Senior Recruitment Manager

LEYF Nurseries; London; Hybrid; GBP 50,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading nursery group in London is seeking a Senior Recruitment Manager to oversee recruitment for around 400 roles annually. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in hiring high-quality candidates and leading recruitment teams. This role emphasizes inclusive hiring processes and operational excellence, making a direct impact on children's early education. This position offers flexible hybrid working, generous holiday, and a supportive team culture.

Benefits

70% nursery discount for children or grandchildren

26 days' holiday plus birthday off

7% employer pension

Well-being support

Shopping discounts

Team events & development

Qualifications

• Experience in high-volume, multi-site hiring.
• Proven ability to coach and lead a team.
• Hands-on experience in designing scalable recruitment processes.

Responsibilities

• Lead and support a team of capable recruiters.
• Oversee the end-to-end recruitment process.
• Build strong relationships with hiring managers.

Skills

Team management

Operational excellence

Inclusive recruitment processes

Interpersonal skills

Stakeholder management

Problem-solving

Tools

Recruitment systems

Job description

Social network you want to login/join with:

Recruit the people who change children’s lives

At the London Early Years Foundation (LEYF), we’re proud to be London’s best-rated nursery group. As a social enterprise, we’re on a mission to give every child the best start in life – and that starts with the people we hire.

This isn’t just a recruiter role. It’s for someone who has led recruitment teams, built inclusive hiring processes, made robust decisions, and knows how to drive operational excellence. Whether it’s developing our high-performing team, coaching and upskilling interviewers, or delivering your own hires for our central office – this role is about making sure our recruitment runs brilliantly, every day.

As our Senior Recruitment Manager, you’ll lead the operational delivery of recruitment – hiring around 400 roles a year across our 40+ nurseries and central office. You will have day to day people management responsibilities for a capable team of recruiters, build strong relationships, be regarded as a credible partner across the organisation, and make sure our hiring is timely, inclusive and high quality.

You’ll bring deep experience across attraction, selection and onboarding – and know how to build processes that work. You’ll be confident leading ED&I-focused recruitment projects, and bring ideas, energy and ownership to everything you do.

You understand that great recruitment doesn’t stop at offer – and will focus on hiring people who stay and thrive. In a sector where there’s a national shortage of qualified early years educators, every high-quality hire counts. The people we recruit (for nursery and central office) directly impact how many children we can care for and educate – and how well we deliver on our mission to give every child the best start in life.

This is a brilliant opportunity to shape how we recruit – from helping roll out a new selection framework, building ED&I measurement, reporting and measuring recruitment metrics, to delivering interviewer training that raises the bar across our nurseries and teams.

What you’ll be doing

• Lead and support a team of capable recruiters – coaching, developing and ensuring high performance
• Oversee the end-to-end recruitment process for all nursery and central office roles
• Personally deliver recruitment processes for approximately 20–30 central office roles annually
• Ensure recruitment is targeted and responsive – aligned with business priorities and the criticality of each role
• Build strong relationships with hiring managers and senior stakeholders – advising, influencing, problem solving and delivering against the plan
• Collaborate on attraction strategies and build early talent pipelines
• Own our agency preferred supplier list ensuring value alignment, performance, relationships and strong return on investment
• Champion inclusive, effective selection processes and strong candidate experience
• Focus on quality of hire and increasing our chance of retaining new hires
• Take the lead on projects e.g. create a structured interviewer training programme and support the new selection framework roll out
• Lead ED&I focused recruitment initiatives and track progress
• Work with the Head of Recruitment to re-imagine data metrics for recruitment, ensuring our ATS fully supports this
• Use data and insights to improve how we recruit and report on performance
• Be a trusted advisor and role model across the organisation

We’re looking for you to...

• Be a seasoned empathetic team manager with proven ability coaching and leading a good-sized team
• Have previous success of operational excellence across high-volume, multi-site hiring at all levels (entry to exec)
• Bring hands-on experience of designing and delivering robust, scalable recruitment
• Know how to build inclusive recruitment processes from the ground up – and have done so in a complex or high-volume environment
• Be proactive, ensuring delivery to deadlines without impact to quality
• Be unflappable under pressure and skilled at managing challenging conversations with colleagues
• Be adaptable with the agility to respond to competing priorities
• Work at pace, quick-thinking, and confident making smart calls – while knowing when to seek input
• Possess excellent interpersonal and stakeholder management skills at all levels
• Be able to resolve complex recruitment questions collaboratively
• Have strong organisational, problem-solving and creative thinking abilities
• Be proficient in using recruitment systems and tools
• Be emotionally intelligent and relationship-savvy – able to flex your style, manage yourself well, and influence with care
• Have effective and professional communication skills
• Align with our values and mission within a purpose-driven organisation

Why you’ll love it here

• Be part of something bigger: we hire brilliant people to ensure children get the best start
• Be part of a team that moves fast, thinks big and backs our people – we love what we do and here to win in a challenging market
• Real flexibility with hybrid working between home, nurseries and our central office
• Save on childcare: 70% nursery discount for your children or grandchildren
• Recharge properly: 26 days’ holiday (including Christmas closure), plus your birthday off, and bank holidays
• Good benefits: 7% employer pension, well-being support, shopping discounts, and team events & development
• We believe a diverse team makes us better – so be you!

If you’re a brilliant recruitment manager who wants your work to matter – we’d love to hear from you.

Apply online (so you get to tell us why you want to work for us) or Quick Apply on LinkedIn which will be open for 48 hours. We’re reviewing applications and progressing people through assessments as they come in – so don’t wait too long!