Head of Recruitment Operations - Maternity Cover
Summary
Lead a UK-wide recruitment team for a fast-growing music education provider, overseeing high-volume hiring of band leaders and office staff while managing ATS, KPIs, and workforce planning.
Head of Recruitment Operations – Maternity Cover
Salary: £50,000-£55,000 depending on experience
Salary: £50,000-£55,000 depending on experience
Job Type: Fixed Term Contract – 15 months
Start Date: October 2026
Location: Liphook, Hampshire
Rocksteady Music School is the UK’s largest rock and pop school. We teach fun and inclusive in-school band lessons to primary age children. Our mission is simple: to amplify children’s self-belief and remove barriers to music education. We’re currently in thousands of schools in the UK, teaching over 120K children every week, and recently launched in Australia – and we’re growing fast.
Our offices in Liphook and Birmingham are home to many of our central office teams. From there, we all play our part in supporting our band leaders to reach as many children as possible with their lessons. That’s what gets us out of bed in the morning!
We're looking for a maternity cover Head of Recruitment Operations to lead our Recruitment Team based in our Liphook office.
Head of Recruitment Operations (Maternity Cover)
As Head of Recruitment Operations, you'll lead our UK-wide Recruitment Team across both Band Leader recruitment and our central functions hiring. We hire at high volume, running online video interviews, face-to-face assessment days and in-person interviews at venues up and down the country. We also hire office-based roles like Sales, Customer Service, Marketing, Operations and Finance across our two offices in Liphook and Birmingham. You'll own the whole recruitment operation. It's a fast-paced, high-volume and genuinely exciting role, and you'll be responsible for balancing quality of hire with making sure our time-to-hire targets are met.
As Head of Recruitment Operations you will:
- Lead, develop and coach a team of recruitment managers, setting clear direction and supporting them in managing the wider team day to day.
- Own performance across the function, setting expectations, giving feedback and tackling underperformance so delivery stays on track.
- Own the KPI framework for the operation, setting targets, tracking performance and holding the function accountable to them.
- Lead workforce planning, forecasting hiring demand and resourcing needs, and heading off operational problems before they hit delivery.
- Drive operational planning across the function so that capacity, activity and priorities all line up with our hiring targets.
- Oversee that quality frameworks are being used consistently across all stages of the hiring process to maintain low churn levels.
- Take responsibility for the Applicant Tracking System (ATS), owning its setup, data integrity and how well the team uses it.
- Analyse recruitment data to make data-led decisions, spotting trends, risks and opportunities and turning them into action.
- Analyse leaver data to identify process improvements that raise quality of hire and reduce churn.
- Use AI to improve processes, solve problems and drive efficiency across the operation.
- Work closely with stakeholders across the business, especially Employer Brand, Operations, Sales, People, and Education to keep recruitment aligned with wider goals.
As Head of Recruitment Operations you'll need:
- Proven experience managing managers and large teams.
- A track record of delivering high-volume, multi-location hiring.
- Strong working knowledge of Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS).
- A data-driven, curious mindset, and a habit of using numbers to guide decisions.
- Experience of workforce planning and forecasting team capacity against hiring demand.
- Confident problem-solving skills, with the ability to get to the root cause and act on it.
- The ability to juggle lots of competing priorities without losing sight of the bigger picture.
- Confident performance management skills, from setting expectations to giving feedback and dealing with underperformance.
- Drive and self-motivation, with the resilience to keep standards high when things get busy.
- The confidence to challenge others constructively and hold people to account.
- An approachable, open style that makes you easy to work with at every level.
- Communication skills that inspire people and bring a team along with you.
- Big-picture thinking, with a knack for connecting the day to day to the longer-term strategy.
- A target-driven focus on outcomes and delivery.
- A hands-on approach, and a willingness to get stuck into the detail when it's needed.
- A proactive attitude that gets ahead of challenges rather than reacting to them.
- A passion for Rocksteady's mission and a commitment to hiring people who share our values.
Benefits
- 35 hour working week
- 28 days holiday plus bank holidays
- Long service awards including an additional 4 weeks’ pay after 5 years
- Free onsite parking
- Personal development opportunities
- Comprehensive benefits package including discounts on everyday purchases, free 24/7 GP service.
- Enhanced maternity and paternity pay.
- Celebratory staff away-days, Christmas parties and social events.
- Opportunities to work with the Rocksteady Foundation, reaching children and young people in charities and support groups across the UK.
Every once in a while, you get the chance to be part of something really special. When you join Rocksteady, you know immediately that you’ve found it. We might be growing fast but we pay special attention to protecting our unique working culture and ensuring everyone feels comfortable to be themselves at work. We look out for each other, welcome new colleagues as friends and stay true to our small-company roots; rolling up our sleeves if a job needs doing, solving problems together and, most importantly, always putting the children first. Likeminded people are joining us and we’re reaching more and more children with our lessons every week. We keep growing because we’re driven by our passion for the life-changing nature of music.
Join us and use your skills for good.
Your Passion. Their Future.
Join us and use your skills for good.
Your Passion. Their Future.
We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all children and expect all our staff to share this commitment.
As this role involves regular work with children and young people, and meets the definition of regulated activity, it is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. Under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 you must disclose all unprotected unspent and spent cautions and convictions. Further details on what convictions must be declared can be found in the Governments Guidance on the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the Exceptions Order 1975.You can find out more about our policy on recruitment of ex-offenders here.
If you are offered this position, Rocksteady will ask you to complete an enhanced DBS check with a children's barred list check.
It is an offence for an individual who has been barred from working with children to apply for regulated activity. Providing false information is also an offence and could result in the rejection of the applicant, summarily dismissal if selected, and possible referral to the police.
Rocksteady Music School is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to the fair treatment of staff, potential staff, and of our services, regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, responsibilities for dependents, age, physical/mental disability, or offending background.
To find out more about Rocksteady, check out our website
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