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Assistant Manager - Recruiting Now
Key Information
Location: Edinburgh Old Town
Role: Assistant Manager in an independently-owned, leading visitor attraction
Team: Around 20 staff, working with three managers and the business owner
Hours: Full-time (37.5 hours per week), including evenings and weekends
Salary: £32,000 per year
Ideal for:
- An experienced professional ready to take on a broad, hands-on management role, or
- A motivated graduate looking to accelerate into management, gaining varied experience with real responsibility from the outset.
About the Role
The Chocolatarium is a small business with around 20 staff, and you will join a management team of three managers and the business owner working together to run the attraction.
This is a varied and responsible role, ideal for someone keen to develop experience across multiple areas of management in a dynamic tourism and visitor attraction environment, with the opportunity to build a broad range of management skills within a growing business.
The ideal candidate is a brilliant communicator who is warm, approachable, and highly organised, with a proven track record of delivering exceptional customer service, ideally, but not necessarily, within the visitor attraction sector.
You will be confident directing and managing staff, setting clear expectations, and maintaining a supportive but accountable team environment while ensuring visitors enjoy an unforgettable experience.
As Assistant Manager, you will be trusted to take (or grow into) responsibility for operational leadership during your shifts, ensuring the attraction runs smoothly and maintaining high standards across the team.
Depending on your experience, you’ll either step straight into leading key areas of the business, or be supported to quickly build the skills and confidence needed to do so. In both cases, you’ll have the opportunity to take ownership of meaningful responsibilities and contribute to the growth of the business.
Core Responsibilities
These responsibilities are a central part of the Assistant Manager role and will be carried out throughout your time in the position.
Duty Manager
Take responsibility for the smooth running of the attraction when acting as Duty Manager. This includes coordinating staff during the day, adapting rotas to cover last-minute absences or operational issues, handling problems as they arise, and ensuring excellent visitor service throughout the day.
Delivering Tours
Lead fun, engaging, and informative tours that consistently earn 5-star reviews. Maintaining our exceptional visitor ratings is a core part of this role. You will also assist with preparing and resetting tour areas to ensure a smooth and professional operation.
Staff Supervision, Training & Recruitment
Assist with recruiting, onboarding, training, and supervising a team of guides. Help ensure staff understand expectations, develop their skills, and contribute to a supportive and professional working environment.
Team Leadership & Performance
Maintain high standards across the team by directing staff during shifts, allocating tasks, and providing constructive feedback. Ensure company procedures are followed and that guides deliver consistently high-quality visitor experiences while working efficiently.
Operations & Compliance
Ensure staff follow company procedures and maintain high standards of cleanliness and food safety, health and safety standards and visitor care.
Opening & Closing Procedures
Help oversee daily opening and closing procedures to ensure the attraction is ready for visitors and closed securely and efficiently.
Reporting & Communication
Share feedback, operational issues, and improvement ideas with the management team to support the smooth running and development of the business.
Business Improvements & Development
Suggest and help implement improvements that increase revenue, reduce costs, or enhance the visitor experience. This may include contributing ideas for the development of new tours and experiences, as well as new gift shop products.
Shared / Rotating Responsibilities
These responsibilities are shared between the management team and allocated between managers at different times depending on the needs of the business and the skills and interests of individual managers.
When responsible for one of these areas, the Assistant Manager is expected to take ownership of that function, ensure it runs smoothly, and identify opportunities for improvement.
Applicants are encouraged to highlight their relevant skills and interests during the recruitment process, as these may influence which areas of responsibility they take on.
Staff Scheduling & Rotas
Take responsibility for planning and managing staff rotas in advance to ensure appropriate staffing levels for tours, visitor flow, and retail operations, including coordinating holiday requests.
Retail Operations
Take responsibility for supporting the smooth running of the gift shop and retail area, including serving customers, maintaining stock levels, managing retail product ordering, and ensuring the shop is presented to a high standard.
Booking Management
Take responsibility for managing booking enquiries via email and social media, handling group bookings and special events, responding to customer issues, and ensuring a high level of customer satisfaction.
Tour Supplies & Ordering
Take responsibility for ensuring tours and experiences are fully supplied, including monitoring stock levels and ordering required materials.
Marketing & Communications
Take responsibility for supporting marketing initiatives including social media, promotions, and communication with partners.
E-commerce (Shopify)
Take responsibility for supporting the operation and development of our Shopify online store, including updating products, managing content, monitoring orders, and identifying opportunities to improve online sales.
Design & Promotional Materials
Contribute to the design and production of promotional materials, posters, products and packaging, and other visual content used in marketing and retail.
Essential Skills & Experience
- Ability to direct, support, and manage staff, setting clear expectations and maintaining a positive and accountable team environment.
- Strong organisational and operational skills, with the ability to coordinate people, priorities, and resources in a busy visitor attraction.
- Ability to remain calm under pressure, make decisions, and resolve operational issues during busy periods.
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the confidence to interact with visitors, colleagues, and partners.
- A flexible and adaptable mindset, essential for working in a dynamic and growing small business.
- A proactive, can-do attitude and willingness to take responsibility for areas of the business.
- A proven track record of delivering excellent customer service, ideally (but not necessarily) in the visitor attraction, hospitality, tourism, or retail sector.
- Ability to deliver engaging and informative tours or presentations that create memorable visitor experiences.
- Excellent computer literacy, including email, booking systems, spreadsheets, and online communication.
Ability to work full-time on site (37.5 hours per week) including evenings and weekends.
Salary & Benefits
Salary: £32,000 per annum
Hours: Full-time, 37.5 hours per week, including evenings and weekends
There is scope for salary progression as the role develops and responsibilities grow.
Staff discount on chocolate and shop products.
To Apply
If you are excited by this opportunity and believe you have the skills, experience, and enthusiasm for the role, we would love to hear from you.
Please send your CV and a short covering letter to hr@chocolatarium.co.uk, and complete the Assistant Manager Application Form.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Chocolate Tour Guide - Recruiting Now!
Tour Guide Roles
The best Tour Guide job in Edinburgh for friendly, enthusiastic and hard-working chocolate lovers! Share the joys of chocolate with visitors from the UK and around the world as a Chocolate Tour Guide at one of Edinburgh’s newest attractions (voted #1 best food experience in the UK 2023, #4 in the world 2024 and #1 Food Attraction in the UK 2025 Trip Advisor)! You’ll join our team of friendly, hardworking and sociable Guides and become an expert in all things chocolate! The role particularly suits Teachers or Activity Leaders with an engaging personality, Actors or anyone with a performing background as well as friendly and outgoing college or uni students from any background.The Job
The rate of pay is £13.75/hour plus tips and shifts are usually around 7 – 9 hours long with some shorter shifts available. Working times vary but are usually between 8am and 10.30pm and often include weekends. Most guides work between 2 and 4 shifts per week.
Some Guides work all year round and other Guides are seasonal staff who work mostly in the busy holiday periods and we are currently recruiting for May/June start dates.
The role of Chocolate Tour Guide involves:
- guiding tours (based in the premises only). The tours may be for tourists, primary school groups, language school groups, children’s birthday parties, corporate groups, student groups, hen parties, etc.
- serving customers in the gift shop after the tour
- preparing before the tour
- cleaning and tidying up after the tours (chocolate is messy!)
The training process will involve getting to know, and becoming an expert in chocolate.
Full, paid training will be given.
What we are looking for
The ideal candidate will be an enthusiastic and warm person who can manage groups of people and provide wonderful, unforgettable experiences for visitors while being a friendly, supportive and hard-working colleague.
Essential
The ideal candidate will have:
- experience in a customer-facing role
- adaptability and flexibility
- passion and enthusiasm for providing unforgettable visitor experiences and excellent customer care
- passion and enthusiasm for chocolate
- reliability, reliability, reliability
- hard-working and able to clean/tidy up quickly and thoroughly
- a positive, can-do attitude
- a well-presented appearance
- a C1 or above level of English
Desirable
It is an advantage if:
- you have worked as a Tour Guide
- you have performing experience
- you have worked as a Group or Activity Leader
- you have worked as an English Teacher
- you have worked with children
- you speak a second language
- you have experience in a retail environment
To Apply
- First, answer the Guide Application Questionnaire. The questions take between 5 and 10 minutes and help us to be able to quickly and fairly compare candidates.
- Send your CV to hr@chocolatarium.co.uk.
When we are actively recruiting, we will write “Recruiting now” in the job title above. Outside of these times, please complete the questionnaire and send your CV so when we do start actively recruiting, we can contact you.
Good luck with your application!
Equal Opportunities
We recognise that it is unlawful, unethical and against the best interests of both The Chocolatarium and individuals for an employer to discriminate against a candidate for a job because of their age, disability, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity in any part of the recruitment process. The Chocolatarium will treat all applications fairly and equally and adhere to the Equal Opportunities legislation.