Quality Specialist Early Years

Job Title: Early Childhood Specialist

Contract Type: Full Time / 40 Hours per week / Field based / Travel to HO and to our nurseries

Regional travel required around: Hounslow, Heathrow, Richmond Upon Thames areas

Salary: From £45k per annum plus £4k car allowance (If required)

The Early Childhood Specialist is a regional leadership role within Bright Horizons UK, providing hands‑on pedagogical guidance and quality assurance across nurseries. The role involves regular nursery visits, close collaboration with Regional Directors, Nursery Managers, and central teams, and direct coaching, mentoring, and training of practitioners to ensure high‑quality care, education, and safety. The Specialist drives best practice in teaching and learning, leads pedagogical change, supports regulatory compliance, and helps secure Good or Outstanding inspection outcomes.

Working closely with the Pedagogical Research & Development (PR&D) team, the role supports the implementation of the Bright Horizons curriculum, Quality Improvement Framework (QIF), and Nurture Approaches, including SEND/ASN and Thrive, to ensure continuous improvement and service excellence across nursery settings.

• Flexible working and holiday entitlements
• Discounted childcare in one of our nurseries
• Fantastic range of discounts on high street retailers, grocery stores, cinema tickets, holidays and more
• Wide range of wellbeing resources, supporting our teams for the ups and downs of daily life

We’ve been voted Great Place to Work for the last 20 consecutive years, as well as being awarded the newly created Great Place for Wellbeing and Great Place for Women 2022. Our support functions enable our nurseries to deliver the best possible care and education to over 10,000 children across the UK. Through this support, our nurseries can deliver excellence – with 98% of our 300+ portfolio being rated Good or Outstanding by Ofsted.

We’re on a mission to change the future for children, families, and the people we work with, and are committed to progressive working values like flexibility, work‑life balance, and wellbeing.

• Provide pedagogical and organisational leadership to nursery managers and teams, promoting a strong HEART culture, values, and behaviours to drive quality improvement, pedagogical excellence, and service excellence across the region.
• Support the implementation of the Quality Improvement Strategy and action plans, ensuring alignment with company strategic objectives across all nursery settings.
• Implement and develop the Bright Horizons UK Nurture Approach, including the Nurture Model, SEND/ASN excellence, Thrive, and Bright Beginnings Curriculum across the region.
• Drive continuous improvement and secure excellence in early childhood pedagogy, training, and nursery support, contributing to high operational standards, strong nursery management, and regulatory compliance.
• Deliver and manage regional initiatives, projects, and pedagogical innovations in collaboration with PR&D and Operations teams, ensuring consistency and cohesion.
• Act as an advocate for children, championing a Children First approach to physical and emotional wellbeing, safeguarding, child protection, SEND/ASN, and regulatory compliance, working with external agencies where required.
• Provide high‑quality advice, coaching, and mentoring to nursery managers and teams in pedagogy, safety, and compliance, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
• Collaborate with Operations and HR to support succession planning for nursery managers.

• Provide excellent pedagogical and nursery management advice and hands‑on support to nursery practitioners across the region, working collaboratively with ECSs, Regional Directors, PR&D, Operations, Safeguarding, HR, Health & Safety, Local Authorities, and regulatory bodies to ensure cohesion and consistency across UK early childhood provision.
• Ensure high‑quality evidence informs reporting of Early Childhood (EC) quality measures, using agreed systems and tools to drive improvement, support effective monitoring, and demonstrate measurable impact, leading to…