Head of Compliance | Qualified Lawyer

Head Of Compliance (Qualified Lawyer)

Up to £100,000 dependent on experience Plus Bonus & Benefits

Yorkshire (Hybrid and Potentially Remote)

Haggerty Jaques is delighted to be instructed on an exclusive basis to recruit a Head of Compliance for this innovative law firm.

The Opportunity

This senior, high-impact role for a qualified lawyer comes at a particularly exciting stage of the organisation’s growth.

Operating at the intersection of legal services, risk management and digital innovation, the business supports a large and diverse client base across the UK. As it continues to scale, there is a clear focus on strengthening governance, enhancing operational discipline and ensuring a robust, forward-looking compliance framework.

Reporting directly to the Director of Legal Services, you will take ownership of the compliance and professional standards function – hands‑on initially but having a greater strategic focus as the business evolves.

The Role

You will lead and shape the organisation’s approach to legal compliance, risk, and governance, ensuring alignment with a complex and evolving regulatory landscape.

Over time, there is also scope to become the firm’s COLP.

Key responsibilities will include:

• Setting the strategic direction for compliance and professional standards
• Developing and maintaining policies, procedures and guidance
• Overseeing compliance monitoring, audit frameworks and reporting
• Driving a strong risk culture and regulatory adherence
• Ownership of the Risk Register and wider risk management processes
• Managing regulatory obligations (including SRA compliance, breach reporting and PI claims)
• Overseeing complaints handling and conflicts processes
• Supporting training and development initiatives alongside L&D Leading and developing the Professional Standards team

The Ideal Candidate

This role would suit either:

• a current compliance professional who previously qualified and ideally practised as a lawyer and has been doing a similar job already for a law firm or;
• a qualified lawyer with some experience of legal compliance, governance or regulatory law, who is keen to move into a specialist compliance role and is (over time) happy to hone their expertise on the job.

Whatever your background, we are looking for you to bring SRA experience to this role.

You will be able to demonstrate some or all of the following depending on your background:

• An understanding of regulatory frameworks and governance
• Experience of designing or operating compliance frameworks, audit or risk programmes
• The ability to influence and engage senior stakeholders
• A commercial, pragmatic and solutions-focused mindset
• Confidence operating in a growing, evolving business environment
• The ability to communicate complex issues in a clear and accessible way
• Previous team leadership experience (beneficial but not essential).

Why This Role?

This is a genuinely exciting opportunity to lead and develop a compliance function within a business that is doing things differently.

You will play a key role in:

• Embedding a strong compliance and risk culture
• Supporting the organisation through its next phase of growth
• Influencing the quality, governance and reputation of the wider business

The successful candidate would have an office base within Yorkshire. The business operates a hybrid working model but there is also potential for the successful candidate to work remotely for the majority of the time, with more occasional office presence once they are properly embedded within the business.

Haggerty Jaques is exclusively retained by the business and any agency or direct candidate applications or enquiries will be forwarded to Haggerty Jaques for consideration.

Any references to PQE are provided purely as a guide and should not deter candidates with the relevant skills and experience from applying.

Please note that Haggerty Jaques only advertises vacancies through established legal and professional recruitment channels. Vacancies appearing elsewhere may not be authorised and details may be inaccurate or out of date. To ensure your application reaches us, please apply via the method outlined in this advert.