UK Talent Lead at Bolt Pharmacy — On-site, £75k-£100k/yr inc equity in Blackburn

As UK Talent Lead at Bolt Pharmacy, you are responsible for raising the talent density of the company, protecting a high‑performance culture, and building scalable People Ops systems that enable exceptional people to do their best work. This is not a traditional HR role. Your mandate is to actively recruit top talent in the UK and ensure that every part of the operation is never blocked by lack of headcount, weak hiring, poor onboarding, or avoidable people‑process gaps. You will manage relationships with locum agencies, stay close to leadership forecasting, and work directly with senior leaders.

Key Responsibilities

• Talent acquisition: Own end‑to‑end hiring across Bolt Pharmacy – build pipelines, craft sharp job adverts, run tight processes, coordinate interviews, drive offers, and close exceptional candidates across all functions.
• Sourcing and pipeline building: Build repeatable sourcing engines for critical roles. Map talent markets, work referrals, proactively outreach candidates, and keep warm pipelines ready before the business is desperate.
• Operationalized onboarding: Make sure new hires become productive quickly through strong onboarding.
• People operations: Build and run the core people systems: onboarding, offboarding, contracts, employee records, payroll coordination, equity administration, HRIS/ATS hygiene, compliance workflows, and documentation.
• Performance: Help managers retain strong performers, identify high‑potential people, and address underperformance quickly and fairly.
• Culture and standards: Reinforce high standards, urgency, ownership, radical candour, care, and low tolerance for mediocrity across every new hire and team.
• Workforce planning: Stay close to growth plans, capacity needs, seasonal spikes, and locum requirements so headcount never becomes the bottleneck.
• Locum and agency management: Own relationships with locum agencies and recruitment partners.

Must‑Haves

• Operator: You are energised by being close to the work. You detest bureaucratic, back‑office HR roles.
• Talent acquisition: You have hired strong people across multiple functions and can point to candidates you hired who materially raised the bar.
• Judgment: You know how to spot real ability, drive, and ownership. You are not easily fooled by credentials, titles, or corporate jargon.
• Sourcing chops: You can build pipeline yourself, not just manage inbound applications or agencies. You prefer hard‑charging outbound headhunting and know this is the only way to get A players.
• People ops: You have owned or helped build core people systems such as onboarding, offboarding, contracts, employee records, HRIS/ATS hygiene, payroll coordination, documentation, and compliance workflows.
• Performance: You are comfortable helping managers navigate performance issues, spot retention risks, and jump onto underperformance.
• Ownership: You have helped build or protect a high‑performance culture where strong people feel challenged and supported.
• Sharpness: You are organised, detail‑oriented, and able to build simple systems that enable the org to move faster without getting sloppy.
• Leadership trust: You are comfortable working directly with senior leaders, including challenging them when needed.
• UK employment law: You understand the fundamentals of UK employment law, including contracts, employee records, right‑to‑work checks, and people‑process compliance.

Nice to Have

• Startup or scale‑up experience: You have worked in a high‑growth environment where priorities change quickly, the bar keeps rising, and nobody hands you a playbook.
• Agentic: You are a doer. You have been pulled into important problems, taken ownership outside your lane, and figured things out without waiting for permission.
• Regulated experience: You have worked in a heavily regulated environment where sloppy people processes create real risk. This doesn’t scare you.
• Systems thinker: You look past the immediate people problem and fix the system that created it.
• AI‑native: You use AI tools to move faster, improve quality, reduce admin, and increase your own output.
• Clockspeed: You can get dangerous in a new area quickly.
• Range: You can run several important workstreams at once without dropping the ball.
• Networker: You already know exceptional people you would be excited to bring into Bolt.

Compensation & Benefits

Compensation: £75k‑£100k / yr, including equity. Benefits include comprehensive medical insurance, personal development budget, personal wellness budget, GLP‑1 membership (if clinically appropriate), health coaching, work coaching, and Macbook & work‑from‑home equipment as needed.

How to Apply

Apply on Ashby here.