Interim Head of HR - Maternity Contract - September start! in City of London

Interim Head of HR (FTC - 13 months) Soho, London + multi-site travel Maternity Cover - Starting in September 2026 until October 2027 FTC £70,000–£80,000 + benefits

Saisei Talent are delighted to be partnering with a truly unique creative and entrepreneurial business to find an experienced HR Lead to join them on a maternity cover contract from September 2026 through to October 2027. This is a genuinely varied and highly autonomous HR role, sitting across a creative business, private office and emerging media/music arm, supporting around 150 employees across London and regional UK locations.

The business operates in a highly agile, fast-moving way, so flexibility works both ways here. While the role offers autonomy and trust around managing your time, there will also be occasions where urgent situations arise outside traditional office hours, particularly when supporting the private office or household staffing side of the business. In return, the culture is genuinely flexible, output-focused and built around giving people the freedom to work in a way that works for them.

One day you might be supporting a studio team through an ER issue, the next overseeing payroll, hiring household staff for the private office, or helping shape contracts for musicians and producers. It’s varied, fast-moving and often unpredictable, so this role needs someone who genuinely enjoys operating in that kind of environment. The culture is entrepreneurial, highly trusted and very non-corporate. This role would suit someone who enjoys being embedded in a business rather than sitting behind process. Someone pragmatic, emotionally intelligent and calm under pressure, who can flex between operational detail and bigger-picture thinking without needing a large team around them.

You’ll be responsible for the full employee lifecycle across a diverse employee population, including employee relations, recruitment, payroll oversight, manager support, organisational change and day-to-day HR operations. You’ll also support the private office side of the business, where discretion, responsiveness and good judgement are hugely important.

The environment itself is incredibly creative and varied, spanning studios, production environments, household staffing and an evolving music/media arm. No two days will look the same, and the person coming into this role needs to be comfortable with ambiguity, changing priorities and an ebb-and-flow workload.

We’re looking for someone who:

• Has operated in a senior standalone or lean HR environment before
• Is confident managing ER, recruitment and HR operations end-to-end
• Can build credibility quickly with a wide range of personalities and stakeholders
• Is comfortable working autonomously without heavy structure or hand-holding
• Brings resilience, sound judgement and a calm, pragmatic approach
• Enjoys fast-moving creative environments where priorities can shift quickly
• Understands how to balance flexibility with boundaries and professionalism

Experience within creative, media, production, private office or founder-led businesses would be particularly valuable. The role is based primarily across Soho and other London sites, with occasional travel to regional locations when needed.

This is a brilliant opportunity for someone who enjoys broad, hands-on HR within a creatively driven and fast-moving environment, and who thrives on variety, autonomy and building trusted relationships across a business.

Saisei Talent are an equal opportunity agency and will consider all applications. We are dedicated to hiring diverse talent and ensuring that we treat you with respect and support throughout the interview process. We strive to include diversity, equity, and inclusion practices in our everyday work, and we commit to using these for our business and for all our Clients & Candidates.