Head of Commercial Operations & Contracts in Birmingham

Birmingham Full-Time On-site

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Head of Commercial Operations and Contracts

A newly created opportunity to shape operational excellence across a leading UK law firm.

As a Top 50 law firm with 13 offices across England and Wales, we are continuing to grow and evolve. We have created the new role of Head of Commercial Operations and Contracts to bring together commercial oversight, operational performance and service excellence across our firm.

This is an opportunity for an experienced commercial and operational leader to come in, make the role their own and have a visible impact. You will shape how our commercial and operational services develop, drive performance across multiple locations and help create a consistently positive experience for both our clients and our people. Combining strategic thinking with problem solving and hands-on delivery, you will have the scope to challenge established ways of working, build strong partnerships and turn commercial and operational insight into tangibly valuable change.

The opportunity

Reporting to the Business Director, you will lead the commercial management of our operational supplier portfolio and overhead expenditure, while providing direction to our operations and office support services. Your remit will span contract negotiation strategy, supplier performance, cost and value analysis, facilities and front-of-house services, archiving, document handling and firmwide operational modernisation and improvement.

You will work closely with senior leaders, Heads of Office, Head of Costs and colleagues across Finance, IT, Risk and Compliance, Information Security and Estates. You will also lead and develop teams working across our locations, creating clear standards while retaining the flexibility needed to support the different requirements of each office.

What you will do

Shape and deliver a firmwide operating model for facilities, office support and client-facing services.
Lead the commercial management of supplier contracts and overhead expenditure, from market review and tendering through to negotiation, renewal and exit.
Use financial, operational and service data to identify opportunities to improve quality, resilience, efficiency and value for money.
Set clear service standards and drive consistent performance across all 13 offices.
Build constructive, commercially focused supplier relationships and address underperformance, risk and outstanding actions.
Lead operational improvement programmes that simplify processes, resolve legacy issues and make effective use of workflow automation, OCR and AI-enabled technology bringing all those teams impacted together to collaborate effectively.
Ensure front-of-house and office services create a professional, welcoming and consistent experience for clients, visitors and colleagues.
Develop capable, connected teams with clear priorities, accountability and a shared commitment to service excellence.

About You

About you

You will be an experienced commercially savvy and inspiring operational leader with the credibility to influence senior stakeholders and the energy to turn strategy into outcomes. You will bring strong supplier, contract and cost management experience, together with a successful record of creatively solving problems to improve services, modernising processes and lead change across multiple locations.

Collaborative and pragmatic, you will be confident setting direction, challenging constructively and bringing teams and stakeholders together around shared goals. Experience in professional services, a regulated organisation or another confidential environment would be particularly valuable, as would experience across facilities, office services, front of house, records, archiving, post or document handling.

Why join us?

Because this is a newly created role, you will not be stepping into a fixed template. You will have the opportunity to define the approach, establish what excellent looks like and build a lasting operational culture that supports our clients, our people and the continued growth of the firm. For someone who enjoys creating clarity, raising standards and delivering visible change, this is a platform to make a genuine firmwide difference.

If you are ready to take ownership of a broad, influential role and help shape the next stage of our operational journey, we would be delighted to hear from you.

About Us

Benefits of working with us:

Private Medical Insurance
Sight tests / Glasses discounts
Bonus scheme
Electric vehicle scheme
Scottish Widows Pension Scheme
28 days annual leave (plus public holidays)
Happy People / Perks at Work benefits portal
Cycle to Work scheme
Life Assurance
1/3 gym membership contribution
Flu vaccinations

Is HCR the smart move for you?
HCR suits people who love a challenge and want to work in an environment where careers thrive on the back of hard work and personal merit. Our people enjoy feeling part of something bigger than themselves, and whilst our clients drive our development, it is our people who bring their energy, enthusiasm, and entrepreneurial mindsets together to solve problems and help our clients succeed.

Why HCR people love their jobs
Our people tell us they enjoy working on good quality, interesting matters from a wide variety of our clients, because they get the experience they want to develop their careers. We will give you responsibility early, the mandate to make things happen and we’ll back your good ideas. Our “Passion for People” lives and breathes every day throughout the firm as our peoples’ energy and sense of fun create a warm environment in which to thrive.

What career progression will HCR offer you?
HCR’s growth constantly creates opportunities for people who want to go places and make a difference, your career plan can become part of our growth plan. At HCR you can expect to work with friendly, energetic, ambitious people, who love getting stuck into a client problem, and enjoy celebrating a good outcome. Our people value the sense of community provided by the individual personality of each office and the collegiate approach across all our service and sector teams.

What does HCR believe, achieve and stand for?
As a Times Best Law firm, among the UK Top 50, we provide the full range of services that you would expect to organisations, business leaders and individuals. However, in our mission to give everyone the opportunity to experience a different kind of legal service we take an entrepreneurial approach. We’re flexible and responsive to the needs of our clients, delivering the best outcomes for them. We have more than 1000 lawyers and support staff, including more than 180 partners, and have been awarded the Law Society’s Lexcel quality mark in recognition of our compliance and client care standards.

With 13 offices in England and Wales our well-established presence stretches from west to east, ensuring clients can access a full-service legal offering no matter where they’re located. We’ve expanded significantly across all our regions, and are well-respected as a regional firm with a strong London and international presence.

With solid connections in the communities we work in, and a track record of delivering legal advice to businesses and individuals throughout the areas we base ourselves in, our clients continue to value our approach to providing legal advice, in the way they need, when they need it.

As HCR is an equal opportunities employer, we don’t just accept differences, we celebrate them. We want to attract a diverse and ambitious workforce that reflects all backgrounds and skills to create a workplace that is supportive and inclusive, recognises and nurtures talent, and which works together to achieve the best outcome for our clients. We are privileged to be an armed forces-friendly organisation.

We also want you to achieve your absolute best during the recruitment process. Please let us know of any changes we can make at any point that will help support your application. If this opportunity sounds of interest to you, please make an application and submit your CV.

A note for recruitment agencies – The HCR Resourcing Team is responsible for recruitment across the firm, and where possible will use direct hiring methods. We do work with a Preferred Supplier List, and where appropriate, we will release vacancies to those agencies who we deem most appropriate to support us. Only those agencies will be invited to submit candidates via our recruitment portal. Any speculative or unsolicited CVs sent to any employee or Partner of HCR will not be considered an introduction, and no fees will be applicable. Furthermore, we retain the right to pursue these candidates without query of ownership