You'll take day-to-day operational control of our workshop, reporting directly to the owner. Everything from the shop floor down is yours, with real authority to run the workshop and clear limits agreed with the owner – so the owner can focus on sales, marketing and the direction of the business. You'll be responsible for:

• Health & safety: leading health and safety across the workshop – risk assessments, the incident log, safety checks and making sure every course runs safely and successfully.
• Courses: teaching courses yourself (around 2-3 days a week once trained), keeping our course instructions up to date, signing instructors off on each course, and helping develop new courses.
• Customers on the day: looking after customers on site and handling anything on the day – arrivals, upgrades, on-the-day payments and putting things right if something goes wrong – plus our Google reviews.
• Groups and events: delivering corporate and private group sessions, and planning the staffing for them.
• People: running the instructor rota, covering holidays and sickness, and recruiting (writing job specs and leading first interviews), training and developing instructors, assistants and fabrication staff.
• Cover: being the person who steps in if an instructor is ill or doesn't turn up.
• Stock: stock-taking and ordering through our stock system, so materials and consumables are always there when they're needed.
• Equipment and premises: maintenance of the forges, machinery and tools, statutory inspections, waste, and managing contractors, suppliers and the landlord on site.
• The workshop: keeping the forge clean, organised and running smoothly, including opening and locking up, and supervising members using the open forge.
• Custom fabrication: coordinating our custom fabrication jobs so they're delivered on time and to the standard agreed, and handling customer collections. You don't need to do the fabrication yourself, unless you have the skills.
• Reporting: a short weekly update and regular one-to-ones with the owner, tracking the measures that show how the workshop is doing.

You'll open up, run the morning checks and brief the team before customers arrive. On a teaching day you'll lead a course – welcoming customers, giving the safety briefing and guiding them from raw steel to a finished piece. On other days you'll plan rotas, order stock, get equipment serviced, check fabrication jobs are on track and keep the workshop in top shape.

As the role develops, your teaching will reduce and your management responsibilities will grow. For the right person, this role is the route to General Manager, taking on a bigger share of running the business.

This is a permanent, full-time, hands-on senior role based at our workshop in Wimbledon. 

You'll report to the owner, with a weekly update and regular one-to-ones, and a performance bonus linked to clear targets for the workshop and to the company's results. You'll have a company card for stock, repairs and supplies, with spending limits agreed with the owner. 

You'll also be on call to cover short-notice absences – any extra day you work is given back as a day in lieu, so you won't work more days across the year. 

As a senior role, the notice period is three months.

Five days a week, 9am–5pm, with weekends on a rota – around two a month, which may be split across Saturdays and Sundays. 

You must be able to reliably reach Wimbledon (SW19) at short notice.

We'll invest in you from day one:

• A structured 90-day handover: learn every course and how the forge runs, then take over the rota and stock, then run the workshop.
• Full training on our courses if you're not already a blacksmith or bladesmith.
• First aid training early on, as you'll lead health and safety.
• Welding qualifications and management training.
• A DBS check, paid for by us.
• Use of the forge for your own projects.
• Discounted courses for friends and family.
• Workplace pension.

This position offers a clear path to General Manager as the role and the business grow