Leisure People Recruitment
General Manager
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General Manager – The Charterhouse Club
Godalming £45,000–£50,000 + significant benefits
An exciting opportunity for an experienced General Manager to lead the extensive leisure and sporting facilities at the Charterhouse Club in Godalming which operates within the unique environment of one of the UK’s most historic independent schools. The facilities include a well-equipped gym, 25m swimming pool, fitness studios, climbing wall, 9-hole golf course, 8-court sports hall, café, outdoor sports pitches and tennis courts.
Charterhouse Club is a busy dual-use facility serving a diverse community of pupils, staff, local residents and external sporting partners. The Club welcomes 1100 leisure and golf members, 1000 pupils and 350 members of staff alongside numerous professional sports clubs, swimming clubs and summer camp providers.
This is a broad and varied leadership role, combining operational excellence, commercial performance, team leadership and stakeholder management. The successful candidate will take overall responsibility for the day-to-day performance of the Club, while working closely with senior leaders across Charterhouse to maximise the facilities and deliver an outstanding experience for members, pupils, staff, and external partners.
Key responsibilities
- Lead, coach, support and develop heads of department and frontline teams to deliver consistently excellent service.
- Ensure effective programming across all facilities, with staffing structures and rotas aligned to operational requirements.
- Drive multiple revenue streams, including memberships, learn-to-swim, personal training, private hire and retail.
- Deliver membership sales targets, working closely with the school’s commercial team.
- Work closely with the Directors of Sport across the sporting curriculum, fixtures, matches and competitions.
- Manage key partnerships and SLA’s with professional and sporting/swimming clubs and summer camp providers.
- Support and promote sporting events within the Club and the local community.
- Optimise occupancy and yield from external sports bookings and facility hire.
- Responsibility for health and safety and safeguarding policies and procedures.
- Accountable for budgets and financial performance, including the preparation of CAPEX and investment proposals.
- Provide support and guidance across the leisure facilities at Charterhouse’s three preparatory schools.
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Requirements
We are looking to hear from experienced General Managers who have a proven track record of leading a premium fitness, leisure or sporting operation, or a comparable higher education leisure facility.
You will ideally:
- Have experience leading a complex, multi-facility leisure or sporting operation with multiple stakeholders.
- Possess first-class communication and influencing skills, with the confidence to operate at Executive level.
- Be an engaging and inspirational leader with a genuine passion for coaching and developing teams.
- Have strong commercial and analytical skills, with experience managing budgets, revenue streams, and performance targets.
- Be confident balancing the needs of members, pupils, staff, sporting partners and other external stakeholders.
- Have a strong understanding of safeguarding, service delivery, operational standards and customer experience.
- Be Pool Plant qualified although this is beneficial rather than essential as training can be provided.
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Benefits
In addition to a competitive basic salary of £45,000–£50,000, dependent on experience, benefits include 7% employer pension contribution, 5 weeks’ holiday plus bank holidays, private accident insurance, free lunches and parking. The position is offered on a 37.5hour contract, we would expect the working hours to be between 8.30 and 5.30 Monday to Friday with an expectation to work 2 weekend days per month.
Leisure People have been exclusively appointed to manage this search on behalf of Charterhouse. To apply please forward your CV to David Peacock, Recruitment Director dp@leisurepeople.com
For an informal conversation David can be contacted on 07974 313421.
Interviews are scheduled for w/c 28 September 2026.
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