Military & Elite Athlete Talent Placement – People Operations Lead

Military & Elite Athlete 2026 Talent Placement – People Operations Lead

September 2026 Intake

UK wide. Hybrid with occasional office travel for collaboration and team meetings (e.g. Leicester, Stockport, London, Windsor, Reading). 12‑month fixed‑term contract with potential to roll off into a permanent role.

As a People Operations Lead you will lead and deliver critical People Operations transformation activities, while providing high‑quality operational leadership across core HR services, ensuring a consistent, efficient and colleague‑centric experience.

• Transformation delivery aligned to the Future Operating Model and technology roadmap
• Operational leadership across Employee Relations (ER) processes and case management
• Capability build, including establishing a dedicated Investigations Team

• A tech‑enabled, data‑driven People Operations function
• A consistent, scalable ER and case management model
• A proactive approach to colleague relations and experience

• Support design and implementation of the Future People Operations model
• Translate strategic design into practical, workable processes and structures
• Drive standardisation, governance and clear ownership across services

• Lead delivery of People Operations technology changes
• Simplify and digitise colleague and manager journeys
• Embed automation, workflow consistency and data insight

• Provide leadership across day‑to‑day People Operations activities
• Establish and ope rationalise a central Investigations Team
• Strengthen ER case handling, governance and consistency

You’ll also live our values:
Courage, Care, Delivery, Agility and Collaboration.

• Experience of HR / People Operations / ER environments
• Operational delivery in complex organisations
• Strong process design and improvement capability
• Ability to translate strategy into practical delivery and lead change in ambiguous environments
• Strong stakeholder engagement and communication skills
• High levels of ownership, accountability and resilience
• Experience operating in structured, high‑accountability environments
• Leading teams through change or transformation
• Problem solving and decision‑making capability
• Ability to work across multiple priorities and stakeholders
• An interest in People transformation and Technology & operational improvement

• Exposure to enterprise‑level transformation
• Experience in building and scaling operational capabilities
• Opportunity to lead real organisational change
• Development of strategic, operational and people leadership capability

On placement you will also have a dedicated business mentor, opportunities to meet senior leaders, and plenty of support to settle into your role.

• Military Service Leavers: leaving the Forces or within the 2‑year CTP window at application
• Elite Athletes: international competition experience and/or professional UK sports experience within the last three years

• Real project & transformation experience in a FTSE
  100 organisation
• £50,000 salary for the 12‑month placement
• A dedicated mentor to help you build commercial skills
• Flexible working and travel to office locations only when collaboration is needed
• Access to our Employee Networks
• A Buddy from our Ex‑Military or Athlete communities
• For Service Leavers: the chance to begin placement during your final four resettlement weeks

• Final date to receive applications: midnight Friday 26th June
• Screening Interviews – online:
  Will take place in June – mid July
• Business Area Interviews – face to face:
  July and August at one of our office locations
• Placement
  
  Start Date:
  
  You must be able to start on Wednesday 30th September

If you need any reasonable adjustments during the process, please let us know – we’re happy to support you.

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