Senior Business Partner

The Opportunity

The HR Business Partner is accountable for ope rationalising the People Plan by connecting Arup’s business strategy to the day‑to‑day realities of the business, ensuring that people priorities are translated into decisions and actions that enable business performance and delivery of our strategy, including workforce planning, capability development, and member experience.

Business Partners work alongside leaders to shape decisions on performance, capability, organisation, and culture as well as delivering the cyclical activities and moments that matter for our members. They bring together insight, judgement, and people expertise to guide leaders through complex decisions, ensuring outcomes are aligned to both business priorities and Arup’s values.

The role requires experienced professionals who can operate credibly with leaders, apply sound judgement in complex and sensitive situations, and ensure that people work is effectively led within the business.

• Partner with leaders to shape decisions on performance, capability, organisation, and culture
• Translate business priorities into clear people actions and plans that deliver measurable business outcomes
• Partner with leaders to shape workforce plans, ensuring the right capability, capacity, and deployment of talent to meet business needs
• Provide thoughtful challenge and guidance with sound commercial acumen, supporting leaders to navigate trade‑offs and make informed decisions
• Build leadership capability through coaching, influence, and feedback
• Ensure cyclical people processes (talent, performance, reward, workforce planning) are effectively led and drive strong performance and feedback culture within the business
• Facilitate and guide key moments such as talent reviews, succession discussions, and performance outcomes
• Support leaders to make well‑judged, fair, and commercially sound decisions on pay, progression, and performance
• Apply global approaches and tools in a way that reflects business context and need

• Bring together performance, reward, engagement, employee relations, talent, learning, and inclusion into integrated, forward‑looking advice
• Use data, insight, and experience to diagnose organisational challenges and identify priorities
• Shape a consistent and high‑quality member experience across the employee lifecycle, with a focus on engagement, belonging, and wellbeing
• Guide leaders through complex and sensitive people decisions with sound judgement and care
• Identify patterns, risks, and opportunities, and take action with leaders to address them

We Are Looking For Individuals Who

• Have operated as an HR Business Partner in a complex matrix organisation with a focus on operational excellence and delivery.
• Have a growth mindset, a high level of curiosity and flexibility in their approach.
• Confident working with and drawing insights from multiple data sets to support decision‑making
• Are creative problem solvers with a high level of initiative and a sense of personal accountability
• Are highly skilled at relationship management with senior stakeholders and are accustomed to resistance to change
• Have experience in professional services.
• HR professional qualification or equivalent experience

At Arup, we care about each member’s success, so we can grow together.

Guided by our values, we provide an attractive total reward package that recognises the contribution of each of our members to our shared success. As well as competitive, fair and equitable pay, we offer a career in which all of our members can belong, grow and thrive – through benefits that support health and wellbeing, a wide range of learning opportunities and many possibilities to have an impact through the work they do.

We are owned in trust on behalf of our members, giving us the freedom, with personal responsibility, to set our own direction and choose work that aligns with our purpose and adds to Arup’s legacy. Our members collaborate on ambitious projects to deliver remarkable outcomes for our clients and communities. Profit Share is a key part of our reward, enabling members to share…