HR & Talent Manager

Drive Works HQ, Warrington, United Kingdom

Full-time, Monday – Friday – 9am to 5.30pm

This is a fantastic opportunity to join an established yet growing tech business where people genuinely sit at the heart of everything we do.

The tech industry moves quickly. Decisions are made at pace, and priorities can evolve, and we’re proud of the supportive, collaborative culture we’ve built along the way. As we continue to grow (currently 60+ employees, mostly based in the UK, plus global colleagues), we’re looking for an experienced HR professional to help us maintain and strengthen what already works well, while ensuring we remain compliant, consistent, and people-focused.

Based at our converted barn site in Thelwall, Warrington, this is an office-based role where you’ll play a key part in supporting managers, guiding good practice, and helping our people thrive.

This is a varied, stand‑alone role reporting to the HR & Operations Director, offering a great opportunity to take responsibility for HR functions in a business that values a practical, balanced and down‑to‑earth approach. You’ll work alongside our SLT, team managers, and our Community & Learning Engagement Manager.

You’ll be working on all areas of HR and developing your CIPD specialist knowledge and behaviours:

• Resourcing and onboarding: Support the onboarding of new employees and contribute to recruitment activities to help grow the team.
• Talent management and L&D: Work closely with managers and our Community & Learning Engagement Manager to identify talent and skills gaps, support practical development and career plans, and use a mix of coaching, mentoring and targeted training to help people grow.
• Culture and employee experience: Work with the Senior Leadership Team to maintain the positive culture we’ve built, helping ensure a consistently great employee experience across the business.
• Equality, diversity and inclusion: Help promote inclusive ways of working in line with our policies, and support managers to do the same.
• Reward: Support reward benchmarking and help develop, administer and promote employee benefits through creative initiatives like regular “Benefits & Brews” coffee catch‑ups.
• Wellbeing: Supporting and promoting our wellbeing initiatives.
• People analytics: Keep HR systems running smoothly – updating records and checking monthly reports before we share them with our parent company.
• People practice: Build knowledge of policies and regulations while supporting the business to navigate evolving employment laws and ERA changes.
• Employee relations: Support managers with clear, practical advice on people matters, help handle employee relations fairly and consistently, and stay on top of policies, flagging updates needed as ERA laws change.
• Working as part of the Operations Team with a collaborative, “all hands on deck” mindset.

Our Operations team is responsible for the efficient and effective running of core business operations. We manage order fulfilment to ensure timely and accurate delivery to resellers and end users, maintain accounting systems through accurate bookkeeping, and support our workforce through HR and payroll services. We also oversee facilities management to ensure a safe, organised, and productive working environment and work closely with the wider business to support smooth and effective operations.

We’re looking for someone who brings strong HR knowledge alongside a thoughtful, pragmatic approach.

You’ll understand that every business is different – success in this role comes from taking the time to get to know our people, our ways of working, and our culture. We’re not looking for someone to overhaul or radically change what we do, but rather someone who can build trusted relationships, provide steady guidance, and help us do things consistently and well.

You’ll likely:

• Be an experienced HR Generalist, ideally within an SME environment.
• Hold a CIPD Level 3 or 5 qualification.
• Be proactive, organised, and comfortable managing a varied workload independently.
• Communicate clearly and confidently, adapting your style to different audiences.
• Be approachable and…