Gateshead College has a proud reputation for sporting excellence and is seeking an ambitious, passionate, and driven Rugby Coach to lead the development of our Men's and Women's Rugby Academies.
This is an exciting opportunity to play a key role in recruiting, developing, and supporting talented student-athletes, helping them achieve success both on the field and in the classroom. Working within a high-performance sporting environment, you will deliver coaching programmes, support player development pathways, and build strong relationships with schools, clubs, and rugby organisations across the region.
You will work closely with our experienced Sport Academy and curriculum teams to create an outstanding student experience while contributing to the continued growth and success of rugby at Gateshead College.
If you're passionate about rugby, committed to developing future talent, and ready to make a lasting impact on young athletes, we'd love to hear from you.
Key Responsibilities
-
Plan and deliver high-quality coaching sessions and match-day programmes.
- Lead player recruitment and talent identification initiatives.
- Develop strong relationships with local schools, clubs, community organisations, and rugby networks.
- Support student-athletes to balance academic achievement and sporting performance.
- Monitor player progress, wellbeing, and individual development plans.
- Contribute to academy events, fixtures, competitions, and promotional activities.
- Promote a positive, inclusive, and high-performance culture across the programme.
What We're Looking For
The successful candidate will:
-
Hold a minimum RFU Level 2 Coaching Qualification (or equivalent).
- Have experience coaching rugby within an academy, club, college, or performance environment.
- Demonstrate strong links within rugby networks and player development pathways.
- Be passionate about developing young athletes and supporting their personal growth.
- Have excellent communication, organisation, and leadership skills.
- Be committed to safeguarding, equality, diversity, and inclusion.
Desirable qualifications and experience include:
-
RFU Level 3 Coaching Qualification.
- Experience in athlete recruitment and programme development.
- Strength and conditioning, performance analysis, or sports science knowledge.
- Experience coaching both male and female players within a development or performance setting.
About Gateshead College
At Gateshead College we’re famous for education with Employment Edge, industry inspired education that combines high quality learning with real world skills. This means giving our students the knowledge and skills to be successful in work and life and supporting them to be the best they can be.
This means putting everything we’ve got into making sure our students are the most employable and this is what makes our college such an exciting place to work.
From bringing industry expertise into the classroom and working hand in hand with businesses, to delivering the highest quality teaching and learning and supporting students to develop personally as well as professionally, we’re all about creating experiences that will set learners up for life
If you share our ambition, we’d love to hear from you.
In return we can offer a values-driven organisation and the chance to work with brilliant people who put students first. You’ll be listened to and will have opportunities to make an impact. We prioritise health and wellbeing and your work life balance will be respected.
Our inclusive culture means you’re valued for being yourself and diversity is celebrated, and our commitment to being a sustainable organisation means we always try to do business the right way to make our community better for everyone.
At Gateshead College we all have the opportunity to help our learners succeed and it’s this clear purpose and shared effort that makes us such a great place to work; we hope you think about joining.
Our Benefits:
-
Generous holiday allowance of 33 days plus bank holidays
- Mental health and wellbeing support, with 24/7 access to an employee assistance programme and counselling services.
- Career average pension with the Local Government Pension Scheme.
- Travel support including subsidised on site parking, discounted public transport scheme and cycle to work scheme.
- Retail and travel discounts.
Interviews will be held Thursday 27th August 2026
