Deputy Director of HR (HR Operations)

Job summary

HM Land Registry is seeking an exceptional Deputy Director of HR (HR Operations) to provide strategic leadership and deliver high‑quality people services across the organisation. As a senior leader within the HR Group, you will be accountable for the delivery of efficient, resilient and effective HR services across a large, geographically dispersed environment.

Reporting to the Director of Human Resources, you will bring broad, end‑to‑end HR experience to set clear strategic direction, ensuring HR operations and policy are aligned with organisational priorities and wider Civil Service ambitions. You will lead the continuous improvement of people operations, translating strategic intent into tangible outcomes.

Operating confidently in a complex environment, you will drive service excellence and maintain positive industrial relations. Working closely with senior leaders, you will build strong relationships to align HR risks and priorities with those of the wider organisation, role‑modelling inclusive leadership and delivering high‑quality outcomes that support a high‑performance culture.

This is an exciting opportunity to join HM Land Registry at a pivotal moment, shaping the future of HR as part of a close‑knit senior leadership team bringing fresh thinking and clear direction.

For 160 years HM Land Registry has been a critical part of the UK's national infrastructure. We protect the right to land and property in England and Wales and allow it to be bought and sold securely. Our service is truly unique in purpose and scale, we provide essential guarantees for our citizens’ greatest assets and are the cornerstone of a vibrant lending market that serves every part of the country. Our register contains more than 26 million titles providing ownership guarantees for 88% of land in England and Wales. The market is huge with over 8 trillion pounds worth of assets and over 260 billion pounds worth transacted every year. In 2023, HM Land Registry received 32 million service requests.

Job description

As Deputy Director of HR (HR Operations), you will lead the HR Operations and Policy teams to deliver the People Plan priorities on time and within budget. You will drive high standards of customer‑focused HR services across the employee lifecycle, including recruitment, casework, health and safety, pay and reward, for over 6000 staff across multiple locations throughout England and Wales. You will lead industrial relations, ensuring effective consultation with trade unions, and provide oversight of HR contributions to corporate improvement programmes.

Acting as Senior Responsible Owner for key contracts and programmes, you will build future capability and succession, champion inclusive cultural change, embed continuous improvement, strengthen people analytics and lead risk management, while contributing to high‑performance corporate leadership at SCS level.

Person specification

To be successful in this role you will have significant experience of leading HR operational teams in a complex, unionised environment and be a Chartered Member of CIPD, with a willingness to progress to Chartered Fellow. You will demonstrate the ability to deliver high‑quality HR services that directly support organisational priorities, achieving results through others in complex, matrix‑based settings.

You will have proven experience of operating at a strategic level while delivering at pace, building strong and effective stakeholder relationships at all levels. Your background will include leading large‑scale HR transformation, industrial and employee relations, HR policy, and the effective management of budgets and contracts.

For more information about the role, please see the attached Candidate Pack.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £92,000, HM Land Registry contributes £26,652 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

At HM Land Registry our vision is a world leading property market as part of a thriving economy and a sustainable future. We are unique in terms of the economic and social impacts of our work, our ability to make a positive difference to the lives of our customers, our sense of mission, and our great people. They are the foundation of all we have achieved and all we aspire to in the future. We want our people to feel proud to work for HM Land Registry and able to fulfil their full potential.

We have a strong and positive culture, a commitment to inclusivity, an emphasis on continuous learning and development, and flexible ways of working. We offer competitive pay and annual leave, attractive pension options and a wide range of other benefits.

• We have integrity– we value honesty, trust and doing the right thing in the right way.
• We drive innovation– we are forward-thinking, embrace change and are continually improving our processes.
• We are professional– we value and grow our knowledge and professional expertise.
• We give assurance– we guarantee our services and provide confidence to the property market.

You can find more information on our rewards package on our website.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

We highly value diversity in all its forms and welcome applications from all sections of society.

HM Land Registry has appointed executive search specialists Veredus to support us with this appointment. For further information about the role and to apply, please visit www.veredus.co.uk quoting reference 1110.

HMLR is accredited to the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS), which denotes organisations which have a positive attitude towards disabled people. DCS applicants who meet the minimum criteria at shortlisting may be invited to attend an interview. There may be occasions where it is not practicable or appropriate to interview all DCS applicants that meet the minimum criteria for the job. For example, when we receive high number of applications. In these circumstances we may select the DCS applicants who best meet the minimum criteria for the job, rather than all of those that meet the minimum criteria, as we would do for non-disabled applicants.

If you require the panel to consider a reasonable adjustment or there is anything else you would like the panel to take into consideration, you are asked to notify us of this at application stage where possible or during the process as soon as it becomes a requirement.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise.

As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : James Griffin
• Email : james.griffin2@veredus.co.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : hrresourcingteam2@landregistry.gov.uk

Further information

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance to the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, please email hrresourcingteam2@landregistry.gov.uk in the first instance. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from HM Land Registry then you may take your complaint to the Civil Service Commission: http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/making-complaint/

Follow link to apply

www.veredus.co.uk/jobs/

Attachments

Candidate Pack - Deputy Director of HR (HR Operations) Opens in new window (pdf, 2009kB)

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