Head of Marketing and Brand

The Appointment

This is a senior role within External Relations, with accountability for translating the College’s Marketing Strategy and School Development Plan into an annual, measurable marketing programme. The postholder will lead brand, recruitment marketing, digital marketing, reputation and content across the family of schools, working in close partnership with Admissions and Development.

This leadership role has clear responsibility for setting priorities, briefing and managing the team, allocating budget, using evidence to make decisions, and ensuring that marketing activity contributes to recruitment, retention, reputation and long-term institutional goals.

Job Title:                     Head of Marketing and Brand

Reports To:                 Executive Director of External Relations

Responsible For:       3 direct reports and dotted line responsibility for 3 Marketing Executives within our Prep Schools.

Working in Admissions, Marketing and Development

The Department is very much at the heart of Lancing activities; we are an energetic and forward-thinking team of talented individuals focused on contributing to the success of Lancing College. Across the team there is extensive engagement with both internal and external stakeholders.

The External Relations team is managed by Victoria Deadman Gatt, who joined the College in 2026 as the Executive Director of External Relations. Victoria reports to the Head Master and sits on the Senior Executive Team for the College.

This is an exciting time to join Lancing College and to lead a team that will guide the school into its next phase of development.

The Role

The Head of Marketing and Brand will work closely with the Executive Director of External Relations to lead on the development and implementation of the marketing strategy and increase awareness of Lancing College and its family of prep schools.

The key purpose of the role is:

• To own and deliver the annual Marketing Plan arising from the Marketing Strategy.
• To ensure Lancing College and the family of schools are clearly, consistently and compellingly positioned in their priority markets.
• To generate and support demand for Admissions through targeted, evidence-led campaigns and a seamless prospective-family journey.
• To strengthen the reputation and external profile of Lancing through proactive PR, thought leadership, storytelling and advocacy.
• To lead and develop an effective marketing team with clear roles, priorities, standards and accountability.
• To ensure Marketing supports Development campaigns through planned, high-quality messaging, creative execution and channel delivery without displacing core recruitment priorities.
• To act as a brand champion across the College, ensuring that commercial advertising, promotional materials and communications are consistent with Lancing’s brand guidelines, tone of voice and visual identity, while providing periodic campaign support and marketing expertise to the Commercial team as required.

Key Tasks and Responsibilities

Strategy, Annual Planning and Prioritisation

• To translate the three-year Marketing Strategy into a single annual Marketing Plan covering priority audiences, campaigns, channels, budgets, owners, timings and KPIs.
• To agree annual marketing priorities with the Executive Director of External Relations and ensure team activity is aligned to them.
• To maintain one integrated marketing calendar across College, Prep Schools, Admissions, Development and major institutional milestones.
• To make explicit recommendations on what the team should stop, reduce, outsource or de-prioritise when resources are constrained.
• To maintain a concise monthly dashboard, keeping the Executive Director of External Relations appraised regarding delivery, performance, risks, budget and decisions required.
• To build the team’s capability and confidence in using AI tools critically and effectively, balancing efficiency gains with the judgement, creativity and authenticity that good marketing requires.

Brand and Proposition

• To act as senior custodian of the Lancing brand across the College and family of schools.
• To complete and implement refreshed brand and messaging architecture, including a clear and evidence based ‘Why Lancing’ proposition.
• To ensure brand standards are practical, documented and consistently applied across all channels, campaigns, publications, signage and digital touchpoints.
• To provide functional leadership to Prep marketing colleagues and work with Prep Heads to preserve the character of each school while strengthening the shared Lancing family identity.
• To challenge work that is off-brand, generic, low quality or inconsistent, and ensure remedial action is taken.
• To review on an ongoing basis the need for current assets, refreshing or deleting where appropriate.

Recruitment Marketing and Admissions Integration

• To agree priority audiences and entry points annually with Admissions using roll requirements, pipeline evidence and market intelligence.
• To develop and oversee targeted campaigns for agreed priorities, including local day recruitment, UK boarding, Sixth Form, Prep progression, retention, Pre-A Level and agreed international markets.
• To ensure every significant recruitment campaign has a written brief, defined audience, objective, budget, call to action, tracking approach and post-campaign review.
• To work with Admissions to connect Marketing activity to movement through the funnel from awareness to enquiry, visit, registration and acceptance.
• To support the director-led retention programme with planned communications and content at key transition points, including Prep progression, accepted-place/Advance retention and Fifth Form to Sixth Form.

Digital, Website and Marketing Technology

• To act as business owner for the marketing requirements of the College and Prep websites, ensuring that the digital experience is designed around user need and prospective-family journeys.
• To lead the website redevelopment programme from the Marketing side, setting requirements for content, user experience, analytics, SEO, AI/GEO discoverability, forms, integrations and governance.
• To ensure clear ownership exists for day-to-day CMS content, digital production and technical supplier relationships.
• To commission and manage specialist external support for technical SEO, analytics, tracking, paid optimisation, web development and marketing technology where this capability is not held in-house.
• To ensure website and campaign performance can be measured reliably and that the team uses data to improve activity.

Campaigns, Content and Channels

• To set the annual campaign framework and ensure activity is planned with sufficient lead time.
• To oversee a rolling content programme across web, social, email, film, photography, publications and other priority channels.
• To set clear creative standards and approve major campaign concepts, key publications, principal digital assets and significant external-facing communications.
• To ensure content reflects the lived reality of Lancing and makes effective use of pupils, staff, parents and OLs as credible voices.
• To review channel performance regularly and recommend where the College should increase, reduce or stop activity.

PR, Reputation and External Profile

• To own the proactive PR and reputation plan for Lancing College and support the family of schools where appropriate.
• To develop relationships with relevant education media, advisers, reviewers and influencers.
• To identify and develop thought-leadership opportunities where Lancing has genuine authority, including use of Head Master’s Lectures and other significant events.
• To maintain appropriate media monitoring and competitor intelligence and convert relevant insight into action.
• To support crisis and reactive communications in conjunction with the Executive Director of External Relations and Head Master.

Development and Fundraising Campaign Support

• To work with the Development Director to plan Marketing support for fundraising, Foundationer, capital and impact campaigns within the annual Marketing calendar.
• To ensure Development briefs specify audience, objective, case, required action, timing and success measure before Marketing resource is committed.
• To oversee message development, creative execution, digital content and channel support for agreed Development campaigns.
• To recommend use of external creative or technical resource for high-end campaign films, specialist design, microsites or production spikes where appropriate.

Insight, Measurement and Budget

• To maintain a concise Marketing dashboard covering qualified enquiries, campaign conversion, website conversion, cost per enquiry/registration where appropriate, search visibility, priority-audience engagement, external coverage and contribution to recruitment outcomes.
• To commission and use research into joiners, decliners, leavers, current parents, competitors and priority markets to answer live strategic questions.
• To manage the External Relations budget, providing accurate forecasts and demonstrating that spend is aligned to agreed priorities.
• To evaluate agencies, suppliers, channels and campaigns on performance and value, and make clear recommendations to continue, change or stop activity.
• To ensure claims made in reporting are evidence-based and distinguish clearly between measured performance, assumptions and estimates.

Team Leadership and Management

• To set clear annual objectives for each team member, linked to the Marketing Strategy and annual plan.
• To hold regular one-to-ones and team reviews, giving timely feedback and addressing under-performance or unclear ownership promptly.
• To allocate work according to skills and priorities rather than allowing workload to be driven by the loudest request or historic practice.
• To develop the team’s capability through coaching, appropriate delegation, training and use of external expertise.
• To create a culture of high standards, pace, constructive challenge and personal accountability.
• To model calm, proportionate and solutions-focused leadership. The postholder is expected to raise concerns clearly, offer a recommendation and continue to lead effectively through ambiguity or challenge.
• To operate with appropriate independence and judgement at Head level.

Stakeholder Management

• To build effective working relationships with the Head Master, Executive, Prep Heads, Admissions, Development, academic and pastoral leaders and operational colleagues.
• To be visible and well connected across school life so that Marketing has access to the people, stories and developments required to represent Lancing authentically.
• To manage stakeholders’ expectations professionally where requests are outside agreed priorities, giving a clear rationale and proposing an appropriate alternative where possible.
• To represent Lancing professionally at recruitment, media, stakeholder and school events as required.

Measures of success

Success in this role will be measured by:

• Marketing activity contributing demonstrably to qualified enquiries, visits, registrations, acceptances and pupil retention objectives.
• Consistent and effective promotion of the Lancing propositions and Family of Schools brand across all key communications channels and touchpoints.
• The successful delivery of priority marketing campaigns on time, within budget and with measurable outcomes.
• Continuous improvement of the College website and digital platforms, enhancing user experience, search visibility, conversation rates and data quality.
• Strong collaboration between Marketing and Admissions, ensuring a joined-up customer journey with effective communication and shared insights.
• Positive external recognition of the College through proactive public relations, thought leadership and reputation-building activity.
• Effective marketing support for agreed Development and Fundraising priorities.
• A high-performing Marketing team with clear accountability, effective workload management and consistently high-quality outputs.
• Positive and productive relationships with senior stakeholders, demonstrated through commercial awareness, sound judgement, reliability and a solutions-focused approach.

Skills and Experience:

Essential

• Significant marketing experience, including responsibility for planning and delivering integrated campaigns.
• Demonstrable experience of brand management and translating organisational strategy into marketing priorities.
• Strong understanding of audience segmentation, customer decision-making and conversion journeys.
• Experience managing and developing a team, including objective-setting, delegation, feedback and performance management.
• Strong written communication, copy judgement and presentation skills.
• Experience working with websites, CMS platforms, digital channels, paid media and analytics sufficiently to brief and manage specialists effectively.
• Commercial confidence with budgets, agencies, suppliers and prioritisation decisions.
• Ability to interpret performance data and turn it into clear recommendations.
• Strong stakeholder-management skills, with the ability to build effective relationships, challenge constructively and manage competing priorities.
• Evidence of sound judgement, adaptability and the ability to manage competing priorities effectively under pressure.

Desirable

• Professional marketing qualification or equivalent senior-level experience.
• Experience in education, independent schools or another organisation where customer decisions involve significant consideration and relationship-building.
• Experience of PR, media relations and thought leadership.
• Experience of a multi-brand or group structure.
• Experience commissioning research, technical SEO, analytics, web development or marketing-technology specialists.
• Experience supporting fundraising or Development campaigns.

This job description sets out main duties at the time when it was drawn up. Such duties may vary occasionally but without changing the general character of the duties or the level of responsibility entailed.

Application Procedure:

Applications should be made using the application form. Candidates are asked to add a covering letter setting out, as succinctly as possible, their reasons for applying for the position at Lancing.

Application forms are available from the College website https://www.lancingcollege.co.uk/ Please send any emails to recruitment@lancing.org.uk

A full curriculum vitae and the names, addresses and telephone numbers of a minimum of three referees, one of whom should be the candidate’s current or most recent employer should be included with the application.

Closing date: Wednesday 4 November 2026

Interviews: w/c 9 November 2026

Applications will be reviewed upon receipt, and candidates may be invited to interview before the closing date. In the event of a high volume of applications, the College may undertake an initial online shortlisting interview via Microsoft Teams prior to inviting candidates to a final interview. The College therefore reserves the right to close this vacancy early should a suitable candidate be identified.