Senior Regional Manager in Manchester

Senior Regional Manager

Salary: £40,000–£50,000 per year, subject to experience
Location: Hybrid – UK, with significant regional travel
Hours: Full-time
Department: Operations
Reports to: Chief Operating Officer
Direct reports: Regional Operations Managers
DBS: Enhanced DBS required
Driving licence: Full UK driving licence required

About Vivify

Vivify is a growing organisation working with schools across England to make better use of their facilities outside of school hours. We currently operate across more than 250 schools, supporting a wide range of sports, fitness, community and other activities.

Our field operation is at the heart of what we do. Our Regional Operations Managers and Community Hosts work directly across our school network to make sure facilities are safe, well managed and provide a great experience for schools, hirers and communities.

We're looking for an experienced Senior Regional Manager to lead our four Regional Operations Managers and bring our national field operation together as one consistent, high-performing team.

The Role

As Senior Regional Manager, you'll provide senior leadership across our regional operations, ensuring that schools receive the same high standard of service and support wherever they are located.

You'll lead and develop four Regional Operations Managers across the North, Midlands, South East and South West, while taking overall responsibility for the quality of our school relationships, field standards, operational performance and safeguarding.

You'll also be the key link between our Central Services teams and our field operation, making sure that what happens on the ground informs wider business decisions.

This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who is comfortable managing managers, working with data, solving operational challenges and building strong relationships with senior stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

Lead and develop the regional team

• Lead, coach and develop four Regional Operations Managers as one national team.
• Set clear expectations and ensure consistent operational standards across all regions.
• Performance-manage effectively, supporting development and addressing issues where required.
• Build a culture of accountability, collaboration and continuous improvement.

Own school relationships

• Ensure every school has a clear and accountable regional point of contact.
• Oversee regular school review meetings and ensure actions and issues are followed through.
• Build strong relationships with schools and identify potential issues before they escalate.
• Act as a senior escalation point for significant school or operational concerns.

Maintain high field standards

• Take ownership of host standards across the estate, including attendance, punctuality, uniform, standards of conduct and site close-down.
• Identify patterns from audits and ensure appropriate training or operational action is taken.
• Ensure our Community Hosts consistently represent Vivify professionally on site.

Safeguarding, compliance and health & safety

• Take senior responsibility for safeguarding, compliance and health & safety across the field operation.
• Ensure DBS requirements, incident reporting and relevant compliance processes are maintained.
• Act as a safeguarding lead for the business.
• Keep up to date with relevant requirements and ensure changes are implemented effectively.
• Support the bi-annual health and safety reporting process.

Drive operational performance

• Own regional performance against key operational measures, including shift fill, open shifts, sessions lost and host costs.
• Use operational data to identify trends, challenge performance and drive improvements.
• Ensure regional data is accurate, reliable and reported transparently.
• Reduce dependency on individual hosts and build greater resilience across our school network.

Manage escalations and incidents

• Act as the senior escalation point for live shift incidents, host abandonment, welfare checks and site emergencies.
• Support and oversee the out-of-hours on-call structure.
• Ensure issues are resolved promptly and effectively within the regional team.

Workforce planning

• Work closely with the People team on regional recruitment pipelines, time-to-fill and host retention.
• Monitor workforce health, including shift rejection and churn.
• Identify and address areas where recruitment or workforce capacity may create operational risk.

Work cross-functionally

• Partner closely with Central Services, Commercial, Product and People teams.
• Ensure operational insight from the field feeds into wider decisions around pricing, technology, processes and school relationships.
• Build robust processes, cross-training and handovers to reduce single points of failure.

About You

We're looking for an experienced operational leader who enjoys working in a fast-paced, growing environment and is confident managing both people and performance.

You'll ideally have:

• Experience leading multi-site or field operations, including managing managers.
• Experience managing a casual, shift-based or distributed workforce at scale.
• Strong people-management and coaching skills.
• Experience working with senior external stakeholders.
• Confidence working with operational data and using it to make decisions, rather than simply reporting it.
• Excellent organisational skills and a systematic, process-driven approach.
• Strong relationship-building skills and the ability to build trust with a range of stakeholders.
• Experience in the school or education sector would be advantageous.
• The ability to work positively through change, restructure, acquisition and rapid growth.
• A proactive approach to identifying problems and finding practical solutions.
• A full UK driving licence and willingness to travel regularly across the UK.
• An Enhanced DBS check.

Our Values

At Vivify, we believe in:

Speed With Care – We move quickly while maintaining quality, compliance and trust.

Customer-First Thinking – We consider the impact of our decisions on hirers, hosts and schools.

Transparent by Default – We surface problems early, learn from them and work openly to improve.

One Vivify – We work as one team, share responsibility and avoid silos.

We’re looking for someone who brings these principles to life through their leadership style and day-to-day decision making.

Why Join Vivify?

This is an opportunity to take a senior leadership role within a growing, purpose-led organisation and have a significant influence on how our national field operation develops.

You'll have the opportunity to lead a team of regional managers, shape operational standards across more than 250 schools and work closely with senior leaders across the wider business.

If you're an experienced regional or field operations leader who enjoys developing people, improving operational performance and building strong external relationships, we'd love to hear from you.