Director of Adult Education & Contracts

Salary; Circa £60,000 per annum

Full time; Permanent

Location; Rotherham and Worksop (with travel as applicable)

Each year the RNN College Group delivers education and training to thousands of employers, adults and school leavers, making a significant contribution to the heart of the communities we serve. With an income of around £38m each year, the Group includes four colleges of career-focused further and higher education, and two training organisations. We educate school leavers, undergraduates, employees and those re-joining the workforce. In total we employ over 1,000 staff to educate and train over 12,000 people each year.

We work at the centre of our local communities, contributing to civic life and economic renewal. From our heartlands in the Sheffield City Region and the East Midlands, we help companies succeed and individuals learn their way to career security, fulfilment and happiness.

We are now looking to recruit a Director of Adult Education and Contracts to join us in developing and driving an ambitious programme, expanding the adult and contract provision, including subcontracted and distance learning programmes, across the RNN Group.

In this role you will be a member of the Senior Leadership Team and will be responsible for leading and delivering a responsive, flexible and high-quality curriculum that engages and attracts both Employers and Students.

You will strategically lead this provision, at this crucial time in the Group’s development and will possess outstanding leadership skills, be an excellent communicator and relationship builder and have strong analytical skills, together with an ability to inspire confidence from a wide range of internal and external stakeholders.

It is important that candidates appreciate both the strategic and operational nature of this role. As well as strategically leading, the post holder will be expected to use their outstanding leadership skills to roll their sleeves up and work across the team to deliver for the Group at this crucial time. You will work across all Colleges and ensure that staff are skilled and motivated to provide innovative delivery plans that meet the needs of our residents and businesses, resulting in excellent adult and technical skills development and achievement outcomes for Adults.

A convincing commercial insight and partnership experience to develop strong meaningful relationships with local authorities, businesses, employers and organisations in the Sheffield City and D2N2 regions. You will take a risk-based approach to performance management and be responsible for ensuring both employed and unemployed residents acquire the skills they need to move into or progress in a job, a Traineeship, an apprenticeship, or further learning.

You will ensure strategic planning processes are in place that enable the Group to address existing and new challenges, establish priorities for the future, and sustain incremental improvement so that the Groups achieves an improved market share particularly in key priority areas.

Have you got what it takes?

We are looking for a well-established leader to deliver this provision, someone who has worked at a similar level in an organisation of similar complexity to the RNN Group. You will have recent experience of managing successful Adult Education provision within a Further Education setting and will demonstrate outstanding and motivational leadership to drive high performance and professional practice.

You will have an understanding and appreciation of the opportunities, challenges and complexities within the further education market place, as this is an essential element of this role.

In addition, you will have valuable experience of tendering for reviewing delivery of funding contracts, along with subcontract management showing a clear understanding of the link between the delivery of contracts and financial outcomes.

Extensive knowledge of the key external influences impacting on the sector, particularly relating to the Adult Education curriculum and the devolution of the Adult Education Budget, is essential, as is the ability to be flexible and adapt to changing environments.

Qualified to degree level, alongside a teaching qualification is essential. Recent or current OFSTED inspection training would be an advantage for this position.

Why work for us?

• Access to teacher pension
• Up to 50 days annual leave per year
• Access to our gyms, restaurants and salons
• Staff health & wellbeing and benefits schemes including inhouse Occupational Health service
• Full, part time and flexible working hours available in many roles
• Parking available at all of our sites
• Fantastic career development opportunities including funding for teacher training, apprenticeships and various other industry recognised qualifications

RNN Group’s main goal is to be an ‘outstanding’ education and training provider and this is at the heart of everything that we do. To help us achieve this we are looking to recruit highly motivated, innovative and dynamic individuals to join our existing teams. To be a part of the team at RNN Group we will expect you to be committed to our values too; Respect, Support, Inclusion, Excellence and Partnership.

We celebrate diversity and are proud to have been recognised as Investors in Diversity for our work on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. We welcome applications from everyone regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, faith or disability. We are also proud to be part of the Disability Confidence Scheme.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, vulnerable adults and young people. All new employees will be required undertake a DBS check.

If you would like to discuss this role informally, please contact our in-house recruitment team at to request this.

Closing date: 18th January 2021 – if you are shortlisted for this post you will be contacted within a week of the closing date.