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Job Title: Market Strategy and Planning Manager
Department: Marketing
Location: Lymm Head Office, Hybrid
Reports To: Marketing Director
Type: Permanent, Monday – Friday, 40 hours

Job Summary:

We are seeking a strategic, data-driven Market Strategy and Planning Manager to lead the development and execution of growth strategies across our nurseries and pre-schools. Reporting to the Marketing Director, this role will be instrumental in driving occupancy growth, identifying market opportunities, and building actionable plans that support both performance and brand expansion at a local level.

You will work closely with senior leadership and cross-functional teams to align business goals with actionable market insights, ensuring seamless execution and long-term success.

The role requires strong analytical skills and a commercial mindset, with a focus on delivering detailed reporting around local occupancy trends, cohort performance, market opportunities, and ongoing performance tracking.

Key Responsibilities:

* Develop and implement strategic market plans to drive business growth and increase occupancy across nursery sites.

* Lead commercial reporting across our nurseries — including local occupancy dashboards, cohort analysis, and enquiry conversion performance.

* Identify underperforming cohorts, and propose data-led action plans to improve performance.

* Collaborate with our regional Early Year’s teams, Finance, and Operations to align strategies and ensure execution across the business.

* Analyse market trends, customer insights, and competitor activity to uncover new opportunities.

* Conduct catchment and location planning to support both new site openings and existing site optimisation.

* Support our acquisition growth opportunities with market insights and positioning strategies.

* Track and report on the performance of strategic initiatives, providing regular insights and recommendations to leadership.

* Build frameworks and tools that ensure consistent measurement of key commercial metrics across the business.

* Line Management responsibility, leading and mentoring the team and working alongside our brand and digital teams.

Who You Are:

* Proven experience in market strategy and planning — you may come from category management, insights, strategic or commercial planning roles.

* Highly analytical with strong Excel and data visualisation skills — comfortable working with large data sets, establishing new systems and processes and turning insights into action.

* Experience with segment analysis, funnel performance tracking, and local market reporting.

* A confident communicator and skilled stakeholder manager who can influence at all levels.

* A results-driven, collaborative team player who thrives in a fast-paced, evolving environment.

* Organised and able to balance long-term strategic thinking with hands-on problem solving.

Preferred Experience:

* Experience in early years education, childcare, or location-based consumer services is a strong advantage.

* Familiarity with CRM systems (e.g., HubSpot, Salesforce), marketing analytics platforms, Power BI and tools for market or catchment analysis e.g. CACI.

* Understanding of parental decision-making behaviour and enrolment cycles.

* 8 years experience in the same or similar role.

* Full clean driving licence required.

We are unable to offer any kind of visa sponsorship for this role.

We embrace everyone. Our goal is to create a truly inclusive culture and diverse workforce. We break down barriers so you can be your authentic self—and flourish!

Kids Planet is dedicated to safeguarding and promoting the well-being of children and young people. An enhanced DBS check will be required for this role. We expect all staff and volunteers to uphold this commitment, and safeguarding training is a fundamental part of every role. All colleagues are required to complete regular training to ensure they understand and fulfil their responsibilities. A Disclosure and Barring Service Certificate is mandatory for all positions, and this role will be subject to enhanced checks as part of our safeguarding duties