Marketing Manager (Sports and Leisure)

Chelmsford City Council is looking for an experienced and commercially minded Marketing Manager to lead the strategic marketing activity focused on health, wellbeing, fitness and sport across our four leisure centres: Riverside Leisure Centre, Chelmsford Sport & Athletics Centre, Dovedale Leisure Centre and South Woodham Ferrers Leisure Centre. This is an exciting opportunity to shape income-generating campaigns that inspire more people to be active, drive participation and memberships, and support both the commercial success and community impact of some of the city's most valued health, fitness and leisure facilities. If you have a strong track record in driving results in a fast paced and competitive local environment, this role could be for you.

As the strategic lead for sport and leisure marketing, the role involves developing and delivering annual marketing plans and channel strategies, managing budgets and overseeing integrated campaigns that achieve income, membership and participation targets. The successful applicant will work closely with our leisure management team, using customer insight, sales data and market trends to identify new opportunities, respond to performance and continually improve results. The role also includes line management responsibility for two Marketing Officers and a Marketing Assistant, so some management experience is preferred. The team will manage paid and organic marketing activity across a range of channels (digital screens, social media, website, email and app), while also leading the promotion of key programmes such as our health and fitness membership offers and Get In! holiday activities.

We are looking for a confident and results-driven marketer with substantial experience of planning and delivering successful campaigns, meeting commercial and community objectives, and managing multiple projects simultaneously. The successful applicant will be a positive and proactive marketer who thrives in a collaborative environment, by building productive relationships with a wide range of colleagues and stakeholders across our service areas. We’re looking for someone who can identify opportunities, solve problems and adapt quickly to changing priorities and circumstances. Applicants should be an excellent communicator with a proven track record of achieving measurable results against ambitious targets. An understanding of the sport, leisure, fitness or wellbeing sector would be advantageous.

This is a full-time role (37 hours per week). Some evening and weekend working will be required for planned events. The post holder will work between the Civic Centre and our four leisure centres as required.

Interviews are currently scheduled for the week commencing 30 November 2026.

Please note should sufficient applications be received prior to the closing date, we may close the role for applications early.

Chelmsford City Council is committed to safeguarding vulnerable groups and expects all employees to share this commitment and have a range of policies and procedures in place which promote safeguarding and safer working practices across our services. The Council's Safer Recruitment process contains pre-employment checks which includes safeguarding training, obtaining references and ensuring compliance with Disclosure and Barring Service process.

To view further details for this role including a job description, please click the link on the attachments section.