HR Business Partner Natural History Unit

JOB BAND: E

CONTRACT TYPE: Permanent

DEPARTMENT: HR

LOCATION: London Television Centre or Bristol – Hybrid

PROPOSED SALARY RANGE: Up to £70,000 plus London Weighting (where applicable), depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience plus an on-target bonus of 15%, depending on company performance.

The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.

We are BBC Studios, a globally renowned media company borne of the BBC. We make and distribute the world’s most sought-after TV, audio and digital content. Our ambition is to be the home of the most powerful, entertaining, and inspiring stories for people all around the world.

Purpose of the Role

Be part of a dynamic, collaborative HR community driving meaningful change across BBC Studios. You’ll partner with influential leaders, shape divisional people strategies, and play a hands-on role in delivering an exceptional employee experience. This is a chance to influence transformation at scale while growing your expertise in a supportive, forward-thinking environment. This HRBP role supports leaders across the Natural History Unit (NHU) to deliver impactful people solutions aligned with divisional goals. You'll drive cultural and organisational change, advise leaders using data and best practice, and translate strategy into practical action. Reporting to the Head of HR, you’ll help build an engaging, high-performance environment while ensuring a consistent, future-focused people experience.

Why join the team

BBC Studios’ Natural History Unit (NHU) is a world-leading producer of natural history content, behind some of the most globally successful factual programming of the past decade. Renowned for innovation, creativity and world-class storytelling, the NHU brings the wonders of the natural world to audiences through cutting-edge technology, science and exceptional filmmaking. From landmark series such as Planet Earth II, Blue Planet II and Frozen Planet II, to live productions and children’s content, the NHU sets the global standard for quality and craft. With a growing international portfolio, the team partners with major broadcasters and platforms including BBC, Apple TV+, NBCUniversal and National Geographic. Working within the NHU means supporting a high-performing, creative and globally connected business, where innovation, collaboration and excellence are at the heart of everything we do.

Your Key Responsibilities and Impact

• Partner with leaders across functions/divisions to deliver people plans aligned to wider organisational priorities.
• Work closely with the Head of HR on divisional people strategy and local implementation.
• Support Production Management in planning workforce needs across multiple titles, including forecasting demand for freelancers, fixed-term roles and specialist creative talent.
• Coach and advise leaders using insight, data, and tools from Centres of Expertise.
• Operate with autonomy to design effective, best-practice people solutions.
• Deliver an excellent people experience through projects and pan-BBC initiatives.
• Support leaders to maintain psychologically safe, inclusive and healthy working environments across editorial, production management, technical and location-based teams.
• Lead or support transformation, change, and continuous improvement activities.
• Develop and support the wider HR team, including coaching and task-managing junior colleagues.

Your Skills and Experience

• Significant experience leading organisational and cultural change, with a strong focus on talent, performance, or capability.
• Ability to balance long-term strategic thinking with hands-on operational delivery.
• Strong coaching skills and confidence partnering with senior leaders to develop talent and drive performance.
• Skilled in using data and insights to shape solutions across culture, talent, and organisational effectiveness.
• Experience working with unions and managing complex stakeholder environments.
• Appreciation of the realities of unscripted production, including tight editorial deadlines, rapidly scaling teams, remote/location working and multi-title oversight.

Desired but not required

• Direct HR partnering experience within a production environment or exposure to the media, broadcasting, or creative industries.
• Exposure to environments with a high proportion of contingent or project-based workers, ideally within factual, unscripted or creative settings.

If you can bring some of these skills and experience, along with transferable strengths, we’d love to hear from you and encourage you to apply as soon as possible. We appreciate your interest in this position and understand how important this opportunity is to you. Due to the high volume of interest we may need to close the application period earlier than anticipated. This step is necessary to ensure we can provide a high level of attention and service to all applicants. Thank you for your understanding.

Disclaimer

This job description is a written statement of the essential characteristics of the job, with its principal accountabilities, incorporating a note of the skills, knowledge and experience required for a satisfactory level of performance. This is not intended to be a complete, detailed account of all aspects of the duties involved.

Please note: If you were to be offered this role, the BBC will conduct Employment screening checks which include Reference checks; Eligibility to work checks; and if applicable to the role, Safeguarding and Adverse media/Social media checks. Any offer made is conditional on these checks being satisfactory. Before your start date, you may need to disclose any unspent convictions or police charges, in line with our Recruitment policy. This allows us to discuss any support you may need and assess any risks. Failure to disclose may result in the withdrawal of your offer.

Redeployment

The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC and they will be given priority consideration ahead of other applicants. Priority consideration means for those employees seeking redeployment their application will be considered alongside anyone else at risk of redundancy, prior to any individuals being considered who are not at risk.