Director of Talent Acquisition, Strategic Workforce Planning and Resourcing in Bristol

This is a senior leadership role with responsibility for shaping and delivering the CMS approach to talent acquisition, strategic workforce planning and resourcing. Working closely with the Chief People Officer, partners and business leaders, you’ll translate business priorities into practical workforce and hiring plans, helping CMS secure the people, skills and capabilities needed to support its growth strategy.

You’ll lead the full talent acquisition remit, including lateral partner recruitment, experienced hires and early careers, as well as talent pipelines, employer brand and attraction, selection and assessment, candidate experience, recruitment technology, data and governance. You’ll also help shape how CMS approaches resourcing more broadly, considering how permanent talent, flexible resources, alternative delivery models and AI-enabled solutions can support productivity, client service and sustainable growth.

What you’ll do

• Lead talent acquisition: Set the direction for talent acquisition across lateral partners, experienced hires and early careers, aligning hiring activity and priorities with the firm’s business strategy.
• Develop talent pipelines: Build sustainable and diverse pipelines for priority skills and roles, creating stronger access to talent for both current and future business needs.
• Shape employer brand and attraction: Develop the firm’s employer brand, employee value proposition and attraction approach, using market insight and targeted activity to reach relevant and diverse talent.
• Lead lateral partner recruitment: Work with firm leadership and practice groups to understand strategic priorities, identify relevant markets and talent, develop relationships with prospective lateral partners and support appointments that contribute to growth.
• Improve recruitment effectiveness: Develop inclusive and effective selection, assessment and hiring processes, with a consistent focus on candidate and partner experience, quality of hire and efficient decision-making.
• Develop the resourcing strategy: Shape an agile approach spanning direct hiring, lateral partner recruitment, contingent labour, outsourcing and alternative resource models. You’ll also contribute to the firm’s evolving thinking about how human talent, flexible resources and AI-enabled solutions can work together.
• Lead strategic workforce planning: Translate business strategy and anticipated demand into workforce, capability and hiring plans, balancing immediate priorities with longer-term requirements.
• Provide market intelligence and insight: Use labour-market data, competitor intelligence, recruitment analytics and workforce insight to identify talent opportunities and risks and provide clear recommendations to senior stakeholders.
• Lead early careers recruitment: Shape recruitment across the firm’s early careers programmes, balancing current business requirements with the need to build sustainable future talent.
• Lead and develop the talent acquisition team: Set clear priorities and expectations, create alignment across the different areas of talent acquisition and maintain delivery through changing business priorities.
• Strengthen governance and supplier management: Maintain appropriate recruitment governance and oversight of external suppliers, using data and insight to assess effectiveness, cost and outcomes.

What you’ll bring

• Significant senior-level experience leading an end-to-end talent acquisition function within a complex, commercially focused organisation, together with experience in strategic workforce planning and resourcing.
• The ability to translate business strategy into practical workforce requirements, capability plans and hiring priorities.
• Experience developing workforce and resourcing strategies that support growth, productivity and organisational resilience.
• Leadership experience across a broad talent acquisition remit, which may include lateral partner or senior-level recruitment, experienced hires and early careers.
• Experience developing sustainable and diverse talent pipelines, alongside employer brand, employee value proposition and attraction strategies.
• A strong understanding of recruitment, selection and assessment, with experience improving hiring effectiveness while supporting fair and consistent decision-making and an inclusive candidate experience.
• The ability to use recruitment technology, workforce data, labour-market information and recruitment analytics to identify risks, inform decisions and provide clear recommendations.
• Strong commercial judgement, including the ability to consider workforce cost, utilisation, productivity, service quality and longer-term capability needs together.
• The credibility and influencing skills to work effectively with partners, senior business leaders and colleagues across HR and the wider organisation.
• Experience leading teams, setting direction and priorities, and maintaining momentum when balancing multiple or changing demands.
• Strong governance and supplier-management capability, together with sound judgement and discretion when handling sensitive workforce and organisational information.
• An understanding of how permanent talent, flexible resources and AI-enabled solutions can contribute to future workforce and resourcing models.

Desirable experience

• A CIPD qualification, relevant postgraduate qualification, or equivalent professional experience in talent acquisition, HR, workforce planning, organisational development or resourcing.
• Experience in a legal, professional services, partnership, matrix or similarly complex organisation.
• Experience designing or embedding resource-management or utilisation approaches within fee-earning or project-based teams.
• Experience developing resourcing models that incorporate approaches such as direct hiring, partner recruitment, contingent labour, outsourcing or alternative resourcing.
• Experience using workforce planning tools, HR systems, recruitment technology or data dashboards to support workforce decision-making.
• Knowledge of labour-market trends, future skills, talent availability and competitor activity relevant to legal or professional services.

What’s in it for you?

We want to reward you today and help you plan for tomorrow. We appreciate that everyone is different, therefore we have designed a benefits system that offers choice and flexibility based on individual needs and lifestyles. To name a few, these include:

• Competitive basic salary (reviewed annually)
• Flexible, hybrid working policy
• Generous bonus scheme
• Up to 25 days holiday (rising to 28 days with service)
• Holiday exchange scheme
• Private medical insurance
• Enhanced parental leave
• Reasonable adjustments and accommodation for disabled talent in accordance with the Equality Act 2010.

If you would like to read more information regarding our range of benefits, please visit our Rewards & Benefits page on our website.

Please note that we have a preferred agency panel in place. Only applications submitted via the portal at the point of instruction will be accepted.