Strategic HR Business Partner in Edinburgh

Wood Mackenzie is the global leader in analytics, insights and proprietary data across the entire energy and natural resources landscape. For over 50 years our work has guided the decisions of the world’s most influential energy producers, utilities companies, financial institutions and governments. Now, with the world’s energy system more complex and interconnected than ever before, sector-specific views are no longer enough. That’s why we’ve redefined what’s possible with Intelligence Connected. By fusing our unparalleled proprietary data with the sharpest analytical minds, all supercharged by Synoptic AI, we deliver a clear, interconnected view of the entire value chain. Our trusted team of 2,700 experts across 30 countries breaks siloes and connects industries, markets and regions across the globe. This empowers our customers to identify risk sooner, spot opportunities faster and recalibrate strategy with confidence – whether planning days, weeks, months or decades ahead.

The Strategic HR Business Partner is a senior advisor to leaders at Wood Mackenzie, responsible for shaping and delivering people strategies that enable commercial success, transformation, and sustainable growth. SBPs work closely with ExCo and GLT, collaborating with Extended Leadership (ELT), senior leaders, Corporate Enablement and HR centres of excellence (CoEs) to strengthen performance, reinforce culture, and build long‑term capability. This role blends strategic influence with operational partnership. SBPs ensure that people, culture, and capability considerations are integral to major business decisions, supporting leaders, enabling organizational growth, and shaping both the employee experience and the broader company culture. This role connects enterprise people priorities with segment/function-level action, ensuring business strategy and value creation translate into effective workforce, leadership, and cultural outcomes. As the primary link between HR and the business, the Strategic Business Partner (SBP) ensures people priorities are fully aligned with organisational objectives. The remit spans both People Solutions (projects, change, and organisational design) and People Advisory (employee relations, policy guidance, and leadership support).

Core Responsibilities

• Deliver people and culture cyclical and one-time initiatives aligned to business goals across the employee life-cycle (e.g. workforce planning, performance cycles, and compensation).
• Collaborate with CoEs (Reward, Talent, ER, etc.) to develop and implement simple and effective solutions to address capability/skills gaps, engagement challenges and workforce needs.
• Link initiatives to business performance, growth, and competitive outcomes.
• Embed policy updates, new frameworks and capability-building initiatives.
• Advise, lead and support change programmes, restructures and organisation design activity using evidence-based insights and strong business acumen.
• Facilitate the identification of emerging talent and future leaders early to build strong pipelines and succession strength.
• Use employee relations, headcount movement, engagement, exit interviews and Glassdoor insights, data, and leader feedback to strengthen employee experience, performance, and retention (Employee Value Proposition).
• Facilitate workforce, skills and capability planning to support Wood Mackenzie’s strategic and profitability goals, balancing investment, productivity, and capacity across regions and roles.
• Contribute to risk management through proactive mitigation planning and data-led insights.

Operational & Advisory

• Act as a trusted adviser to leaders across multiple sites, ensuring consistent application of people policies and best practice.
• Attend leadership and operational meetings providing informed challenge, strategic insight, and clear guidance.
• Work closely with FP&A to align headcount plans, cost forecasts, and workforce decisions, providing insight and challenge to support informed resourcing decisions.
• Manage escalated and complex employee relations cases in collaboration with ER CoE and the Colleague Experience team.
• Coach leaders to build capability and confidence in leading their teams.
• Enable fair, courageous decisions on performance, potential, and succession.
• Support employee experience, talent, succession and retention initiatives.

HR Team Collaboration & Leadership

• Collaborate across HR functions (Reward, Talent, ER, etc.) to deliver integrated, simple, and effective people solutions.
• Align business priorities with key HR processes including workforce planning, performance cycles, and compensation.
• Lead, delegate, mentor and coach across the function, and support and champion internal initiatives as required.

What Good Looks Like

• You build trusted relationships and act as a thought partner to leaders.
• You simplify complexity and bring clarity to decisions.
• You influence using insight and data.
• You connect the right people across HR to solve problems quickly.
• You stay connected to both the functions you partner with and the wider Wood Mackenzie environment.
• You help create an environment where people feel supported, accountable, and able to grow.
• You manage your stakeholders effectively, including appropriate delegation and case management.

Skills & Qualities Needed

• Strong communicator who can coach, challenge, and influence at senior levels.
• Ability to understand business strategy and translate it into people implications.
• Analytical thinker, confident using data and evidence.
• Skilled in relationship building, collaboration, and navigating complex environments.
• Strong commercial acumen, and awareness of industry trends and best practice.
• Comfort working across multiple priorities with a calm, solutions focused mindset.

Equal Opportunities

We are an equal opportunities employer. This means we are committed to recruiting the best people regardless of their race, colour, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability or protected veteran status. You can find out more about your rights under the law at www.eeoc.gov. If you are applying for a role and have a physical or mental disability, we will support you with your application or through the hiring process.