Beard was appointed as youth team coach at League One club Crawley Town in February 2012. He spent two years coaching in the youth set-up at Crawley, before starting up his own academy in 2014, creating the Love The Ball (LTB) Sussex Academy. The LTB Sussex Academy joined together with Southern Combination Premier Division side Loxwood ahead of the 2014–15 season, providing a direct route for academy players to play first-team semi-professional football. After a year serving as head coach at the LTB Sussex Academy, Beard took over as manager of the Loxwood first-team in 2015. Half of his academy players were subsequently promoted to the Loxwood first-team. He combined the role of first-team manager at Loxwood alongside coaching the U15 and U16 sides at Brighton & Hove Albion. In March 2017, Beard left his role at Loxwood with immediate effect, due to a change in coaching responsibilities at Brighton. Two months later, in May 2017, he was promoted to U18 academy coach at Brighton.