Head of Strategic Resourcing and People Operations

Job summary

We’re looking for an exceptional HR professional to lead one of our most critical functions: attracting, mobilising and retaining brilliant talent so our organisation can thrive, now and in the future.

This is a senior, influential role at the heart of our People function. You’ll ensure we have the right skills, in the right place, at the right time, while driving innovation, simplicity and excellence across the whole employee lifecycle.

Alongside setting and delivering our strategic resourcing agenda, you’ll design and implement a modern HR Hub, a central, intuitive service that streamlines, automates and elevates the end‑to‑end employee journey, from joiner to leaver.

What you will do:

• Lead and evolve our strategic resourcing function, aligning workforce capability with organisational priorities.

• Shape and deliver our People Plan, influencing business strategy at the highest levels.

• Design, build and embed an HR Hub that simplifies and automates people processes across the employee lifecycle.

• Champion data‑driven decision making and continuous improvement.

• Build a high‑performing team and foster a culture of excellence, curiosity and collaboration.

• Be a visible, trusted leader across the organisation.

Why choose Companies House?

At Companies house we take a proactive approach to wellbeing by promoting a welcoming culture, healthy work life balance and supporting colleagues to be their best in work because we know people are the key to our success.

Our benefits include:

• Flexible working with no core hours (between 6am and 8pm)
• 30 days annual leave
• 8 bank holidays & 1 privilege day
• Enrolment into the Civil Service Pension scheme, with an average employer contribution of 28%

Find out more about what a great place Companies House is to work.

Job description

Please note:

• You will be based at either our Cardiff or Edinburgh office where you will be expected to attend on a regular basis.
• Companies House cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign.
• Security Check (SC) Clearance is an essential requirement (you must have been present in the UK for at least 3 out of the last 5 years). Please see 'Things you need to know' section below for more information.

Your main areas of focus will change depending on the needs and priorities of your Directorate.

Role Purpose

To lead Strategic Resourcing, ensuring the organisation is sustainably resourced with the right skills, in the right roles, at the right time. The role spans the full joiner‑to‑leaver lifecycle and enables the delivery of organisational priorities through strategic planning, deployment of skills and supported by modern people operations processes.

Core Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership

• Provide strategic leadership for resourcing, workforce planning and people operations, ensuring plans are evidence‑based, future‑focused and aligned to organisational priorities, enabling effective and sustainable delivery of business objectives.
• Work closely with senior leaders to understand current and future workforce and skills requirements, shaping organisational design, resourcing strategies and deployment models that build long‑term capability, resilience and flexibility.
• Lead enterprise‑level workforce, resourcing and skills discussions, ensuring headcount and capability are planned, deployed and redeployed responsibly across the organisation, balancing delivery priorities, affordability, workforce risk and colleague experience.
• Establish and embed strategic approaches to the deployment and redeployment of skills, enabling the organisation to respond quickly to changing priorities, make best use of internal talent, and support workforce mobility and retention.
• Lead the design, implementation and continuous improvement of a HR Hub covering the end‑to‑end employee life journey (joiner to leaver), providing a streamlined, automated and customer‑focused experience for colleagues and managers, and ensuring:
• Clear ownership of transactional and advisory people processes.

• Drive the development and ongoing refinement of the employer offer, supporting the attraction, deployment and retention of a diverse, inclusive and highly skilled workforce in a competitive labour market.
• Use workforce insight, skills data and labour market intelligence to inform strategic workforce planning, ensuring the organisation has the capability it needs today while building capacity for the future.

Leadership and Collaboration

• Lead and develop the Strategic Resourcing team, fostering a professional, inclusive and high‑performing culture with a strong focus on service quality and colleague experience.
• Provide clear direction, coaching and support to enable the team to work effectively with hiring managers and senior leaders.
• Oversee performance management and capability development across the team, ensuring skills and capacity remain aligned to organisational priorities.
• Work collaboratively across HR and the wider organisation to deliver joined‑up, consistent and effective people solutions.

Operational Excellence

• Provide oversight of end‑to‑end resourcing and people operations, including recruitment, onboarding, loans and secondments, contingent labour, redeployment and workforce mobility.
• Drive continuous improvement of processes, systems and governance to improve efficiency, value for money and service delivery.
• Promote the effective use of people data, performance metrics and insight to inform decision‑making and identify emerging workforce risks and opportunities.
• Ensure a consistent, fair and positive experience for candidates and colleagues across the joiner‑to‑leaver lifecycle.
• Lead delivery of skills and capability initiatives aligned to workforce plans, supporting long‑term organisational resilience.

Stakeholder Management and Influence

• Build strong, effective working relationships with senior leaders and hiring managers, providing constructive challenge and professional advice to support sound workforce decisions.
• Act as a trusted advisor on resourcing and workforce planning matters, offering pragmatic, proportionate and evidence‑based solutions.
• Work in partnership with HR Business Partners and specialist teams to support delivery of organisational priorities and respond effectively to complex workforce issues.

Person specification

• Demonstrable experience of designing, building and embedding resourcing or people operations functions, including setting up new teams, services or operating models from the ground up, orleading significant transformation of existing services to improve efficiency, consistency and user experience.
• Proven ability to design and implement automated and digitised HR processes, including self‑service models and end‑to‑end workflows across the employee lifecycle, with experience of integrating HR processes with payroll and associated systems.
• Deep understanding of current recruitment trends, technologies and best practice, including the effective use of digital and social media platforms for talent attraction, outreach and employer branding.
• Exceptional leadership, coaching and people management skills, with a strong track record of building, inspiring and developing high‑performing, inclusive teams through change and growth.
• Highly analytical and data‑driven, with the ability to translate workforce insight, skills data and labour market intelligence into clear, actionable strategies and recommendations.
• Outstanding communication, influencing and stakeholder management skills, with the credibility and confidence to build trust and productive relationships at all levels of the organisation.
• Demonstrable experience in developing and delivering strategic resourcing and workforce plans that have materially improved organisational capability, agility and delivery outcomes.

Qualifications

CIPD Level 7/Chartered/Chartered Fellow. This is an essential requirement for the role and candidates who are invited to interview will be asked to provide evidence of their qualification.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Working Together
• Delivering at Pace
• Leadership

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £74,089, Companies House contributes £21,463 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

We believe that our success is driven by the well-being and satisfaction of our team members at all levels of the organisation. At Companies House we’re committed to providing a comprehensive benefits package that goes beyond the ordinary, ensuring your career journey with us is not only fulfilling, but also rewarding. We pride ourselves on offering a quality work-life balance with our employee wellbeing being central to our working practices.

Head to Our benefits - Working for us - Recruitment (companieshouse.gov.uk) to find out more about the fantastic benefits package we have at Companies House.

We celebrate diversity...

As an equal opportunity employer, we celebrate diversity, being committed to ensuring we’re representative of the citizens we serve and creating an inclusive environment. Everyone in Companies House brings something different, and so will you. To fulfil our commitment to recruiting and attracting diverse talent we welcome applications from underrepresented groups. We also welcome applications from Welsh speakers.

We are proud to be a disability confident leader. Our recruitment process is fully inclusive and we can make adjustments as needed through our process. These could include having an interview buddy, extra time at interviews/assessments and receiving interview questions in advance, to name a few.

If you require any reasonable adjustments at application stage, or if you'd like to discuss any person-centred adjustments, please contact us by emailing recruitmentCH@companieshouse.gov.uk.

Read our 'Applying under the Disability Confidence Scheme (DCS)' guide to find out how to successfully complete an application under the Disability Confidence Scheme (DCS).

Where will you be working?

You will be based at either our Cardiff or Edinburgh office where you will be expected to attend on a regular basis. We are currently using a hybrid approach to the way we work which provides opportunities for you to be adaptable in the way you work so that you can achieve a healthy balance between your work and home life. The degree of choice you have will depend on your role and your day-to-day work activities. Your manager will agree regular patterns of attendance with you, however you may be required to make yourself available to attend the office more frequently when required to meet business needs.

Occasional travel to other office locations, particularly Cardiff, may be required.

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

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

Key dates (dates are indicative only and could be subject to change)

• Closing date - 28th June 2026, at 23:55
• Sifting - 29th June 2026 onwards
• Main panel interviews - 13th and 14th July 2026. All Cardiff interviews will be conducted in-person in our Cardiff office. All Edinburgh interviews will be conducted via Microsoft Teams.
• Stakeholder engagement panel - 16th July 2026, via Microsoft Teams

Communications will be electronic via email therefore it is important that you check your Civil Service Jobs account regularly, as well as your spam/junk email folder.

In your application form we’d like you to:

1. Tell us about your employment history, including any key responsibilities and achievements.
2. Write a 1250 word personal statement where you demonstrate how you meet the skills required for this role, providing examples to evidence your level of skill. In your personal statement we are looking for evidence of:

• Demonstrable experience of designing, building and embedding resourcing or people operations functions, including setting up new teams, services or operating models from the ground up, orleading significant transformation of existing services to improve efficiency, consistency and user experience.
• Proven ability to design and implement automated and digitised HR processes, including self‑service models and end‑to‑end workflows across the employee lifecycle, with experience of integrating HR processes with payroll and associated systems.
• Deep understanding of effective use of digital and social media platforms for talent attraction, outreach and employer branding.
• Exceptional leadership, coaching and people management skills, with a strong track record of building, inspiring and developing high‑performing, inclusive teams through change and growth.
• Outstanding communication, influencing and stakeholder management skills, with the credibility and confidence to build trust and productive relationships at all levels of the organisation.

We’re committed to being diverse and inclusive, so please make your application anonymous by removing all identifying personal information (such as names and dates) from your employment history and personal statement.

Your personal statement should aim to make use of the full wordcount and show how you meet the above criteria. Please give clear and specific examples of what you have done personally and the impact it has had.

What will the process look like?

1. Sift

Once the advert has closed we will sift applications - this involves reading through them all, please bear with us as this can take some time. The panel will look at your work history and personal statement and are looking for evidence of the stated points.

We may raise the score required if we receive a high number of applications. We may also choose to take through the highest performing candidates to the next stage. If, after the final stage is completed and roles are unfilled, we will proceed to invite lower scoring candidates to interview.

Also, if we receive a high volume of applications, we may carry out a pre-sift and will look at your application for evidence of: Exceptional leadership, coaching and people management skills, with a strong track record of building, inspiring and developing high‑performing, inclusive teams through change and growth. Those applications which are successful at pre-sift stage will then progress to the main sift, where we'll read and score the rest of your application.

2. Main Panel Interview

Successful candidates from the sift stage will be invited to attend an interview.

Cardiff applicants - Interviews will be conducted in-person in our Cardiff office (Crown Way, Cardiff, CF14 3UZ) on Monday 13th July and Tuesday 14th July.

Edinburgh applicants - Interviews will be conducted virtually via Microsoft Teams and we aim for these to take place on Tuesday 14th July.

The above dates are indicative only and could be subject to change.

Please make it clear in your application if you will be based in our Cardiff or Edinburgh office so we can organise interviews accordingly.

Companies House uses a blended interview technique, allowing us to find out more about you. We use the Success Profile framework and at interview we will be assessing Behaviours and Experience.

At interview, we will be asking questions relating to the following:

• Behaviours: Seeing the Big Picture, Working Together, Delivering at Pace
• Experience, as listed in the person specification

3. Stakeholder Engagement Panel

All candidates who are invited to interview will also be invited to a stakeholder engagement panel. These will be conducted virtually on Microsoft Teams on Thursday 16th July.

The panel will consist of different stakeholders across the organisation, and they'll be assessing:

• Behaviour: Leadership
• Experience: Outstanding communication, influencing and stakeholder management skills, with the credibility and confidence to build trust and productive relationships at all levels of the organisation.

4 . Offer

Once all interviews have been completed, you will be notified of the outcome. Offers will be made in strict merit order. The lead criteria to distinguish between tied candidates will be Experience.

A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made for the same or similar roles (of the same or lower grade). Subject to business need, if a suitable position opens during this time we may reach out to individuals in merit order.

Our recruitment process is underpinned by the principle of recruitment based on fair and open competition with decisions made on the basis of merit, as outlined in the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles.

Security Clearance

Successful candidates must pass a Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) check before they can be appointed.

BPSS is an entry level security check. It uses the Police National Computer (PNC) to make sure a candidate has no convictions. The check returns evidence of any current criminal record and un-spent convictions under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.

Successful candidates must also meet the security requirements for Security Check (SC) before they can be appointed.

The requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years. Failure to meet the residency requirements will result in your security clearance application being rejected.

Sponsorship

Companies House cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign. Companies House holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify. Should you apply for this role and require sponsorship, your application may be rejected, and any provisional offers of employment withdrawn.

Pre-Employment Checking

In line with Government guidance, successfully appointed candidates will need to provide documents for our Right to Work checks.

From June 2026, applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). Your personal details (name, National Insurance number, and date of birth) will be checked against the Civil Service Resourcing Extract IFD.

This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued.

If your details appear on this database, you will not be offered employment unless you can demonstrate exceptional circumstances. Companies House, acting on behalf of the vacancy holder, will inform you if your application is refused for this reason.

Please note: You are not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5 year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government.

Nationality statement

As part of our recruitment process, it is essential for all candidates to independently verify their eligibility to work in the UK before applying. This includes a thorough check of your right to work to ensure compliance with UK employment laws, being mindful of the recent changes to going rates detailed on GOV.UK.

Please ensure you have the necessary documentation and permissions in place. Our team is dedicated to fostering a diverse and inclusive workforce and encourages applicants from all backgrounds to apply. However, it is the candidate's responsibility to ensure they meet the UK's legal requirements to work.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).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.The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).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 : Jon Shenton
• Email : jshenton@companieshouse.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : recruitmentch@companieshouse.gov.uk

Further information

We welcome applications in Welsh / Rydym yn croesawi ceisiadau yn y Gymraeg. Selection for appointment to the Civil Service is on merit, on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. In accordance with the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles, our recruitment and selection processes are underpinned by the requirement of appointment on the basis of merit by fair and open competition. If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should contact infopoint@companieshouse.gov.uk in the first instance. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive you can contact the Civil Service Commission .

info@csc.gov.uk

Civil Service Commission, Room G/8, 1 Horse Guards Road SW1A 2HQ