Director of Admissions and Marketing in Oxford

Manpower Recruitment have teamed up with an established College in Oxford City Centre and are recruiting for a Full Time Director of Admissions and Marketing. This is a full-time role, with some flexibility for evenings and weekends, working onsite, in the office. No staff car parking available. The role is paying up to £75,000 per annum, depending on experience.

Overview of the role

As Director of Admissions & Marketing (DAM), you will be a member of the school Senior Leadership Team (SLT) with prime responsibility for driving student enrolment. You will ensure families receive an exceptional experience at each stage of their journey with our school - from awareness and consideration, through to enrolment and advocacy. We call this our Family Experience Journey, and everything we do in MAC (Marketing, Admissions and Communications) evolves around this. To deliver an exceptional family experience every time, you will need to forge great relationships with colleagues from across the school, so that everyone is working together to achieve our vision. As an exceptional leader of people, you will coach and develop the commercial, creative, and customer-oriented skills of your team, and be a consummate ambassador for the school brand. As a DAM, you will also play a pivotal role in building the school community and reputation.

Duties & Responsibilities

• You will understand the importance of having a great MAC (Marketing, Admissions and Communications) plan - it is integral to what we do - but you will see the value in being flexible, to adapt and pivot to meet school needs.
• Work with your Senior Leadership and Regional Office colleagues to set the strategic MAC direction for the school, covering admissions, brand, communications, digital, marketing and research requirements.
• Manage your MAC budget to deliver maximum value.
• Maintain up-to-date knowledge of your market, competitors, and audiences, to give your school a commercial advantage.
• Oversee data integrity through CRM and compliance with group data rules, so school and group forecasting is built on a rock-solid foundation.
• Ensure accurate forecasting for the year(s) ahead, using all the data available to you and keeping in regular contact with pipeline contacts.
• Stay up to date with new trends and developments in sales, marketing and communications to keep innovating.
• Develop your school’s brand positioning, to ensure that your offering is differentiated in market to drive greatest enrolment.

The Candidate

The ideal candidate is a strategic, data-driven, and internationally minded leader who can drive high quality student recruitment and elevate the college's global brand. They combine commercial acumen, elite school admissions expertise, and sophisticated marketing capability with a strong sense of safeguarding, compliance, and educational integrity. The candidate must thrive in a fast-paced, high performing, globally competitive environment and bring the leadership skills to inspire and develop a diverse admissions and marketing team.

Essential Experience

• Significant leadership experience in admissions and/or marketing within high achieving independent schools, international colleges, or similarly competitive education settings.
• Proven ability to manage complex admissions pipelines, including selective academic entry procedures.
• Experience working with international recruitment markets, agents, and culturally diverse families.
• Demonstrable success in driving growth or stabilising recruitment, supported by data analysis and forecasting.
• Strong background in digital marketing, brand management, and customer experience optimisation.
• Experience managing and developing multifunctional teams, ideally across admissions, marketing, and communications.
• Familiarity with safeguarding requirements, UKVI/visa compliance, and regulatory frameworks relevant to UK independent schools.

Desirable Experience

• Leadership experience in a top tier sixth form, selective college, or global education brand.
• Background in competitive international markets such as China, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, Africa, or the Middle East.
• Experience running multi-year enrolment strategies aligned to organisational growth plans.
• Involvement in reputation management, stakeholder communications, or crisis communications.

Qualifications and Experience

As an expert, here’s what we expect:

• You will be degree educated and have at least seven years' demonstrable experience in brand-building, sales and/or marketing roles, ideally in service delivery roles.
• Strong leadership skills and a proven ability to manage and coach a team to achieve business objectives will be part of your repertoire.
• You have superb project management skills and know how to mobilise efforts to launch successful initiatives.

Benefits

• Holiday package - 28 days plus bank holidays.
• Cycle to Work.
• Eyecare voucher.
• Access to ICAS Lifestyle Employee Assistance Program.
• Season Ticket loans.
• Discounted gym membership.