Join our team
Business Development Manager
Own new school acquisition across Great Britain for a growing EdTech company. This is our first dedicated sales hire, so you'll build the engine as you drive it — the pipeline, the pitch, the playbook.
About Equipple
Equipple is a Northern Ireland-based EdTech company. We build parent engagement and school communications software used by schools and multi-academy trusts across the UK and Ireland. We equip teachers to spot what matters, act with speed, and communicate with confidence.
The platform covers parent–teacher meeting scheduling and video meetings, qualitative and quantitative pupil data analysis, and full MIS integration. This year we're also launching our AI report-writing module, which cuts teacher workload while maintaining the standards schools are held to.
We're a small, ambitious team at an exciting stage of growth. We've just closed a funding round, schools that try us tend to stay, and we're ready to put real weight behind growth. That's where you come in.
The role
You'll own new school acquisition across Great Britain. This is our first dedicated sales hire, so it isn't a role where you'll be handed a list and told who to ring — you'll shape how we go to market as you go.
The single most important thing you bring is your network. We want someone who already knows heads, deputy heads, school business managers and MAT leaders across Great Britain, and who can pick up the phone in week one rather than week twenty. You understand how schools actually buy: the budget cycles, the governor approvals, the difference between a single-school decision and a trust-wide one.
The targets are clear. You'll own the numbers, and you'll be rewarded properly for hitting them.
What you'll own
The shape of the role over its first year.
New business, end to end
- Prospecting and discovery
- Demo, proposal, negotiation, close
- Handover to onboarding
Network and trusts
- Your school and MAT relationships
- Land and expand to trust-wide
Pipeline and forecasting
- Coverage ahead of target
- HubSpot hygiene
- Honest forecasts
Consultative selling
- Heads, deputies, business managers, MAT operations leads
- Tailored demos
The school calendar
- Academy and local authority budget cycles
- Parents' evening seasons
Sector presence
- BETT and the Schools & Academies Show
- MAT networks and headteacher conferences
The playbook
- Outreach sequences and objection handling
- Case studies and pricing conversations
- Market feedback into product
Where the buck stops: the close is yours. Delivery and onboarding sit with the wider team once you've handed over, and pricing outside the standard structure is signed off by the co-founder. You own the number, not the whole delivery chain.
What we're looking for
A senior seller with live school relationships and the discipline to build a function around them. If you're close on most of this and strong on the network, apply anyway.
Essential
What you'll need from day one
- At least three years of new business sales into UK schools — EdTech, MIS, safeguarding, assessment, educational publishing or a comparable school-facing product.
- Current, credible relationships with school and trust decision-makers across Great Britain, or a track record that shows you can build them quickly. We'll ask about this, and we'd never ask you to act against obligations you owe a current employer.
- A record of hitting new business targets consistently.
- You know how schools buy. Academy trusts run to a financial year ending 31 August, local-authority-maintained schools to one ending 31 March. You plan around that rather than being surprised by it.
- Comfortable with both single-school deals and trust-wide agreements, including the longer approval chains that come with them.
- Genuinely consultative, and confident demoing SaaS to a non-technical audience — including MIS integration, without needing an engineer in the room.
- Disciplined with a CRM. We use HubSpot, and your pipeline should be accurate enough to forecast from.
- Able to travel regularly across Great Britain for school visits and sector events. We'll sort out whatever travel arrangements work for you.
Desirable
Useful, but not a barrier
- Established relationships inside multi-academy trusts of five schools or more.
- Experience selling parental engagement, communications or reporting products.
- Familiarity with the MIS landscape — Arbor, Bromcom, SIMS — and with integration layers such as Wonde.
- Time spent working in a school: teaching, school business management or senior leadership.
- Experience as an early or first sales hire in a start-up, where you built the process rather than inherited it.
- Knowledge of the Welsh or Scottish education systems alongside England.
How we work: we don't oversell, and we don't promise a school something the product can't do. If the pipeline is thin or a deal has gone quiet, we say so early. We give and take feedback directly, and we care about the teachers and parents at the other end of the software.
Working here
Uncapped
Commission on every school you sign, a bonus when you hit the annual target, six times the rate on every school above it, and a multiplier on trust-wide deals. On-target earnings of £55,000, and considerably more if you beat the target.
33 days
Paid annual leave including public holidays and our Christmas closedown — comfortably above the statutory minimum. Our holiday year runs 1 September to 31 August.
40 hours
Permanent and full time, 9.00am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday, with flexibility on start and finish times by agreement.
Remote
Work from anywhere in Great Britain, with regular travel to schools and sector events and expenses covered.
Pension
Workplace pension scheme, with employer contributions from day one.
Co-founder
You'll report to and work directly with the co-founder, shaping how the product goes to market and building the sales team as we scale.
One thing worth knowing: our year follows the school year. August to October and January to April are our busiest periods, so we ask for as much notice as possible on leave during those months.
Why join us
This is the first sales hire, not the fifth. You'll build the pipeline, the pitch and the playbook — and the team that inherits them.
How to apply
Attach your CV. It takes a couple of minutes.
If you send one, tell us about the schools and trusts you know, and one deal you're proud of. That tells us more than a summary of your CV.
Email info@equipple.com and we'll come back to you.
Closing date: Friday 25 September 2026
We review applications as they arrive, so earlier is better.
Right to work, equal opportunities and your data
Right to work You must already have the right to work in the UK. We aren't able to offer visa sponsorship for this role.
Pre-employment checks This role involves visiting schools, so any offer is conditional on an enhanced criminal record check — DBS in England and Wales, or Disclosure Scotland and PVG membership in Scotland — as well as satisfactory references, proof of your right to work, and signature of a non-disclosure agreement.
Equal opportunities Equipple is an equal opportunities employer. We welcome applications from everyone and select on merit alone, regardless of sex, marital or civil partnership status, race, colour, ethnic or national origin, religious belief, political opinion, disability, age, sexual orientation, or whether you have dependants.
Adjustments If you need an adjustment at any stage of the process, tell us and we'll make it. Just say what would help.
Your data We process your application in line with our recruitment privacy notice. It explains what we collect, why, who sees it, and how long we keep it.