Head of Recruitment and Development

About the Role

This is a dual-remit leadership role, owning both resourcing and development for Winchester College and The Pilgrims' School. It blends strategic ownership of talent attraction, safer recruitment and compliance, and separately is accountable for the operational design and delivery of the schools' wider learning and development offer. The role will:

• Lead resourcing strategy and safer recruitment compliance across both schools.
• Own the schools' standing and reputation in the candidate market.
• Lead workforce planning and succession.
• Own the design and delivery of the schools' development and competency frameworks.
• Own the group resourcing strategy across both schools, holding end-to-end accountability for the recruitment and selection process across all appointments.
• Lead senior and hard-to-fill campaigns personally, including Heads of Department and leadership roles, selecting and briefing executive search partners as required. Manage the team in recruiting to all other positions.
• Report on data as required, including vacancy position, time to hire, source effectiveness, offer acceptance and early attrition to the HRD and senior leadership.
• Build the schools' standing in the candidate market, managing sector advertising, open events, direct sourcing and the recruitment content presented on the schools' sites.
• Negotiate and manage supplier arrangements for agency, supply and search provision, controlling spend in line with budget and holding suppliers to standards.
• Establish the selection methodology used across the schools, ensuring it meets safer recruitment requirements and is aligned to the schools' ambitions.
• Maintain and control the Single Central Register on a day-to-day basis, ensuring it is accurate, current and inspection ready at all times across both schools.
• Hold oversight of recruitment compliance, ensuring the completeness and accuracy of statutory checks, the vetting assurance of all workforce groups, and that safer recruitment processes are in place, with all records maintained accurately.
• Lead workforce planning across teaching and support, understanding the future requirements and skills demands for the workforce.
• Develop proactive staffing strategies for the most common and challenging positions to reduce time to hire and build long-term hiring and retention strategies.
• Develop an internal succession plan for leadership and key roles, in partnership with the Senior HRBP and the HRD, aligned to the workforce plan.
• Design and deliver targeted resourcing and attraction programmes aligned to long-term resourcing needs, such as graduate, returner and new teacher routes.
• Own the overarching development plan, ensuring it is aligned to the requirements of both schools.
• Design and deliver major development programmes for the schools, working with external partners where necessary.
• Lead the design and embedding of competency frameworks used for progression, development and recruitment across the schools.
• Design engaging learning content, programmes, workshops and development pathways for employees and managers.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of recruitment and learning initiatives using feedback, data and performance measures, ensuring learning solutions remain practical, scalable and aligned with the schools' priorities, and make continuous improvements where required.
• Promote a culture of continuous learning and professional development across the organisation.
• Design and lead the induction programme, ensuring it delivers a best-in-class experience for new joiners.

As Winchester College is an educational establishment, a condition of employment will be that the successful candidate must consent to the school obtaining an Enhanced Level Disclosure Check through the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS). This will reveal all spent and unspent convictions, warnings, cautions and bind-overs. A policy on the recruitment of ex-offenders is available on the school's website. Safeguarding is one of the primary responsibilities of this role.

The jobholder is responsible for promoting and safeguarding the welfare of children and young persons for whom they are responsible, or with whom they come into contact with, and will need to adhere to and ensure compliance with the school's Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy at all times. The postholder should be conversant with the responsibilities and procedures detailed in this policy and with the Department for Education's Keeping Children Safe in Education.

If, in the course of…