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Group Manager - South West

Job Reference com/0611/L95301/52655973/SU

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Number of Positions:
1
Contract Type:
Full Time
Contract Details:
Term Time Only
Salary:
£34,000.00 per annum
Working Hours:
40
Location:
Ealing
Closing Date:
06/12/2026
Job Category:
Operations (Food)
Business Sector:
Chartwells
Sub Sector:
Chartwells

What you'll be doing:

Group Manager – Chartwells State Schools


Salary: £34,000 per annum

Contract: Term Time Only

Location: Mobile role covering Ealing, Reading, Slough, Southampton & Portsmouth

Working pattern: Monday to Friday


Are you an experienced multi-site manager who loves developing people, building great client relationships and delivering outstanding food and service?
We have an exciting opportunity for a Group Manager to join Chartwells, supporting a portfolio of state schools across Ealing, Reading, Slough, Southampton and Portsmouth.
As Group Manager, you'll take responsibility for a group of school catering contracts, supporting Unit Managers and Supervisors to deliver consistently high standards. You'll ensure sites are well resourced, compliant and commercially managed, while keeping our teams engaged and our clients happy.

What you'll be doing

No two days will be quite the same. You'll be out and about across your schools, supporting your teams and making sure we're delivering a fantastic service.
You'll:
  • Lead, coach and develop your teams, ensuring sites are fully staffed, colleagues receive the right training and managers have clear development plans. 
  • Drive operational excellence, reviewing standards across your schools, improving productivity and ensuring our food offer is delivered safely and consistently. 
  • Build strong client relationships, holding regular meetings, resolving issues quickly and identifying opportunities to continually improve our service.
  • Manage performance commercially, supporting effective labour planning, financial controls and initiatives to minimise food waste and improve performance. 
  • Maintain high standards of food, nutrition and allergens, coaching teams and ensuring consistency across the portfolio.
  • Create brilliant experiences for pupils, supporting theme days, engagement activities and initiatives that encourage children to explore new tastes, flavours and cultures.
  • Keep health, safety, food safety and compliance at the heart of everything you do. 

More about you

We're looking for someone who is confident managing multiple locations and knows how to get the best from people.


You'll ideally have:
  • Multi-site operational management experience within catering, foodservice, retail or a similar service-led environment
  • Proven experience of leading and developing successful teams
  • Strong people management and communication skills
  • The confidence to build effective relationships with clients and senior stakeholders
  • Good commercial awareness
  • The ability to work independently across a geographically spread portfolio
  • Good IT and organisational skills
  • Catering or chef experience would be an advantage.

Why join us?

Chartwells is part of Compass Group UK & Ireland and provides catering and support services across the education sector, serving pupils and students across primary and secondary schools, academies, independent schools, colleges and universities.


You'll also benefit from:
  • £34,000 per annum
  • Term Time Only contract
  • Monday to Friday working
  • Excellent work-life balance and sociable working hours
  • Career development through our Career Pathways programme
  • Opportunities to progress across Compass Group
  • Access to PerksAtWork offers
  • A wide range of training and development programmes
  • Pension contribution

Ready for your next move?

If you're an energetic, hands-on multi-site manager who enjoys developing teams, building relationships and making a real difference to the food and service children experience at school, we'd love to hear from you.


Apply today and join our Chartwells team.


About Us

Part of Compass Group UK&I, Lodestone House is the leading provider of catering and support services to the education sector. For over a quarter of a century, Lodestone House has been focusing on helping those in education to build strong bodies, sharp minds and lead long healthy lives. Every week, Lodestone House serves millions of nutritious and delicious meals to pupils and students in primary and secondary schools, academies, independent schools, colleges, and universities across the UK.

Lodestone House is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expect all employees to share this commitment. Any offer of employment will be subject to successfully completing pre-employment checks, including an enhanced DBS disclosure and a Children's Barred List check. This post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and we ask applicants to declare all previous convictions and cautions in order to assess their suitability to work with children.

Job Reference: com/0611/L95301/52655973/SU #LodestoneHouse

Compass Group UK&I is committed to fostering an environment where every individual can truly be themselves at work and has equal opportunities to advance in their careers. We strive to build a culture that respects and celebrates the unique talents, beliefs, backgrounds, and abilities of all our team members. We want our colleagues to feel valued, empowered to reach their full potential, and to thrive - because diversity is our strength!

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