Senior Manager, Learning & Community

Artsjobsonline Ltd; London Borough of Wandsworth; On-site; GBP 41,000 - 50,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual leave 22 days

Summer hours

Open course access

Theatre trips

Friendly team (office-based)

Job summary

Dramatic Resources in Wandsworth, London, invites applications for a Senior Manager, Learning & Community to lead and develop our trainer network. You will steward the training curriculum, shape the offer, and create systems to capture learning and innovation across the global community of 50+ freelance actors and practitioners.

This is a practical, people-focused role centered on building strong trainer relationships, supporting professional development, and guiding recruitment, onboarding, and

Qualifications

• Strong understanding of theatre or performance practice and related education.
• Interest in applying actor’s toolkit to business contexts.
• Self-starter with ability to manage multiple conversations and workshops.
• Experience at a senior, strategic level and managing freelance practitioners.
• Willingness to travel to see work and meet regional trainer teams.

Responsibilities

• Take responsibility for DR’s communication skills training curriculum, ensuring materials and records are coherent and easy to use.
• Review and evolve the training offer, ensuring it stays relevant in today’s rapidly changing business environment.
• Capture innovation and support experimentation with the work, while ensuring quality and consistency is maintained.
• Keep abreast of wider developments in communication theory, learning methodologies and technology and ensure that DR’s curriculum conversation takes these into account.
• Build trusted relationships with trainers across our different regional hubs.
• Provide counsel to trainers on their development, and any issues affecting them, the work or the team.
• Identify trainer development needs and devise an ongoing programme of initiatives to meet them as well as practical systems for tracking trainer development, engagement and feedback.
• Lead annual check-ins with trainers, capture themes and ensure agreed actions are followed through.
• Take a strategic view on casting and wider resourcing decisions, including reward, talent pipeline and leadership structures.
• Evolve DR’s trainer mentoring programme.
• Nurture a culture of curiosity, generosity, agility and continuous learning amongst the trainer team.
• Champion the contribution made by trainers, including in their parallel careers as creative practitioners.
• Lead on on-going EDI & accessibility strategies in consultation with a specialist external consultant.
• Take responsibility for regular trainer communications and inclusive community-building activities to ensure all trainers feel valued, included and connected.
• Build and maintain a strong pool of potential trainers in line with business needs.
• Manage trainer recruitment, auditions and selection, in conjunction with the Directors.
• Ensure a welcoming onboarding journey for new trainers.
• Develop an annual plan for talent development, curriculum, mentoring and recruitment and manage appropriate budgets for these activities.

Job description

Salary: £45,000 (Full-time, 12-month fixed-term contract, with potential to become permanent)

Location: Wandsworth, South-West London

Dramatic Resources offers highly practical, truly tailored training to business leaders that draws on techniques from theatre, to inspire more courageous communication. Our work is delivered by a global community of 50+ freelance professional actors and creative practitioners.

We are looking for a Senior Manager, Learning & Community to join our Leadership Team, with responsibility for ensuring that our trainer community continues to develop and thrive.

This is a practical, people-focused role; building excellent working relationships with our trainers and driving initiatives that help them progress, contribute and stay connected to Dramatic Resources, wherever they are in the world.

The successful candidate will also have responsibility for the stewardship of Dramatic Resources’ training curriculum, organising our collective body of practice, creating mechanisms to capture learning and innovation, establishing working groups to develop and innovate the offer, and ensuring that knowledge is accessible and shared across the community.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Learning

• Take responsibility for DR’s communication skills training curriculum, ensuring that materials and records are coherent and easy to use.
• Review and evolve the training offer, ensuring it stays relevant in today’s rapidly changing business environment.
• Capture innovation and support experimentation with the work, while ensuring quality and consistency is maintained.
• Keep abreast of wider developments in communication theory, learning methodologies and technology and ensure that DR’s curriculum conversation takes these into account.

Community

Development & Support

• Build trusted relationships with trainers across our different regional hubs.
• Provide counsel to trainers on their development, and any issues affecting them, the work or the team.
• Identify trainer development needs and devise an ongoing programme of initiatives to meet them as well as practical systems for tracking trainer development, engagement and feedback.
• Lead annual check-ins with trainers, capture themes and ensure agreed actions are followed through.
• Take a strategic view on casting and wider resourcing decisions, including reward, talent pipeline and leadership structures.

Culture & Community

• Evolve DR’s trainer mentoring programme.
• Nurture a culture of curiosity, generosity, agility and continuous learning amongst the trainer team.
• Champion the contribution made by trainers, including in their parallel careers as creative practitioners.
• Lead on on-going EDI & accessibility strategies in consultation with a specialist external consultant.
• Take responsibility for regular trainer communications and inclusive community-building activities to ensure all trainers feel valued, included and connected.

Recruitment & Onboarding

• Build and maintain a strong pool of potential trainers in line with business needs.

• Manage trainer recruitment, auditions and selection, in conjunction with the Directors.
• Ensure a welcoming onboarding journey for new trainers.
• Develop an annual plan for talent development, curriculum, mentoring and recruitment and manage appropriate budgets for these activities.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

The ideal candidate will:

• Have a strong understanding of theatre or performance practice, ideally with experience in creative education, management or practitioner development.
• Be genuinely interested in what the actor’s toolkit can bring to people in business.
• Be a self-starter, comfortable moving between individual trainer conversations, practical workshops, senior leadership meetings and client encounters, while also attending to the details.
• Have experience working at a senior, strategic level and managing freelance creative practitioners.
• Enjoy working collaboratively and be able to facilitate expertise without needing to be the expert in the room.
• Be practical and organised, able to turn ideas into systems and actions proportionate for a small creative business.
• Be prepared to travel to see the work and to meet regional trainer teams.

WE OFFER

• 22 days holiday (increasing by 1 day with every year of full-time service), plus the office shut down days around Christmas and New Year, which are gifted as additional holiday.
• ‘Summer Hours’ half day Fridays in July & August
• A place on our Open Course and opportunities to observe our work and take part in development workshops
• Theatre trips to see our team performing
• A friendly and informal working environment with a team of 4 full time and 4 part-time staff in the office, located by Wandsworth Common, in South West London. Please note this is an office-based role, with some flexibility.

Closing date for applications: 6pm on Friday 6th November 2026. There will be initial Zoom interviews on 12th and 16th November, followed by in-person interviews on Thursday 19th November.