Partnerships Manager - Nottingham

Role: Partnerships ManagerLocation: Nottingham (onsite during term time) Salary: £60,000-80,000k OTE The Partnerships team builds long-term relationships with Multi-Academy Trust (MAT) Leaders to drive meaningful impact across their schools and ultimately for students in the classroom. MATs are facing significant challenges: budget pressures, recruiting and retaining high-quality staff, and a rising demand for SEND support. I’m looking for experienced sales professionals who are able to understand the impact of these challenges on schools and advise MATs on solutions that Zen Educate can offer. Selling to MATs is unique - success requires both trust-level relationships and school-level engagement. This means you should be just as comfortable picking up the phone to do cold school outreach as you are leading strategic conversations with MAT CEOs. We know that might not be for everyone - but for the right person, it’s one of the most rewarding sales roles which puts you in the room with today’s leaders who are shaping education. If you’re passionate about making a difference, willing to roll your sleeves up for a challenge and thrive on building relationships, we’d love to hear from you. 🌍 What we’re building (and why it matters) UK schools spend over £2 billion a year on temporary staff - and hundreds of millions of that goes to traditional recruitment agencies. That’s money that could instead fund teacher pay rises, classroom resources, or student support. At Zen Educate, we’re fixing that. We’ve built a platform that connects schools directly with fully vetted teachers and support staff, cutting out agencies and saving schools money. Our SaaS tools now help schools and MATs manage recruitment, compliance, and workforce planning more efficiently. Since 2017, we’ve already saved schools over £30 million — and we recently raised $37 million in Series B funding, the largest EdTech round in Europe last year. We’re scaling fast across the UK and US. 🚀 Now we’re expanding our Partnerships team - and we need senior sales professionals who can build long-term MAT relationships, close preferred supplier agreements, and drive adoption of our SaaS tools at scale. 💼 What this role looks like day-to-day As a Partnerships Manager, you’ll own the full partnership lifecycle: from outreach and negotiation through to activation, expansion, and renewal. You’ll work with senior stakeholders across MATs - CEOs, CFOs, HRDs - to understand their priorities, design solutions, and show the impact Zen can deliver. Here’s what your week might look like:

• Personalised and thoughtful outreach to school and MAT leaders
• Build and manage relationships with trust central teams to secure Preferred Supplier Agreements (PSAs).
• Lead consultative discovery conversations with MAT decision-makers, understanding their recruitment setup, challenges, and goals.
• Develop tailored proposals and presentations that demonstrate Zen’s impact and ROI.
• Partner with Account Managers and Regional Leads to ensure smooth activation of new PSAs across individual schools.
• Conduct termly reviews with central teams to monitor performance, address challenges, and identify growth opportunities.
• Track and lead renewal conversations, ensuring every trust stays engaged and grows their use of Zen.
• Stay ahead of sector trends (DfE funding shifts, MAT growth, competitor movement) to inform strategy and conversations.
• It’s a strategic, high-impact role where relationship-building meets execution - and every deal you close delivers tangible value to schools.

🙌 Who you are You don’t need to have worked in education before — we’ll teach you that. But you’ll thrive if you’re:

• A consultative B2B seller with experience managing multi-stakeholder deals.
• Skilled at building relationships with senior leaders and driving long-term partnerships.
• Strategic and commercially sharp - you balance mission with metrics.
• Highly organised and proactive, able to manage complex accounts and multiple renewals.
• Confident leading presentations, negotiations, and executive-level discussions.
• A collaborative team player who shares insights and lifts others up.

💡 You’ll love this role if… ✅ You want to combine serious commercial growth with social impact. ✅ You enjoy strategic selling and influencing senior stakeholders. ✅ You thrive in fast-paced, scaling environments where you can shape the playbook. 🤔 It might not be your thing if…

• You prefer a highly structured, slow-moving environment.
• You’re not comfortable leading outreach or building new relationships.
• You want every week to look the same — this role evolves constantly.

🎁 What’s in it for you

• Meaningful work — every partnership you secure helps schools save money and improve teacher retention.
• Competitive salary + commission + equity.
• 25 days holiday that increases with tenure + UK public holidays.
• 1:1 coaching and professional development support.
• Life & Health Insurance, Cycle to Work Scheme, Electric Car Scheme.

🌱 How we hire We move quickly and keep things simple: Intro chat – Meet our talent team Partnerships interview – Let’s talk strategy, outreach, and stakeholder management. Practical task & role play – Show us how you’d approach a real trust partnership. Culture chat – Meet the wider team to ensure a great fit both ways. If it’s a yes, we’ll move fast — no endless waiting around. 💜 Diversity & inclusion We welcome applicants with diverse backgrounds, and different experiences and perspectives - just like the staff who teach through Zen and the children at the schools we work with. We believe in hiring the best people from the widest pool and creating an inclusive atmosphere with a culture where people’s voices are heard and all our team can look forward to coming to work.

We value and respect all differences in all people (seen and unseen). We believe in an environment with equal access to career development opportunities and actively encourage applications from BAME candidates.

If you require any reasonable adjustments during your interview process with us, please do let us know.

Due to the high volume of applications, we regret that we are unable to provide individual feedback on initial submissions.

Please note before applying
This role is based full-time at our Nottingham office and requires onsite attendance five days per week during term time. We encourage applications from candidates who live in or near the local area of this office, or plan on relocating. 🚀 Ready to make a difference? If you’re excited about building partnerships that transform how schools work — hit Apply. We’d love to chat.We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.