Head of Talent

We are delighted to be recruiting for a highly successful, entrepreneurial and fast paced organisation based in Gateshead.

As Head of Talent, you will lead the continued development and delivery of the organisation's talent, learning, and people development strategy, further strengthening a high performing, engaged, and scalable business as it continues to grow.

Reporting into the CFO, this role combines strategic thinking with hands‑on delivery. You'll be responsible for evolving the frameworks, processes, and people practices that support employee growth, leadership capability, performance, and retention across the organisation.

Working closely with department leaders and managers, you'll help create greater consistency in how they hire, develop, manage, and retain talent, while ensuring their people approach continues to evolve alongside the needs of a fast‑moving professional services environment.

You'll also lead a small People team, including a dedicated recruitment resource, helping shape both the employee and candidate experience from attraction through to development and progression.

Key relationships

You'll work closely with department leads, line managers, finance, and the wider People team to shape and embed talent strategies across the organisation. You'll also collaborate with external training providers, recruitment partners, and HR technology suppliers to ensure their people initiatives support both business performance and employee experience.

Main responsibilities

Talent and Performance Frameworks

• Lead the ongoing development, embedding, and governance of the organisation's performance management and development frameworks.
• Create scalable and consistent approaches to performance conversations, development planning, progression, and capability building.
• Evolve competency frameworks across departments and role levels, ensuring they remain aligned to business needs and organisational growth.
• Support managers in creating clear progression pathways and development opportunities for their teams.
• Use people data and insights to monitor effectiveness, identify trends, and recommend improvements across talent processes and frameworks.
• Support fair and transparent approaches to progression and promotion in partnership with finance and senior leadership.

Talent Acquisition and Workforce Planning

• Own the organisation's overall approach to talent acquisition, ensuring hiring processes are effective, consistent, and aligned to business needs.
• Partner with department leaders on workforce planning and hiring priorities.
• Support the development of employer brand and employee value proposition initiatives that strengthen talent attraction and retention.
• Lead and support the internal recruitment resource to ensure effective delivery across hiring activity.

People Partnership

• Build manager capability through coaching, resources, and structured development initiatives.
• Partner with leaders and managers on performance, development, team effectiveness, and retention challenges.
• Support managers in navigating performance and capability conversations confidently and consistently.
• Design and deliver initiatives that strengthen leadership behaviours, accountability, and collaboration across the organisation.
• Support organisational change, team evolution, and role development as the business grows.

Learning and Development

• Identify capability gaps and implement targeted development initiatives.
• Evaluate learning effectiveness through engagement, performance, and retention data.
• Explore and implement modern learning approaches, including AI-enabled and digital learning tools where appropriate.
• Manage relationships with external training providers and learning platforms.

Succession, Retention and Engagement

• Lead succession planning activity to help identify and develop future talent pipelines.
• Develop initiatives that improve retention, engagement, and internal mobility.
• Support an inclusive and high‑performing culture where people grow and do their best work.
• Lead employee engagement initiatives and people‑focused improvements, using people insights and feedback to identify organisational risks, opportunities, and areas for…