Head of Onboarding
Location: Chester, with UK-wide travel
Salary: Up to £80,000 + Annual Bonus + Excellent Benefits
Reporting to: Portfolio Director
About Us
Sykes Holiday Cottages is a business with big dreams and bold ambition. With over 30 years of industry experience, over 15 regional brands, and more than 23,000 holiday homes across the UK and Ireland, we’ve become one of the UK’s fastest-growing holiday let agencies.
What started as a family-run business has grown into a vibrant team of passionate people delivering exceptional experiences for guests and property owners alike.
Part of Forge Holiday Group, we’re building a culture where ambition, creativity and collaboration thrive.
We value diversity and inclusion and encourage everyone to bring their authentic self to work. Need adjustments during the recruitment process? Just ask — we’re happy to help.
Lead the future of owner onboarding at Sykes Holiday Cottages
At Sykes Holiday Cottages, we're on an exciting journey to transform how holiday homeowners join our brands and achieve success from day one. We're looking for an experienced Head of Onboarding to lead this transformation, creating a seamless, high-performing onboarding experience that accelerates growth, maximises conversions and delivers exceptional owner experiences.
This is a pivotal leadership role where you'll shape the end-to-end onboarding strategy, leading teams across our Chester headquarters and our nationwide field consultants. You'll combine commercial thinking, operational excellence and customer obsession to ensure new owners realise value faster than ever before.
What you'll be doing
As Head of Onboarding you'll:
- Lead and inspire a high-performing onboarding function, creating a culture of accountability, pace and continuous improvement.
- Own the end-to-end owner onboarding journey, from enquiry through to go-live and first booking.
- Drive improvements in lead conversion, onboarding efficiency and time to value.
- Partner closely with Marketing, Commercial, Product and Technology teams to remove friction and optimise every stage of the onboarding journey.
- Develop tailored onboarding experiences for individual owners and multi-unit partners.
- Support the growth of our Multi-Unit Site proposition alongside our Business Development Managers.
- Use insight and performance data to identify opportunities, improve processes and influence strategic decisions.
- Own onboarding KPIs including conversion, speed to market, owner satisfaction and early-stage commercial performance.
About you
You'll be an experienced senior leader with a passion for creating outstanding customer journeys and delivering commercial results.
You'll bring:
- Significant leadership experience within onboarding, commercial operations, customer lifecycle or operational leadership.
- A proven track record of improving conversion, reducing operational cycle times and driving measurable business growth.
- Strong commercial awareness with the ability to translate operational performance into business success.
- Exceptional leadership skills with experience developing high-performing teams.
- Excellent stakeholder management, with the confidence to influence at senior level.
- Strong analytical capability, using insight and data to improve performance.
- A collaborative leadership style and a passion for continuous improvement.
Experience within travel, property, marketplaces, e-commerce or digital platforms would be highly advantageous.
Why join Sykes?
At Sykes, our purpose is simple: We Champion UK Escapes.
You'll join an ambitious, forward-thinking business investing heavily in technology, people and customer experience as we work towards creating four million extraordinary holiday experiences each year.
Our values underpin everything we do:
- One Business, One Team
- Keep It Simple
- Grow & Learn
- Sustainable Impact
Alongside a competitive salary and benefits package, you'll have the opportunity to shape a business-critical function, influence strategic direction and make a lasting impact across the organisation.
Our Benefits
✈️ 33 days holiday + up to 5 extra with long service
Buy additional holiday
Birthday off
✋ 2 volunteering days
Enhanced parental leave
Pension contributions
Discounted stays at Forest Holidays & Sykes Cottages
❤️ Health cash plan & life assurance
Training & development opportunities
24/7 mental health support
️ On-site gym & parking at Chester HQ
Employee savings scheme
Long service awards & company events
Apply today.
If you're ready to transform onboarding into a true competitive advantage, we'd love to hear from you.
Closing date for applications 6th July
