Head of Academy Development
Company Overview: The Airedale Group are the leading market design, installation, and maintenance provider for commercial kitchens in the UK hospitality and food service industry. We work alongside clients from the initial designs through to bespoke fabrication and installation. Coupled with the largest body of professional maintenance engineers in the country, we offer the complete end-to-end solution to our extensive client base. We have long-standing relationships with many of the biggest multi-site brands in the UK.
Job Overview: As Head of Academy Development, you will work closely with our individual business units to assess requirements, validate business cases, define training scopes, and ensure the timely delivery of high-quality training solutions that directly support operational improvements such as resourcing for business growth, increased first-time-fix rates and productivity.
This is an exciting new position which will play a key role in the success of our Training Academy. Reporting directly to the Group MD, this role will have responsibility for leading and managing the Airedale Academy as a high-performing internal training center that runs with strategic and financial discipline. The role will oversee planning, operational delivery, financial management, and performance monitoring to ensure the Academy delivers measurable ROI through improved field operations, technical upskilling, and workforce efficiency.
Location: Brackley, with the option to work hybrid.
Key Responsibilities:
* Develop and deliver the Airedale Academy strategy aligned with business objectives.
* Manage annual planning such as forecasting, resource planning, and capacity management.
* Ensure the Academy operates as a financially sustainable unit with clear cost models.
* Oversee quality assurance processes to maintain consistent, high-quality technical training standards.
* Partner with business unit directors to identify gaps and training needs.
* Work closely with Finance, HR and Internal Recruitment departments to ensure sustainable talent pipelines, accurate budgeting, and effective resourcing for all training programs.
* Analyse training needs and validate business cases for new training programmes.
* Define and agree training scopes including content, delivery methods, resource requirements, timelines, and full costings.
* Coordinate the design, development, delivery, and evaluation of technical and operational training programmes.
* Monitor programme performance, learner outcomes, and trainer effectiveness.
* Drive the continuous improvement of training content, delivery methods, and learning technologies.
* Quantify and report on ROI (improvement of first-time fixes, efficiency in the field, staff retention etc)
* Provide regular performance reports and insights to senior leaders.
* Mitigate any risks by ensuring accurate records, audit trails, and reporting structures are in place.
Experience Required:
* Previous experience in leading strategy, delivery and performance metrics.
* Strong operational management capabilities, including planning, forecasting, and resource management.
* Experience of overseeing training centers or end-to-end L&D operations would be highly advantageous.
* Demonstrable background in managing budgets, and ROI reporting.
* Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.
* Ability to conduct training needs analysis and convert business requirements into structured training programmes.
* Confidence working with data and metrics to inform decisions and measure outcomes.
* Strong organisation and project management capability.
The Airedale Group is expanding rapidly, employing circa 700 people across multiple locations in the UK. This is a fantastic time to be joining the business with opportunities for career progression.