Senior HR Manager in London

Fixed Term Opportunity (9-12 months). The Senior HR Manager is accountable for the day-to-day leadership of the HR function. Reporting to the HR Director, the role leads HR Operations and ensures high quality, legally compliant, commercially aligned HR services across the organisation. The postholder drives operational excellence, manager capability, and a great employee experience.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and develop the HR team; set clear priorities, objectives, and standards.
• Coach the team to deliver outcomes at pace.
• Act as a trusted business partner to senior leaders and managers, providing pragmatic advice aligned to business.
• Own HR dashboards and monthly reporting: headcount, turnover, absence, recruitment pipeline, ER cases, DEI indicators and service KPIs.
• Use data to identify trends, diagnose issues, and recommend actions to the HR Director and wider leadership teams.
• Act as Programme Manager for HR led initiatives and change programmes, ensuring projects are clearly scoped, prioritised, and delivered on time and within agreed resources.
• Act as Deputy to the HR Director, providing leadership cover and continuity for the HR function in their absence.
• Act as a key escalation point for complex or high risk people matters, ensuring issues are managed appropriately and consistently.
• Lead the approach to employee relations, ensuring consistent, fair and legally compliant management of issues including absence, conduct, performance, grievances, disciplinaries, restructures and consultations.
• Ensure robust case documentation, risk management, and appropriate escalation to the HR Director on high risk matters.
• Keep abreast of global employment legislation, regulatory requirements and market practices across all countries of operation, proactively identifying changes and assessing their impact on the business.
• Partner with local leaders, external advisors and legal counsel to ensure ongoing compliance with local employment laws, including contracts, terms and conditions, employee relations practices and statutory reporting.
• Coach and upskill managers in effective people management practices and early intervention.
• Drive consistent implementation of performance management processes and manager toolkits.
• Support managers with practical guidance, templates, and training that improve accountability, feedback quality and team outcomes.

Key Skills

• Generalist HR leadership experience with ownership of HR Operations.
• Strong working knowledge of UK employment law and best practice employee relations case management.
• Adopts a global mindset; builds understanding of local territory legislation and develops policies and procedures that support a global workforce.
• Proven experience in building, improving and scaling HR processes, systems and service delivery models.
• Confident stakeholder manager, able to influence leaders and coach managers at all levels.
• Strong analytical capability, with the ability to translate people data into meaningful insight and action.
• Experience leading and developing teams, setting direction, managing performance and building capability.
• Demonstrates strong commercial acumen, understanding business drivers and balancing risk with pragmatism.

Personal Specification

• Takes ownership and accountability, with the ability to prioritise effectively and deliver results.
• Acts with integrity at all times, handling sensitive matters with confidentiality and fairness.
• Adopts a coaching mindset, building manager capability and developing team performance.
• Drives continuous improvement by simplifying and standardising processes and enhancing the employee experience.
• Demonstrates resilience, remaining calm under pressure and managing competing priorities effectively.