Membership teams · employer guide
Membership manager job description.
Write a membership manager role around the work your organisation needs: joining, member services, engagement, renewals and reporting.
Use the editable job description and person-specification prompts. Adapt the scope for a development manager, services manager or head of membership.
01/ Define the work before the title.
Define the work before the title.
A membership manager job description explains what the role must deliver, who it reports to and what decisions it can make. Start with the member experience and the team’s actual workload, then decide whether the role needs operational, commercial or leadership responsibility.
A manager might own applications and renewals, coordinate membership campaigns or lead a member-services team. Those are different briefs. Do not use the same title to hide an unresolved split between administration, growth and strategy.
The Association of Illustrators’ published membership-manager role combines team leadership, member support, growth, events and data. By contrast, the Education Writers Association’s US vacancy states that its manager has no supervisory duties. These are two organisations’ own examples, not a universal role specification.
02/ Choose responsibilities you can support.
Choose responsibilities you can support.
Give each responsibility a boundary. If the manager owns renewal communications, specify whether finance owns invoicing and whether a communications colleague produces the copy. If the role leads recruitment, distinguish recruiting members from recruiting employees.
Include coordination as work. Membership teams depend on finance, events, marketing, education and volunteer colleagues. A job description should explain the handovers rather than implying the successful candidate personally delivers everything.
For a membership development manager, emphasise audience relationships and joining opportunities where that is the real role. For a membership services manager, emphasise service quality and operational oversight. A head of membership may own strategy and leadership; do not silently add that authority to a junior vacancy.
03/ Ask for evidence of the work.
Ask for evidence of the work.
Separate essential requirements from skills a person can learn. Define the evidence needed to do the role, rather than treating previous employment by a membership body as the only possible route. Customer-service, relationship-management or relevant operational experience may be useful, depending on the actual brief.
Acas guidance on advertising a job recommends providing a job description, person specification and information about the organisation. Use those documents to explain the role in language applicants can understand.
Choose an assessment method for each important criterion. A claim about data confidence can be explored with a short fictional exercise; a member-service requirement can be tested with a scenario. Use the interview question guide to keep questions and evidence aligned.
04/ Adapt the job description template.
Adapt the job description template.
Download the membership manager job description template. It is an editable plain-text working document with prompts for role purpose, responsibilities, authority and person specification.
Fill in the salary or remuneration information, location, work pattern, reporting line and actual recruitment process before advertising. The template deliberately supplies no invented salary range or standard growth target.
Keep the title proportionate to the scope. A role with no team, no budget and limited authority should not be described as responsible for solving every membership challenge. Record which outcomes the person can influence and which depend on colleagues or organisational decisions.
Ready to approve? · 0/6 in place
Resolve the remaining decisions.
05/ Distinguish manager and head roles.
Distinguish manager and head roles.
A head of membership job description usually needs a decision about strategic ownership: who sets priorities, owns the budget, leads the team and reports to the executive or board? These are choices for your organisation, rather than automatic entitlements that come with the title.
If the gap is temporary cover rather than a permanent redesign, use an interim membership-manager brief. If you need a permanent hire, resolve the scope before launching the search through the recruitment overview.
The first handover should cover live applications, renewal dates, member-service issues, data access and decisions awaiting approval. For the underlying operating responsibilities, see membership management.
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Purpose
Choose the problem the role owns.
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Authority
State people and budget decisions.
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Assessment
Test the agreed requirements.
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Handover
Make live work visible.
Written by Dan Keegan
06/ questions
Hiring questions answered.
What does a membership manager do?
What should a membership manager job description include?
Does a membership manager have to manage people?
Can I download a membership manager job description template?
How does a head of membership differ?
For organisations hiring staff
Start with a clear role.
Bring the role purpose, reporting line, work pattern and recruitment timetable. Discuss the hiring brief with Membership Quest before agreeing the support required.
08/ sources
Every claim, and where it came from
Guidance and role examples are identified by source type. Our worksheets are original suggestions to adapt, not legal documents or salary benchmarks.
- Association of Illustrators — Membership Manager job description, 2026Professional association · own role example
- Education Writers Association — Membership Manager vacancy, October 2026US professional association · own role example
- Acas — How to advertise a jobPublic employment advisory body · published guidance