Head of Academy Development
Company Overview: The Airedale Group are the leading market design, installation, and maintenance provider for commercial kitchens in the UK hospitality and food service industry. We work alongside clients from the initial designs through to bespoke fabrication and installation. Coupled with the largest body of professional maintenance engineers in the country, we offer the complete end-to-end solution to our extensive client base. We have long-standing relationships with many of the biggest multi-site brands in the UK.
Job Overview: As Head of Academy Development, you will work closely with our individual business units to assess requirements, validate business cases, define training scopes, and ensure the timely delivery of high-quality training solutions that directly support operational improvements such as resourcing for business growth, increased first-time-fix rates and productivity.
This is an exciting new position which will play a key role in the success of our Training Academy. Reporting directly to the Group MD, this role will have responsibility for leading and managing the Airedale Academy as a high-performing internal training center that runs with strategic and financial discipline. The role will oversee planning, operational delivery, financial management, and performance monitoring to ensure the Academy delivers measurable ROI through improved field operations, technical upskilling, and workforce efficiency.
Location: Brackley, with the option to work hybrid.
Key Responsibilities:
- Develop and deliver the Airedale Academy strategy aligned with business objectives.
- Manage annual planning such as forecasting, resource planning, and capacity management.
- Ensure the Academy operates as a financially sustainable unit with clear cost models.
- Oversee quality assurance processes to maintain consistent, high-quality technical training standards.
- Partner with business unit directors to identify gaps and training needs.
- Work closely with Finance, HR and Internal Recruitment departments to ensure sustainable talent pipelines, accurate budgeting, and effective resourcing for all training programs.
- Analyse training needs and validate business cases for new training programmes.
- Define and agree training scopes including content, delivery methods, resource requirements, timelines, and full costings.
- Coordinate the design, development, delivery, and evaluation of technical and operational training programmes.
- Monitor programme performance, learner outcomes, and trainer effectiveness.
- Drive the continuous improvement of training content, delivery methods, and learning technologies.
- Quantify and report on ROI (improvement of first-time fixes, efficiency in the field, staff retention etc)
- Provide regular performance reports and insights to senior leaders.
- Mitigate any risks by ensuring accurate records, audit trails, and reporting structures are in place.
Experience Required:
- Previous experience in leading strategy, delivery and performance metrics.
- Strong operational management capabilities, including planning, forecasting, and resource management.
- Experience of overseeing training centers or end-to-end L&D operations would be highly advantageous.
- Demonstrable background in managing budgets, and ROI reporting.
- Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.
- Ability to conduct training needs analysis and convert business requirements into structured training programmes.
- Confidence working with data and metrics to inform decisions and measure outcomes.
- Strong organisation and project management capability.
The Airedale Group is expanding rapidly, employing circa 700 people across multiple locations in the UK. This is a fantastic time to be joining the business with opportunities for career progression.
“The work that Airedale undertook from planning to completion was professional throughout. We are extremely pleased with the finished kitchen and the work that was completed. Their Account Manager advised, planned and updated us throughout and we found the process ‘stress free’. The catering team at Sandycroft are delighted with their new kitchen and really pleased that they were able to have input into the design and needs of their service provision. We have already engaged with Airedale for future planned projects following this investment and look forward to continuing our partnership.”
Newydd Catering & Cleaning
“We found Airedale to be wholly professional and willing to engage with us from the onset, listening to our own concerns and addressing these in a timely manner. We are very pleased with the overall project.”
Local Council
“We were hugely impressed with the professional presentation made by Airedale, their project sales manager had clearly done his research prior to our initial meeting and had a number of detailed, thoughtful solutions to our particular challenges. All of their staff were conscientious and the complex project was delivered within the strict timescale and budget allocated.”
Parker's Garden Centre
“Airedale have a great can-do attitude, are willing to help and have a great understanding of their trade and working on Heritage sites, meaning that that they are good and prompt at problem solving.”
Main Contractor
“The team at Airedale provided a reassuring sense of professionalism within our development. Their holistic considered approach meant that aspects that would not necessarily fall within their remit were identified and where required resolved prior to any issue or delay arising. Their willingness to share their experience and knowledge allowed the project to be delivered to the standard which exceeded our expectation.”
Langdale Estate and Spa
“Since the restaurant has opened there has been an increase in the staff footfall, with the well designed layout coupled with the use of the latest technology keeping queues down to a minimum. The whole installation despite its complexity was relatively pain free with the communication between Airedale’s Project Manager and ourselves being a key factor.”
Advanced Engineering Centre
“Our new catering facilities are second to none. As a primary provider of professional chef qualifications within the South West it was imperative to have a design which enabled excellent quality teaching and training. As a catering team we are extremely pleased with the final results; with the excellent support of Airedale it has enabled us to ensure first rate delivery of teaching in a first rate environment and will no doubt continue to aspire future chefs in future years.”
Petroc College, Barnstaple
“The Airedale Group were appointed because of their depth of knowledge and experience in delivering similar schemes. Their staff were very professional and on-hand to answer any queries we had whilst our Chef’s have commented that it is one of the best designed kitchens they have worked in.”
Acklam Hall
“We were continually impressed with Airedale’s performance on this scheme. They assisted us with value engineering options throughout the tender process; were very competitive commercially and managed the on-site works seamlessly. Further, following practical completion they have attended to the operator’s queries very quickly and held themselves professionally whilst working in a live hotel environment. ”
Main Contractor
