Head of People Services

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Job Description

Permanent Full-time

Location: Agile, Sale, Manchester UK

Reports to: People Director

Salary: Circa £70,000

Line management responsibilities: Yes

Overview

About TQUK

Training Qualifications UK, part of the AQA Group, is the fastest-growing Awarding Organisation in the UK and a market-leading Apprenticeship Assessment Organisation. We work with over 500 schools, colleges, universities, and training providers across the world to provide qualification certificates, endorsements, and apprenticeships to over 150,000 learners.

Training Qualifications UK is entering its next phase of growth - and we're investing in top talent to build what comes next. And what comes next is big. Multiple senior roles. Launched together. One shared future. This isn't a backfill. It's a build. We're looking for exceptional people across qualification development, assessment development, people services and marketing & communications to help define what a market-leading organisation in vocational education and FE really looks like.

About the Head of People Services role

Our people are our most important assets, and the People Services team work tirelessly to ensure that TQUK is a brilliant place to work and that we hire, retain, develop, and recognise our talent appropriately. An exciting opportunity has arisen for an experienced Head of People Services to lead the People Services Pillar which includes HR, Recruitment, Learning & Development, and limited Health & Safety responsibility.

As Head of People Services, you will lead on the operational delivery of the People Strategy through the wider People Services function, leading a People Services Manager and Learning & Development Manager who together oversee a team of eight talented specialists. With significant organisational growth underway, this is an exciting opportunity to elevate the function, deliver an ambitious People Strategy, and strengthen the Company's employee value proposition.

As a member of the Leadership Team and reporting directly into the People Director, you will play a pivotal role in developing organisational capability, shaping culture and enabling the business to achieve its strategic objectives. This is a senior, broad HR generalist role - balancing high-level leadership, strategic input and hands-on delivery of complex and sensitive People initiatives. You will ensure our people policies, practices and culture empower employees to perform at their best, feel valued, and have a consistent, positive experience throughout their employee journey.

Key Responsibilities

Employee Life Cycle Leadership

• Drive the strategic direction of recruitment, ensuring talent needs are understood, anticipated, and met through a timely, cost-effective and inclusive hiring approach.
• Oversee and continuously improve the onboarding experience, ensuring every new hire feels welcomed, supported, and connected to our mission from day one.

Policy, Governance & Compliance

• Responsible for all people-related policies, ensuring legal compliance, relevance, and alignment with organisational values and behaviours.
• Ensure employment contracts, offer letters and associated documentation are accurate, current and reinforce a professional, consistent employee experience.
• Champion strong governance, embedding GDPR and regulatory requirements across all people processes.

Reward, Recognition & Benefits

• Lead the development and delivery of a progressive reward strategy that enables attraction, retention and recognition of high performance.
• Oversee the annual salary review process, ensuring fairness, competitiveness and clear communication.
• Commission and interpret salary benchmarking to ensure competitive pay and inform wider strategic decisions.
• Continually evaluate and enhance employee benefits offerings.
• Responsible for the benchmarking, sourcing and relationship management of all benefit providers.
• Communicate and roll out new benefit offerings.
• Support the growth and refinement of our recognition strategy, ensuring it reflects our culture and business objectives.

Performance & Capability Development

• Own the Performance Development Framework, ensuring it drives accountability, clarity and growth.
• Lead on all changes to the existing performance development framework. Including the introduction of new tools, systems, policies and guidance.
• Provide expert guidance to leaders managing underperformance, including coaching, improvement planning and attending formal meetings as needed.

Employee Engagement & Culture

• Act as a cultural champion, ensuring our behaviours and values are lived consistently across the organisation.
• Lead on the annual employee engagement survey (Gallup) and other engagement initiatives, using data, insights and feedback mechanisms to drive continuous improvement.
• Present engagement findings and recommendations to the Leadership and Executive Teams and support managers in implementing meaningful change.

Employee Relations & Wellbeing

• Lead and oversee complex employee relations matters, ensuring consistent, fair, and legally sound outcomes.
• Drive proactive attendance management, supporting managers with complex cases and ensuring adherence to policy.
• Promote constructive employee relations and support a positive, inclusive working environment.

Learning & Development

• Lead the development of the Learning & Development strategy, ensuring capability building initiatives align with business priorities.
• Lead the delivery of the Learning & Development strategy via the wider team.
• Foster a culture of continuous learning and ensure high-quality development opportunities are accessible to all employees.

HR Reporting, Insights & Risk Management

• Lead high-quality HR Management Information reporting and data analysis, providing insight into trends, risks and opportunities.
• Ensure proactive identification, reporting and mitigation of people-related risks across the organisation.

Leadership & Organisational Contribution

• Lead on transformational people-related projects, ensuring initiatives are well-designed, well-governed and drive meaningful organisational improvement.
• Shape and support the effective functioning and development of the Leadership Team, ensuring strong team dynamics, collective capability and alignment with organisational goals.
• Brief and advise the Leadership and Executive teams on people matters with clarity, confidence and strategic insight.
• Manage budgets and resources effectively, ensuring people projects are delivered on time and to a high standard.
• Ensure alignment with regulatory requirements and organisational risk frameworks.
• Champion equality, diversity and inclusion across all people activities.

Health & Safety

• Oversee key areas of basic Health & Safety compliance, including First Aid and Fire Safety responsibilities where appropriate.
• Liaise with Group level HSE to ensure relevant compliance and ensure we adopt best practice.

Cultural and Communication Experience

• Drive and deliver a culture that emphasises continuous improvement, efficiency and value for money, creating psychological safety for others and challenging each other and the status quo.

• Be a cultural architect. Use the non-negotiables to inform all decisions, conversations and actions, influencing others to do the same, holding them to account as required.

• Work closely with other Heads to manage cross-pillar issues, initiatives and incidents, taking full accountability for completion of company objectives.

• Shape strategies and plans which help put into practice and support TQUK's vision and long-term direction taking account of financial and implementation issues.

• Weigh up competing views to generate ways forward which will meet organisational goals.

• Take quick, confident decisions at a strategic level to move things forward.

• Define and integrate clear structures, systems and resources required across the Pillars to promote efficient service delivery, making difficult decisions about allocation of resources as necessary.

• Ensure an in-depth and evolving understanding of the broad range of customer requirements is embedded in TQUK.

• Be an excellent, proactive communicator, prepared to have difficult conversations and communicate or defend unpopular messages company-wide.

• Represent TQUK, speaking credibly and authoritatively on behalf of the Executive Team as required.

• Remain an expert in your own areas of responsibility.

Essential Skills and Experience

• Proven senior HR leadership experience, ideally gained within an awarding, regulated or similarly complex environment.

• Strong communication and stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to build trust and influence at all levels.

• Significant experience leading teams through organisational change and fostering high-performing, collaborative cultures.

• Advanced project management capability and the ability to balance multiple priorities.

• Reward experience would be preferred due to an immediate requirement to deliver on multiple aspects of the employee value proposition.

• Strong understanding of the vocational education landscape and current sector reforms (desirable).

• CIPD Level 7 (or working towards) preferred.

• Deep knowledge of employment law and ability to apply it pragmatically.

• Highly organised with exceptional prioritisation and planning skills.

• Skilled in managing sensitive and confidential matters with discretion and professionalism.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving ability, with a proactive and solutions-focused mindset.

• Adaptable, resilient and comfortable working in a fast-paced, changing environment.

• High attention to detail and commitment to excellence.

• Empathetic, diplomatic and practical, with a sense of humour and a people-first mindset.

Key Benefits

• 25 days annual leave plus 8 days Bank Holiday (33 in total).

• A further 3 days holiday awarded after long service

• An extra day off to celebrate your birthday.

• BUPA Private Medical Insurance.

• BUPA Healthcare Cash Plan.

• Life Insurance.

• Income Protection Insurance.

• Annual Loyalty Bonus.

• NEST pension.

• Employer supported volunteering.

* We are an equal opportunities employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Should you require any additional support during the recruitment process due to a disability, please contact us so we can assist you.