bright Horizons, our culture is built on our commitment to Keeping Everyone Safe and providing world-class care and education, delivered by a world-class workforce. We believe our people’s potential is endless and with this in mind, we aspire to create an environment where our colleagues can thrive and accomplish the things they thought impossible. Bright Horizons has been recognised as a Great Place to Work by our employees and the Great Place to Work Institute for the last 13 years. We care passionately about what we do, and our HEART values and principles help us to support one another in the work that we do each day. These are quite literally at the HEART of our organisation’s ethos and culture as it helps us to provide a working environment that supports professionalism, growth and diversity. We are passionate about our people’s ongoing learning and development. Our learning and leading with HEART framework supports each Bright Horizons colleague on the first steps of their leadership journey, whether that includes our 'World-Class Welcome' induction or our extensive ongoing training programme.

Either way we want you to feel valued and invested in!

Celebrating in the accomplishments of our people is an essential part of our culture. We believe in the power of "thank you" and throughout the year, in ways big and small, formal and informal, we show our appreciation for employees at all levels. We have many ways to acknowledge and celebrate our people, including our very popular "employee appreciation month". This is a chance for everyone to share their gratitude to one another, across the whole company. Whether it is a "thank you" placed on our website, a chocolate pizza, team lunch or an ice cream van visit, it is our way of showing each other we care and appreciate everything we do. Each year, we have our annual 'Awards of Excellence' events; whether you are an award winner or cheering on a fellow team member, these formal award occasions are opportunities to come together and celebrate one another.

By creating this account you acknowledge that Bright Horizons will collect, store and process any of your personal data provided in respect of your application and employment in accordance with our Employee Privacy Notice. https://www.brighthorizons.co.uk/statutory-information/privacy-notice-employees.