HR Business Partner

For 75years, Charles River employees have worked together to assist in the discovery, development and safe manufacture of new drug therapies. When you join our family, you will have a significant impact on the health and well-being of people across the globe. Whether your background is in life sciences, finance, IT, sales or another area, your skills will play an important role in the work we perform.

In return, we’ll help you build a career that you can feel passionate about.

We have an exciting opportunity to join our Human Resources Department based in Tranent, East Lothian. We are seeking a trusted HR Business Partner to deliver HR services throughout our organisation. This position will play an integral part in supporting in the achievement of HR strategies and business objectives. This is a hybrid role reporting to the Associate Director, Human Resources.

The responsibilities of the role will include:

• Supporting employees throughout the full cycle of the employee journey from onboarding to offboarding
• Business partnering with stakeholders to provide commercially focused support and guidance
• Managing complex employee relations cases and providing advice and guidance
• Assisting with performance and absence management casework
• Analyzing and making suitable recommendations in line with process improvement, digitisation and streamlining
• Analyzing insights from key HR data to diagnose trends that impact business performance
• Provide additional support to the wider HR team as and when required
• Assisting with succession planning
• Production of regular HR metrics and analysis
• Reviewing and enhancing HR policies and employee experience
• Compliance with Employment Law
• Supporting talent management and employee engagement activities
• Assisting with annual budget, bonus planning and salary planning
• Developing and managing effective working relationships throughout the organisation

The following are minimum requirements related to the HR Business Partner position:

• A minimum level 5 CIPD qualification or equivalent (or working towards this)
• An established record of success working in an HR Generalist/HR Business Partner role
• A confident, flexible team player with excellent communication and organisational skills
• The ability to build strong relationships on all levels, and adaptable to different ways of working, influencing, and leading
• Excellent IT, administrative and analytical skills
• Robust knowledge of employment law
• Excellent attention to detail
• A flexible approach to work and ability to manage competing priorities
• Comfortable working in a dynamic, complex and evolving environment with the ability to deliver against challenging deadlines

Closing date:
Friday, 06 March 2026

About Safety Assessment
Charles River is committed to helping our partners expedite their preclinical drug development with exceptional safety assessment services, state-of-the-art facilities and expert regulatory guidance. From individual specialty toxicology and IND enabling studies to tailored packages and total laboratory support, our deeply experienced team can design and execute programs that anticipate challenges and avoid roadblocks for a smooth, efficient journey to market.

Each year approximately 300 investigational new drug (IND) programs are conducted in our Safety Assessment facilities.

About Charles River
Charles River is an early-stage contract research organization (CRO). We have built upon our foundation of laboratory animal medicine and science to develop a diverse portfolio of discovery and safety assessment services, both Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) and non-GLP, to support clients from target identification through preclinical development. Charles River also provides a suite of products and services to support our clients’ clinical laboratory testing needs and manufacturing activities.

Utilizing this broad portfolio of products and services enables our clients to create a more flexible drug development model, which reduces their costs, enhances their productivity and effectiveness to increase speed to market.

With over 20,000 employees within 110 facilities in over 20 countries around the globe, we are strategically positioned to…