[Hiring] Area Director of Partnerships @Darlows

Role Description

The Area Director is responsible for leading, scaling, and optimising estate agency performance across a defined team and/or geographic area within our remote-working Partnership operating model. The role focuses on delivery of strategic growth as laid out in our Target Operating Model for Partnerships.

• Defined by recruitment and retention and development of people to create commercial growth, people leadership, compliance, and consistent service delivery.
• Ensuring high performance without reliance on physical branches.

Qualifications

• Proven leadership experience within estate agency.
• Strong commercial acumen and data-driven decision making.
• Excellent communication and influencing skills.
• High emotional intelligence and coaching capability.
• Experience within hybrid, self-employed, or multi-branch network agency models (desirable).
• Familiarity with CRM, digital marketing platforms, and PropTech tools (desirable).
• Change management or scale-up experience (desirable).

Requirements

• Basic salary range of £45,000 - £55,000 Per year.
• On target earnings of up to £85,000 Per year.
• Company Car or monthly Car Allowance.
• Full UK Driving Licence.
• Legal entitlement to live and work in the UK (in accordance with the Immigration Asylum and Nationality Act 2006).
• Evidence of your right to work in the UK, in the form of: Passport/Birth Certificate.
• Proof of Address.
• National Insurance.
• Drivers Licence Check.

Benefits

• Remote-first role with travel required within the area and to HQ based meetings.
• 40 hours a week, remote working aligned to business and customer needs.

Key Responsibilities

• Commercial Performance & Growth:
  • Deliver agreed revenue, profit, and market share targets across a defined area/team.
  • Drive instruction levels, conversion rates, and average fee performance.
  • Analyse performance data and implement corrective action where required.
  • Identify growth opportunities, new Partnerships, and talent expansion areas.
• Recruitment & Retention:
  • Attract Talent to the business through networking, building relationships, and creating a strong pipeline of candidates.
  • Lead with a robust, fair and consistent interview process, ensuring candidates fit the cultural and commercial capability of the role.
  • Partner with internal recruitment to execute area recruitment strategies and maintain headcount at agreed levels.
  • Ensure all new recruits receive a structured, high quality onboarding experience.
  • Provide mentoring and high visibility leadership during the first 90 days of a new recruit’s service.
• Leadership & People Management (Remote Teams):
  • Lead, coach, and performance-manage Partners.
  • Foster a high-performance, accountable, and collaborative remote culture.
  • Conduct regular virtual one-to-ones, performance reviews, and team meetings.
  • Execute effective recruitment, onboarding, and retention of top-performing agents.
• Operational Excellence:
  • Ensure consistent application of processes, systems, and best practice.
  • Act as escalation point for complex transactions, complaints, or service issues.
  • Create strong collaborative working relationships between Partners and Support services – Nexus, Marketing, Branch network, to enable efficient workflows.
  • Monitor service standards, customer satisfaction, and brand reputation.
• Compliance & Risk Management:
  • Ensure full compliance with estate agency legislation, AML, GDPR, and company policies.
  • Monitor audit outcomes and implement improvements where required.
  • Promote a strong compliance-first culture across remote teams.
• Brand & Market Representation:
  • Act as a brand ambassador within the area.
  • Build strong relationships with local partners, introducers, and stakeholders.
  • Support marketing initiatives and localised/centralised campaigns.
  • Maintain consistent brand standards across all Partnerships.
• Strategic Contribution:
  • Contribute to regional and national strategy development.
  • Provide insight on market trends, competitor activity, and customer behaviour.
  • Support change initiatives, technology adoption, and continuous improvement.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• Revenue and profitability per Partnership – delivering accountability to annual branch budget.
• Recruit to build and maintain operational structure in line with agreed budgets.
• Weekly Instruction run rate/Partner.
• Average fee achieved at instruction and exchange.
• Customer satisfaction and complaint resolution.
• Compliance audit results.
• Team engagement, retention, and productivity.