Regional Operations Manager – British Isles (Based in Edinburgh or Dublin)

Job Description

SANDEMANs Tours is looking for a Regional Operations Manager to lead day-to-day tour operations across our Edinburgh, Dublin, and London destinations. This is a hands-on, on-the-ground role for someone who loves tourism, thrives with guides and guests, and wants ownership over how a region performs.

You’ll be joining at a pivotal moment: SANDEMANs is in the middle of a major operational transformation, migrating our booking systems onto a single new platform and building toward a marketplace model across our 80+ destinations. We’re hiring four Regional Operations Managers this cycle, and plan to promote one of them into a newly created Operations Director role once the team is established – this posting is a genuine pathway into that role, not just a title.

Key Responsibilities

• Own daily tour operations across Edinburgh, Dublin, and London – scheduling, guide coverage, capacity, and on-the-ground problem solving.
• Recruit, onboard, and develop tour guides; run auditions and selection processes to find strong, engaging personalities.
• Monitor tour quality: guest reviews, ratings, complaints, and in-person or spot-check observations.
• Track regional KPIs – ratings, guide performance, attendance, cancellations, profitability – and report on them regularly.
• Build and maintain relationships with local partners, venues, and suppliers.
• Support the testing and rollout of new products and tours in your cities.
• Work closely with central Operations leadership and other regional managers to keep standards consistent while adapting to local market realities.
• Manage a regional team of roughly 3-6 local staff and 30-45 guides (1-2 local staff and 10-15 guides per city).

What We’re Looking For

• Experience in tourism, hospitality, or experience-based operations, ideally with people-management responsibility.
• Comfortable managing guides or customer-facing teams – recruiting, coaching, and holding standards.
• Strong organisational skills and comfort managing across multiple cities and stakeholders.
• Confident with performance data and KPIs; commercially minded.
• Fluent English; additional languages an advantage.
• Willingness to be based in Edinburgh or Dublin and travel regularly to London (expect roughly 7-10 travel days per month).
• Comfortable with a tourism schedule: this role typically includes one evening per week and 1-2 weekends per month.
• Already holding the right to work in your base country – we’re not able to sponsor visas for this role.
• Familiarity with Ventrata (or a similar tour/activity booking platform) is a strong plus; knowledge of OTA product management, When I Work, Google
• Workspace, Claude, or HubSpot is a bonus – the more of these you know, the better.

Reporting & Start Date

Reports to the Interim Operations Director initially, transitioning to the permanent Operations Director once appointed.
Target start date: between October 15 and November 15.

What We Offer

• Salary: £34,000-£45,000 gross/year if based in Edinburgh, or €35,000-€48,000 gross/year if based in Dublin, reflecting local cost of living. Exact figure depends on experience and confirmed base city.
• Bonus: split 50% on company performance and 50% on individual KPI targets, typically worth 1-2 months’ salary.
• Relocation support available for the right candidate.
• A genuine growth path as SANDEMANs builds out its regional and senior operations structure, with a real chance at the Operations Director role.
• The chance to shape how a fast-growing international tour company runs its operations, right as we modernize our systems and products.