Salary :
Activate JobCopilot
Role: Sales Manager
Location: London, on-site
Salary: £70,000 - 80,000k OTE (uncapped commission)
*If your salary expectations do not meet our banding, please do still apply - salary banding is based on transferable skills, tenure, industry experience, and interview performance
🌍 What we’re building (and why it matters)
Here’s the problem:
UK schools spend over £2 billion a year on temporary staff — and £600 million of that goes straight to recruitment agencies. That’s money that could be paying teachers more or funding new classroom resources.
At Zen Educate, we’re fixing that.
We’ve built an online platform that connects schools directly with fully vetted teachers and support staff — cutting out agencies and saving schools money - and a game-changing suite of software tools that revolutionises their processes.
Since launching in 2017, we’ve already saved schools over £30 million that’s gone straight back into classrooms. We recently raised $37 million in Series B funding (the biggest EdTech round in Europe last year!) and we’re scaling fast in the UK and US. 🚀
We’re now looking for a Sales Manager to help take our commercial engine to the next level.
You’ll play a critical leadership role, responsible for helping grow and retain long-term school partnerships while building a high-performing sales culture that can scale with the business.
💼 What this role looks like day-to-day
- Deliver on ambitious growth and revenue targets across your team.
- Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing team of Account Executives and sales talent.
- Improve sales processes to increase efficiency, shorten sales cycles, and accelerate customer value.
- Drive accountability through strong pipeline management, forecasting, and performance coaching.
- Collaborate with Customer Success, Product, Marketing, and Operations teams to ensure sales convert into long-term customer usage and retention.
- Support the team on strategic opportunities, complex negotiations, and multi-school partnerships.
- Help refine our go-to-market strategy as we continue expanding into new regions and customer segments.
- Inform product development by sharing feedback and insights from schools and school groups.
- Build a strong, performance-driven culture focused on continuous learning and improvement.
- Align team priorities with company goals as they evolve throughout the academic year.
It’s fast-paced, hands-on, and full of variety. You’ll be a key part of shaping how we grow.
🙌 What we're looking for
You don’t need to have worked in education before — we’ll teach you that. But we think you’ll thrive if you’re:
- A proven track record of delivering against targets in a fast-paced, high-growth environment.
- Experience leading and developing successful B2B or SaaS sales teams.
- Passion for coaching and upskilling both experienced sellers and emerging talent.
- Strong commercial instincts with the ability to balance strategic thinking and hands-on execution.
- Experience managing complex, relationship-led sales cycles alongside faster transactional sales.
- A highly organised leader who can effectively manage pipelines, forecasting, and performance metrics.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
- Someone who thrives in ambiguity and enjoys building processes in scaling environments.
- No ego — confident bringing ideas to the table while remaining collaborative and open-minded.
- A genuine motivation to build something meaningful that positively impacts schools and teachers.
💡 What you might like (and what might not be your thing)
✅ You might love this role if:
- You want to combine serious commercial impact with a meaningful mission.
- You like selling products that make a tangible difference to people’s lives.
- You thrive in fast-paced, scaling environments where things are always improving.
🤔 You might find it tricky if:
- You prefer a highly structured corporate environment with set processes.
- You’re not comfortable with outreach and leading sales conversations.
- You want every week to look the same — this role evolves constantly.
🎁 What’s in it for you
- Meaningful work — every deal you close helps schools save money and teachers get paid more.
- Competitive salary + commission + equity.
- 25 days holiday + all UK public holidays.
- Hybrid working (outside of term time) — we have a central London office with gym, showers, café, and cycle parking.
- 1:1 coaching and professional development support.
- Life & Health Insurance, Cycle to Work Scheme, Electric Car Scheme.
🌱 How we hire
We like to move quickly and keep things simple:
Intro chat – A short conversation with our recruiter.
Sales interview – Let’s talk about your approach to prospecting, discovery, and closing.
Practical task & role play – Show us how you’d run a realistic school meeting.
Culture chat – Meet the wider team and make sure it’s a great fit both ways.
If it’s a yes, we’ll let you know 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.
Please note before applying
This role is based full-time at our London 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.
Due to the high volume of applications, we regret that we are unable to provide individual feedback on initial submissions.
We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. 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.
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