Assistant Manager School Facilities – GEMS Education

This Assistant Manager School Facilities role is based within a GEMS Education school in Dubai, supporting the facilities function that keeps the school’s physical environment safe, functional and well maintained. It’s an operational management role that blends procurement, vendor coordination and day-to-day facilities oversight.

Day to day, the role involves managing procurement orders in line with GEMS’s procurement policies and approval processes, ensuring timely delivery of goods and services needed for facilities upkeep, supporting maintenance and compliance activities, and upholding the standards of excellence defined in GEMS’s Core Values across all facilities-related work.

It suits someone with facilities, procurement or operations management experience, who is comfortable working within structured approval processes and coordinating with multiple vendors and internal stakeholders to keep a school’s physical environment running smoothly.

Working within GEMS Education’s established procurement and operational framework gives this role access to proven processes and standards, while still requiring genuine day-to-day problem-solving to keep a busy school facility functioning well.

A well-run school facilities function is foundational to a safe and functional learning environment, and procurement delays or poorly managed vendor relationships can directly disrupt classroom readiness, maintenance schedules, or compliance requirements that schools are held to. The Assistant Manager School Facilities role ensures that goods and services needed for the school's physical upkeep arrive on time and within GEMS's procurement standards, which protects the school from the kind of avoidable disruption that comes from facilities issues going unresolved. Because this role operates within GEMS Education's broader procurement policies, consistent, compliant execution at the school level also protects the group from procurement risk and helps maintain cost discipline across its network of schools. Facilities quality is also something parents and regulators notice directly, from building maintenance to safety standards, so this role has a real, if often invisible, effect on how a school is perceived and how it performs against inspection standards. Getting facilities operations right frees up school leadership to focus on academic priorities rather than operational firefighting.

Working in facilities and procurement management within a large school group like GEMS Education builds genuinely transferable operations management skills: vendor coordination, procurement process discipline, and the practical problem-solving needed to keep a complex physical environment running smoothly day to day. The role offers hands-on experience managing budgets and approval processes within a structured corporate framework, which is valuable experience for anyone building a career in facilities, operations or procurement management more broadly, not just within education. Working across a large network of schools also provides visibility into how a major organisation standardises operational processes at scale, which is useful experience for anyone aiming toward a Facilities Manager, Operations Manager, or broader procurement leadership role. GEMS Education's structured Core Values framework and established processes also give early-career operations professionals a strong foundation in how disciplined, policy-driven operations work in a large organisation, which is a good training ground before moving into more senior or less structured operational environments. It's a solid, practical step for someone building a long-term career in facilities or operations management. It's also worth noting that experience gained in a role like this tends to read well on a CV precisely because it shows a candidate can operate within a structured, process-driven organization, which many employers specifically look for when hiring for their next level of responsibility.

• Experience in facilities management, procurement or operations, ideally within education or a similarly service-oriented environment
• Understanding of procurement processes, purchase order management and vendor coordination
• Strong organisational skills for managing multiple facilities-related requests and timelines
• Good communication skills for coordinating with vendors, school leadership and internal departments
• Commitment to upholding GEMS Education’s Core Values and standards of excellence
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience in facilities, operations or a related field
• Comfort working within structured corporate procurement and approval processes