Senior Talent Acquisition Lead

Talent Acquisition is a critical driver of NPL's success, with a direct impact on our ability to attract the specialist talent needed to deliver our ambitious organisational goals. Our TA team is highly regarded across the business, acting as trusted partners to leaders while driving innovation, continuous improvement and best practice across the attraction, assessment and hiring lifecycle. 

You will work closely with our Talent Pipelines Manager, People Team colleagues and senior stakeholders across the organisation. You will help shape and deliver NPL’s talent strategy ensuring we remain competitive in a challenging market. Combining strategic oversight with operational excellence, you'll provide leadership across the TA function, driving performance, innovation and continuous improvement. 

A key focus of the role will be leading and developing the TA team to achieve exceptional results, fostering a high-performance culture centred on accountability, customer service and continuous development. Alongside managing your own complex portfolio of recruitment activity, you will act as a subject matter expert, providing trusted advice to hiring managers and senior leaders, identifying opportunities for improvement and implementing best practice across the recruitment lifecycle. 

You'll champion diversity and inclusion, leverage data and market insight to inform decision-making, support budgeting processes, manage and monitor metrics to ensure the function delivers measurable value to the organisation.

combines strategic thinking with a hands-on approach. Collaborative, credible and commercially aware, you’ll inspire your team, build trusted relationships with stakeholders and use insight to deliver an inclusive, high-performing recruitment service.

If you are excited by this opportunity, these are the essential skills we are looking for:  

• Extensive people management experience, including evidence of coaching, performance management, managing underperformance and developing high-performing recruitment teams.

• Evidence of delivering business unit led recruitment strategies, balancing quality, cost and timescales in fast-paced, high-volume environments whilst using innovative sourcing methods.
  
  
• Budget management experience, adopting a data-driven approach, including experience analysing recruitment metrics, identifying trends and demonstrating ROI through reporting and insights.
  
  
• Experience designing and delivering assessment methodologies, including assessment centres and selection exercises. 
   
• Demonstrable experience of implementing SLAs, KPIs for a recruitment team, driving accountability, operational excellence and continuous improvement. 
   
• Exceptional stakeholder management and influencing skills, with the ability to build credibility and challenge constructively at all levels. 
   
• Strong systems and IT capability, with experience using ATS, HR systems and recruitment technologies to manage data, reporting and process improvement.

• A seasoned networker, experience building relationships across the Talent Acquisition and HR community to staying abreast of market trends. 
   
  
  Why join us?  
  At NPL, you'll be part of an organisation whose work has real-world impact. You'll join a supportive and collaborative team where your ideas and expertise will help shape the future of talent acquisition. In return, you'll have opportunities to develop your career, influence recruitment strategy and play a key role in attracting the people who enable NPL to deliver world-leading science and innovation. 
   

Please note:  Applications will be reviewed, and interviews conducted throughout the duration of this advert therefore we may at any time bring the closing date forward.  We encourage all interested applicants to apply as soon as practical. 

We actively recruit citizens of all backgrounds, but the nature of our work in specific departments means that nationality, residency and security requirements can be more tightly defined than others. You will be asked about this throughout the recruitment process. To work at NPL, you will need to obtain BPSS security clearance.