Management Development Specialist in Swindon

Talent & Capability Specialist Location: Swindon Hybrid 3 days office / 2 days home We are partnering with a successful, growing international business to recruit a Talent & Capability Specialist for a newly created 12-month fixed-term contract. This is not a traditional Learning & Development role. It is an opportunity to take ownership of a genuinely business-critical piece of work: understanding the skills the organisation has today, identifying the capabilities it will need tomorrow, and building the frameworks, systems and development pathways that connect the two. Its next challenge is to ensure that knowledge and capability is understood, developed and translated into clear opportunities for people to grow with the organisation. Alongside the implementation of a new HR system, you will have the opportunity to build a business-wide skills and capability framework, establish meaningful career pathways and create a much clearer connection between roles, skills, learning, performance, talent and future workforce requirements. The hiring manager's ambition is clear: within the first 12 months, the organisation needs a defined skills taxonomy and career/behavioural framework that gives employees and managers a common language around what good looks like and how people develop towards it. Creating a clear skills taxonomy and common language across different functions, roles and levels. Building clear career and development pathways that help employees understand how they can progress. Connecting role requirements, skills, learning and workplace application rather than treating development as a series of standalone training interventions. Supporting the implementation of the skills, development and performance elements of a new HRIS. Using people and capability data to provide meaningful insight to leaders. Creating practical tools and guidance that enable managers to have better development conversations. Supporting capability development across areas including leadership, communication, collaboration and strategic thinking. Measuring whether learning is actually translating into improved workplace capability and performance. Contributing to the wider talent agenda, including succession, career development, performance and workforce planning. Ultimately, you will help create an environment where employees can understand where they are today, what they need to develop and where their skills could take them next. This is a relatively lean, agile organisation rather than a heavily layered corporate environment. There won't be multiple committees and approval layers sitting between you and implementation. You could currently be working within Talent, Organisational Development, Learning & Development, People Development or Organisational Capability. More important is evidence that you have worked beyond traditional training delivery and understand how skills, capability, systems and talent connect. Experience creating learning and/or career development pathways. Exposure to an HRIS implementation or significant HR system enhancement. Confidence working with people data and translating it into meaningful insight. An understanding of talent, succession, career development or workforce planning. Strong project management capability. A practical, commercially minded approach to People development. Experience creating a skills taxonomy or skills-based architecture would be particularly valuable, as would experience configuring or implementing skills/capability functionality within an HR system. You do not need experience within this organisation's particular industry. Commercial you understand that capability development needs to improve business performance rather than simply increase training participation. Analytical comfortable working with skills data, identifying gaps and turning information into meaningful recommendations. This is a particularly attractive opportunity for somebody who enjoys building rather than inheriting. You won't simply be administering an established L&D calendar or maintaining somebody else's capability framework. You will have the opportunity to shape the architecture from the ground up and see it embedded within a new HR system, influencing how the organisation approaches development, career pathways, leadership capability, talent, succession and future workforce planning. For somebody passionate about talent and capability who wants the autonomy to create something tangible rather than simply maintain what already exists, this is a rare opportunity to make a highly visible impact.