3. Curriculum, Practice and Quality

• Line manage and set priorities for the Curriculum and Practice Lead, ensuring their work is targeted towards the settings and practice areas where it will have the greatest impact.
• Ensure the organisation’s curriculum and pedagogical expectations are consistently understood and implemented across regional nurseries.
• Use audits, deep dives, learning walks, practice observations, inspection findings, parent feedback and performance data to identify regional themes and improvement priorities.
• Ensure every nursery is continuously inspection-ready, with improvement embedded into everyday leadership rather than driven by reactive preparation.
• Challenge variation in the quality of teaching, interactions, environments, room leadership and curriculum implementation, ensuring action is timely and measurable.
• Work with the CQOO, Curriculum and Practice Lead and other specialists to ensure quality improvement activity is coherent and aligned with organisational strategy.

4. Safeguarding, Compliance and Risk

• Maintain strategic oversight of safeguarding culture and practice across the region, ensuring concerns are escalated and acted upon with urgency and professional curiosity.
• Ensure nurseries consistently meet EYFS and/or Welsh National Minimum Standards requirements, Ofsted/CIW expectations, health and safety requirements, safer recruitment standards and organisational policies.
• Maintain a clear regional risk picture covering safeguarding, compliance, staffing, leadership, quality, complaints, premises and commercial performance.
• Work closely with the Safeguarding and Inclusion Lead and other specialists on complex cases, emerging themes and preventative action.
• Ensure learning from incidents, complaints, audits and regulatory activity is translated into improved systems and practice across the region.

5. Commercial and Financial Performance

• Own regional performance against occupancy, revenue, staffing cost, EBITDA and controllable expenditure targets.
• Ensure Nursery Managers understand and actively manage their nursery budgets, forecasts, occupancy pipeline, staffing deployment and cost base.
• Use data to identify commercial risks and opportunities and require clear recovery or growth plans where performance is below expectation.
• Drive sustainable occupancy growth through strong parent experience, local reputation, enquiry conversion and effective partnership with Customer Success and marketing functions.
• Ensure staffing models are safe, compliant and efficient, balancing children’s needs, quality and financial sustainability.
• Control discretionary and capital expenditure in line with approved budgets and business cases.

6. People, Culture and Workforce

• Build stable, engaged and accountable nursery leadership teams and ensure workforce planning supports current and future operational needs.
• Monitor turnover, absence, vacancies, agency use, training compliance and employee relations trends, taking regional action where themes emerge.
• Work collaboratively with People and Culture and Training and Development to ensure recruitment, onboarding, capability building and CPD are aligned with regional priorities.
• Support Nursery Managers with complex people matters while ensuring ownership remains at the appropriate leadership level.
• Champion ARCH values and create a culture where high standards, care, professional curiosity and accountability are visible in everyday leadership.

7. Regional Intelligence, Reporting and Collaboration

• Provide the CQOO with concise, evidence-based reporting on regional performance, risks, trends, actions and required decisions.
• Analyse nursery and regional data to identify patterns rather than treating issues as isolated site-level events.
• Work closely with the Regional Director for the other region to calibrate standards, share effective practice and ensure consistent application of organisational expectations.
• Collaborate effectively with central teams including Finance, People and Culture, Safeguarding and Inclusion, Customer Success, Estates and Training and Development.
• Build constructive relationships with regulators, local authorities and external partners and represent the organisation professionally.

8. Growth and Organisational Development

• Support acquisitions, due diligence, TUPE transfers, integrations and new nursery openings, ensuring operational readiness, cultural alignment and quality integration.
• Lead or contribute to strategic projects that improve operational effectiveness, service quality, leadership capability and sustainable growth.
• Support the development of group-wide systems and frameworks by bringing evidence and learning from regional operations.

Key Performance Indicators

• Quality outcomes: 100% of nurseries at Expected Standards/Good, with 50% achieving Strong Standards/Excellent, particularly in Leadership and Quality of Care/Curriculum.
• Curriculum implementation: consistent delivery evidenced through audits, deep dives and practice review.
• Compliance: 100% compliance with Ofsted/CIW, safeguarding, health and safety and organisational requirements.
• Mandatory training: 100% completion, including refresh cycles, with appropriate engagement in CPD pathways.
• Leadership: stable Nursery Manager leadership, effective succession plans and demonstrable improvement in leadership capability.
• Turnover: regrettable turnover below 16% and overall turnover below 25%.
• Occupancy: average regional occupancy of 80%+.
• Revenue: achievement of budgeted revenue and growth targets.
• Staffing costs: maintained within agreed budget parameters, with a target of 52.5% subject to site size and operating model.
• EBITDA: meet or exceed the agreed regional contribution.
• Controllable spend: maintained within agreed budget tolerances, including food, resources and consumables.
• Capital expenditure: aligned to approved business cases and organisational priorities.
• Underperforming settings: measurable improvement delivered within agreed timescales.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

Essential

• Senior multi-site operational leadership experience, ideally within early years, education, care or another regulated service environment.
• Proven experience of directly leading and developing a substantial team of site or service managers.
• Demonstrable success in improving operational, quality and commercial performance across multiple locations.
• Strong commercial acumen, including budgets, forecasting, occupancy/revenue management, staffing costs and data analysis.
• Strong knowledge of EYFS and early years regulatory expectations, including Ofsted and/or CIW, safeguarding and health and safety.
• Ability to interpret complex performance information, identify themes and translate analysis into clear operational action.
• Strong coaching, performance management, change leadership and stakeholder management skills.
• Credibility and resilience to lead through challenge, hold senior managers to account and make sound decisions at pace.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, including the ability to produce clear senior-level reports and recommendations.

Desirable

• Experience of acquisitions, integrations, new openings or significant organisational growth.
• Experience working across both English and Welsh regulatory contexts.
• Experience leading curriculum, pedagogy