Recruitment and Engagement Manager
Barking Abbey School, A Specialist Sports and Humanities College, Barking, Essex, IG11 9AGDeadline is today
Start date details
As soon as possible
Closing date
28 September 2026 at 4pm
Date listed
7 September 2026
Job details
Job role
- Administration, HR, data and finance
Visa sponsorship
- Visas cannot be sponsored
Working pattern
- Full time
Contract type
- Permanent
Full time equivalent salary
- £40,182.00 - £42,060.00 Annually (FTE) S02, Pt 26-28 (£40,182-£42,060 (FT)) pro rata salary, likely to be between approx. (£35,450-£37,107) subject to experience working days and continuous service
Recruitment and Engagement Manager job summary
RECRUITMENT AND ENGAGEMENT MANAGER
Salary: Pt 26-28 (£40,182-£42,060 (FT)) pro rata salary, likely to be between approx. (£35,450-£37,107) subject to experience working days and continuous service
Hours: 35 hours per week, term time only plus 10 days working during school holiday periods
Location: Across Federation schools
Start Date: As soon as possible
Could you help us find the people who will make a difference in our schools?
We are looking for an exceptional Recruitment and Engagement Manager to join our growing Federation of schools at an exciting stage of its development.
You do not need to have worked in a school before.
What matters to us is finding the right person: someone who is an outstanding communicator, exceptionally accurate, highly organised and able to bring fresh thinking and innovation to the way we recruit and engage with people.
This is a newly developed role with the opportunity to make a real impact. You will lead and coordinate recruitment across our schools, developing clear, efficient and consistent systems and processes that make recruitment easier for managers, provide an excellent experience for candidates and ensure that the highest standards of compliance are maintained.
We want someone who can combine creativity with precision. Someone who can write an engaging advert that makes people want to work with us, but who will also notice when a salary, date, contractual detail or safeguarding statement is not quite right.
About the role
Working as part of our Core Staff Federation Leadership Team and reporting to the School Business Manager, you will work closely with colleagues across HR, Payroll and Compliance.
You will take responsibility for coordinating the recruitment journey from vacancy through to appointment and onboarding, establishing high-quality systems, templates and resources that can be used consistently across our schools.
Our schools are part of one Federation, but they are not identical. Each has its own history, community, culture and character. A key part of the role will therefore be developing recruitment campaigns and materials that communicate the benefits of being part of the wider Federation while authentically promoting what makes each individual school a great place to work.
You will develop and maintain school-specific recruitment packs alongside a comprehensive suite of Federation templates and resources covering every stage of the recruitment process.
You will also help us develop how and where we recruit, using digital platforms, recruitment marketing, candidate feedback and data to identify new ways of reaching talented people.
We are looking for someone who:
- is an outstanding written communicator and can produce engaging, clear and highly professional content;
- has exceptional accuracy and attention to detail;
- is highly organised and enjoys creating systems and making processes work better;
- can bring new ideas, creativity and innovation to recruitment and candidate engagement;
- demonstrates sound professional judgement, integrity and discretion;
- understands the importance of consistency, compliance and following robust processes;
- is confident working with people at all levels and can provide professional advice and appropriate challenge;
- can manage competing priorities without compromising accuracy or quality;
- is comfortable using technology and keen to identify smarter and more efficient ways of working;
- understands that a great candidate experience matters from the first advert through to a new employee's first day; and
- wants to be part of a collaborative team that is developing services across a growing Federation.
What is more important than a school background?
Experience in recruitment, HR, marketing, communications, professional services or another relevant environment could all provide the skills we are looking for.
School experience would be helpful, but it is not essential. We can help the right person develop their understanding of education, safeguarding and safer recruitment requirements.
What we cannot teach as easily is the instinct to check something one more time before pressing send, the ability to turn ordinary information into excellent communication, or the desire to continually ask:
“How could we make this better?”
Those are the qualities we are particularly interested in.
Why join us?
You will be joining at an exciting point in our development, with genuine scope to shape how recruitment works across our schools.
Rather than simply administering an existing process, you will have the opportunity to develop it: creating better systems, stronger resources, engaging recruitment materials and a consistently high-quality experience for candidates and recruiting managers.
You will work alongside experienced colleagues across HR, Payroll, Compliance and wider business services as part of a supportive Core Staff Federation Leadership Team.
Most importantly, your work will help us attract the talented teachers, leaders and support professionals who make our schools successful.
If you are a great communicator, meticulous about detail, professionally curious and full of ideas about how recruitment could be done better, we would love to hear from you.
The Federation is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff to share this commitment. The successful applicant will be subject to our safer recruitment procedures and all appropriate pre-employment checks.
Further information about the job
Commitment to safeguarding
Our organisation is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. We expect all staff, volunteers and trustees to share this commitment.
Our recruitment process follows the keeping children safe in education guidance.
Offers of employment may be subject to the following checks (where relevant):
childcare disqualification
Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)
medical
online and social media
prohibition from teaching
right to work
satisfactory references
suitability to work with children
You must tell us about any unspent conviction, cautions, reprimands or warnings under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975.
Applying for the job
This school accepts applications through their own website, where you may also find more information about this job.
CVs will not be accepted for this application.
View advert on external website (opens in new tab)About Barking Abbey School, A Specialist Sports and Humanities College
- Organisation type
- Local authority maintained school, ages 11 to 18
- Education phase
- Secondary school
- Size
- 2418 pupils enrolled
- Age range
- 11 to 18
- Ofsted report
- View Ofsted report
Welcome to Barking Abbey school and thank you for expressing an interest in applying for a position here.
For me there are three simple things that I want us to achieve at Barking Abbey school.
First, our motto ‘Give and Expect the best’ leads us to want to be the best in everything we do. We have some of the best results in the area, we have pupils at the best universities, we have the most pupils on apprenticeships in the entire country, we have basketball players in the best leagues and so much more. We have all of this because we push our pupils and each other to excel. All of us try to be our best every day.
Second, I firmly believe that if you can’t see it you can’t be it. We want to give our pupils the chance to see successful people of every religion, colour and background whilst they are at school. Whatever their dreams
we want to support them and provide the networks and contacts to help them to achieve.
Finally, we want our pupils to have a voice in the world. To be confident enough to express their views and also to have the knowledge to be able to make an effective contribution. The more you know the more
powerful you can be in the world.
Sir Tim Brighouse said “If a teacher makes the weather the school creates the climate.” and I firmly believe this. It is our role as a leadership team to create the best possible learning environment for our teachers
to teach in. In return we expect the best possible teaching from them and our results show this over time.
If you share our ethos and values and absolutely believe in the potential of all young people then we can offer you the chance to make a difference and change our community for the better, and look forward to receiving
your application form and welcoming you to our school.
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