Talent Business Partner

Location: Derby - Head Office

Contract Type: Fixed Term (12 months Mat leave cover, 34 hours per week)

Salary: Circa £35,000 dependent on experience (pro-rata)

Closing Date: Friday 2nd October 12noon

Reference: 0482-26

We are proud to be One Team at East Midlands Railway (EMR). We are passionate about keeping people safe, delighting our customers, doing the right thing and putting customers at the heart of our sustainable railway for the East Midlands. With over 2,600 employees, our people are the reason we are so successful, and our employees make a crucial contribution to this.

Ten times accredited as a Top Employer and Gold accredited for Inclusive Employers Standards, we value our people and are dedicated to making sure that everybody feels empowered to bring their authentic self to work.

At EMR we want to proactively embrace diversity across our workforce and recognise that we are under-represented in some areas. We’re therefore taking positive steps to promote a positive and inclusive culture and we welcome applications from everyone to help us better represent our communities.

We have an exciting opportunity to join #TeamEMR as a Talent Business Partner working within our Organisational Development Team. Based in our head office in Derby with the necessity to work flexibly across our network, this role will provide specialist recruitment services to the business. The Talent Business Partner will ensure the right candidates are placed into the right roles, at the right time. This role is vital in ensuring service critical roles are not vacant and ensuring a constant commitment to diversity and inclusion through their work.

Key Roles and Responsibilities:

• Partner closely with managers to understand hiring requirements and assist proactive recruitment planning.
• Create recruitment campaigns that ensure EMR attract excellent and diverse talent, keeping up to date with the latest best practices and recruitment trends.
• Design and continuously improve assessment methods.
• Deliver candidate assessment events that are professional and ensure candidates have a great experience and deliver psychometric testing to the required standards.
• Attend leadership meetings in areas of responsibility to drive workforce planning, seeking proactive management of key roles, building talent pools where appropriate.
• Seek out innovative candidate attraction channels, including attendance of events and maximising online strategy.
• Work with external stakeholders for candidate attraction, psychometric testing and occupational assessments and agencies for hard to fill/niche vacancies.
• Analyse recruitment data to ensure continuous improvement of all activities.

About You:

We’re looking for a confident and capable individual who brings:

• Knowledge of key employment law legislation.
• Experience in organising and hosting face-to-face volume assessment centres.
• Articulate communication skills, with the ability to coach, influence and negotiate, whilst building long‑term relationships and maintain partnerships and collaboration.
• Excellent organisation and planning skills, able to work under pressure effectively to meet deadlines.
• A team player who can work across their functions with all levels of management.

As well as a competitive salary, we’ll also offer you:

• 32 days annual leave (including bank holidays), rising to 34 days after 2 years of service (pro rata).
• Free travel on East Midlands Railway and other train companies operated by Transport UK.
• 75% discount on other national rail train companies, including for partners and dependants.
• Discounted friends and family tickets on the EMR network.
• Various personal development and progression opportunities.

This position is based in our Derby Head Office with travel across the network. We've adopted a flexible hybrid working model that creates the opportunity to work in your own way at home but also provides great spaces for in‑person collaboration.

Please note we may close this advert sooner than the advertised date based on application numbers.

Provisional interview date: Friday 9th October 2026.

Important Notice to Candidate:

AI Use Monitoring: Please be advised that all responses to questions on this application form will be carefully monitored for indications of AI assistance. It is important to us that you are being your authentic self so please base your answers on your personal knowledge and experience. Any detected use of AI-generated content will result in disqualification from the application process. We value integrity and transparency in all applications and appreciate your cooperation in maintaining these standards.

If you're successful in this role, you'll be expected to support our frontline colleagues at some points throughout the year. This might be undertaking safety critical work, for which you'll receive training, but it could just be helping out with Customer Service when our stations are busy. We're One Team, and that means our managers step up for the frontline, not just manage from a distance. Supporting frontline colleagues is part of our DNA at EMR.

We welcome applicants from diverse backgrounds, we promote equal opportunities for all. East Midlands Railway is a non-discriminatory employer committed to the recruitment and promotion of all on the basis of ability and merit irrespective of disability, race, gender, health, social class, sexual preference, marital status, nationality, religion, employment status or age. We’ll treat your application fairly and assess you for the job based on merit and skills.