Business Advisor - Skills Development Specialist - Businesses

Location:
Manchester

Salary:
Up to £43,260 per annum

Contract:
Permanent/Full-time

Shape the future of upskilling across Greater Manchester

The GM Business Growth Hub is seeking a Business Advisors - Skills Development Large Specialist to support large business owners with demonstrable experience, knowledge, and credibility within all areas of skills development practice, to support business growth and good employment practice.

Core purpose:

The position focuses on delivering high‑quality skills and organisation development assessments for a portfolio of large business owners and leaders. It involves diagnosing and supporting skills focused improvements across the organisation, working collaboratively with the business and other specialists/partners to implement tailored action plans which align the people development and business growth strategy, aims and objectives to improve productivity, enable growth and support the client to seamlessly access services and sources of expertise within the wider business support ecosystem.

This role will work predominantly with large, complex organisations comprising multiple departments, functions, and business units, requiring a strong understanding of structures, interdependencies, and organisational scale.

The post holder will navigate diverse stakeholder groups and competing priorities, ensuring organisation and skills and organisation development interventions drive alignment, integration, and performance across the whole organisation.

In-person Assessment Centre to take place on 16th July (am or pm) in Manchester City Centre.

If successful at the assessment centre Interviews will take place on 21st July, 23rd July and 24th July in Manchester City Centre.

Why this role matters:

Greater Manchester is delivering an ambitious agenda for growth, productivity, and skills. To be effective in this role, you must have a strong understanding of:

The Greater Manchester Strategy (GMS), including its missions around productivity, innovation, skills, and inclusive growth.

The GM Good Growth Fund, its priorities, eligible sectors, and how skills development contributes to improved business performance and wider economic outcomes.

Local Skills Improvement Plans (LSIPs), particularly how leadership capability, skills development, and organisational culture support the skills needs of GM’s priority sectors.

These frameworks shape the region’s business support ecosystem, and your work will directly contribute to delivering their ambitions.

What you’ll be doing:

• Build strong relationships with large business leaders and key stakeholders to drive skills referrals.
• Lead cross-functional skills and organisational diagnostics at multi-level
• Deliver comprehensive diagnostics across multiple departments, functions, and business units, identifying interdependencies, systemic challenges, and alignment gaps to inform organisation-wide OD strategies.
• Align organisational design across complex structures and operating models
• Work with senior leadership to support the design and implementation of organisational structures, operating models, and governance frameworks that optimise performance and integration across divisions, ensuring clarity of roles, accountabilities, and decision-making.
• Coordinate skills and OD interventions across multiple departments and stakeholders
• Plan and deliver large-scale OD programmes that span multiple teams and functions, ensuring consistency of approach while adapting to differing departmental priorities, maturity levels, and operational contexts.
• Drive organisation-wide change and cultural alignment
• Lead complex change and culture initiatives across diverse business areas, ensuring alignment to organisational values and strategy, and embedding sustainable change across geographically or functionally dispersed teams.
• Enable strategic workforce and capability planning across functions
• Analyse workforce, skills, and performance data across departments to identify capability gaps, duplication, and opportunities for efficiency, providing strategic insight to support integrated workforce planning and long-term organisational effectiveness.
• Provide impartial training brokerage…