Head of HR

Head of HR                        

Job Description

Reports to: Chief Executive Officer

June 2026

Confidential Executive Use

Role Summary

The Head of HR is the senior people lead for Actus Verto, reporting directly to the Chief Executive Officer. This is a standalone role with full ownership of the people agenda from the operational foundations that keep the business running compliantly and effectively, to the strategic advisory work that shapes how the business grows, organises, and performs.

This is both a strategic and operational role where no two days will look the same. It is a trusted seat at the leadership table and a roll-your-sleeves-up position getting involved in all aspects of delivering the people agenda, supporting leaders, managers and their teams. In a professional services business where our people are the product, this role is foundational to everything Actus Verto is building.

Key Responsibilities

Employee Relations & HR Operations

• Own the employee relations function handling all ER matters with care, consistency, legal rigour, and commercial pragmatism. This includes disciplinary and grievance processes, performance management, absence management, and sensitive people situations.
• Maintain HR governance ensuring all contracts, policies, processes, and practices are compliant with current employment law, consistently applied, and fit for our growing business.
• Lead onboarding designing and delivering a first-class onboarding experience that sets new joiners up for success from day one and embeds them in the Actus Verto culture quickly.
• Manage offboarding ensuring leavers are treated with dignity and that exit intelligence is captured and used to improve retention.
• Manage all aspects of the employee lifecycle contracts, variation letters, right-to-work compliance, DBS checks, HR system maintenance, and management information.

Workforce Planning & Organisational Design

• Advise the CEO and leadership team on workforce planning ensuring the business has a clear view of the people it needs, when, and at what capability level, as the organisation grows toward its revenue targets.
• Support organisational design advising on structure, job architecture, role design, and reporting lines as the business evolves and new functions are built.
• Own headcount planning in collaboration with the CEO and COO translating growth plans into people requirements and supporting decisions on hiring sequencing and prioritisation.
• Identify capability gaps and advise on how to close them whether through recruitment, development, restructure, or a combination.

Talent, Performance & Development

• Design and run the talent review process giving the business a structured view of its people, identifying high potential, and surfacing flight risks early.
• Own the performance management framework ensuring it drives the right behaviours, is fair and consistent, and is actually used by managers as a meaningful tool rather than an annual exercise.
• Coach and develop line managers building people management capability across the business so that HR principles are embedded in day-to-day leadership, not just escalated to the HR function.
• Support learning and development identifying development needs and working with the CEO to invest in building capability in line with business priorities.
• Own succession thinking at leadership level ensuring critical roles have visibility of potential successors and that development plans are in place to build bench strength.

Reward & Salary Benchmarking

• Own salary benchmarking maintaining a regular and rigorous view of market rates to ensure Actus Verto pays competitively and retains the talent it has invested in.
• Design and maintain the compensation framework job levelling, pay bands, and a consistent approach to total reward that is defensible, fair, and aligned to the business's growth stage.
• Manage the annual salary review process providing the data, analysis, and recommendations that enable the CEO and CFO to make sound decisions on pay.
• Advise on benefits ensuring the benefits package reflects what matters to Actus Verto's people and is competitive in the markets the business recruits from.

Mergers, Acquisitions & Transformation

• Lead people-side due diligence in mergers and acquisitions assessing workforce, employment contracts, ER risk, culture, and people liabilities as part of any M&A process.
• Own TUPE and transfer processes managing the legal and human dimensions of any business transfer with rigour and care for affected employees.
• Support integration planning post-acquisition advising on how to bring workforces together effectively and protect culture through periods of change.
• Act as a people advisor during any significant business transformation restructures, new operating model implementations, or rapid scaling events.

Management Reporting & Executive Advisory

• Provide regular people reporting to the executive team: e.g. headcount, attrition, ER caseload, time-to-hire, engagement, and other key people metrics that give the business a clear line of sight on its people health.
• Advise the CEO and founders on people risk flagging issues early, bringing analysis to support decisions, and providing clear counsel in complex or sensitive situations.
• Support the board with people-related information and analysis when required including on remuneration, succession, and workforce strategy.
• Contribute to the leadership team as a trusted peer bringing the people perspective into commercial, strategic, and operational conversations.

Core Behaviours

• Personal Growth You have a relentless appetite for personal and organisational growth. You seek to expand what is possible, push boundaries, and make the business bigger, better, and bolder. You actively invest in your own development and lift the capability of those around you.
• Disruption You challenge the status quo and are comfortable being uncomfortable. You question convention, bring fresh thinking, and back ideas that change the game. You do not accept "that's how we've always done it" as a reason to stop thinking differently.
• Innovation You bring creativity to every problem. You do not just fix what is broken you reimagine how things could work and build new ways forward. You create space for experimentation and treat failure as a source of learning, not a reason to stop.
• Fun You create energy in the room. You understand that work should be enjoyable and that the best teams laugh, connect, and genuinely want to show up. You bring lightness without losing focus, and you celebrate the journey as well as the destination.
• Integrity You do the right thing, especially when it is hard. You are honest, transparent, and consistent your word is your bond, and your actions match your values. You build trust by being the same person in every room, every time.
• Success You are driven to win for your clients, your colleagues, and yourself. You set high standards, hold yourself and others accountable, and find a way when the path is unclear. You define success broadly and celebrate the wins that matter most.

Skills & Experience

• Proven experience as a (Senior) HR Business Partner, Head of HR, or standalone people lead ideally in a professional services, technology consulting, or fast-growth SME environment.
• Deep and current knowledge of UK employment law you handle ER matters with confidence and without needing to outsource every question to external legal counsel.
• Demonstrable experience of M&A due diligence and TUPE you have been through this process and know what good looks like.
• Track record of advising senior leaders and founders on complex people decisions not just implementing policy but genuinely influencing outcomes.
• Experience of salary benchmarking and compensation framework design you know how to build a pay structure that is fair, defensible, and competitive.
• Comfortable with management reporting you can build a people dashboard, interpret the data, and present it clearly to a non-HR audience.
• Strong coaching capability you invest in building manager capability rather than becoming the single point of failure for all people matters.
• Degree / CIPD qualified (Level 5 minimum; Level 7 preferred) or equivalent demonstrable experience.
• Resilient and pragmatic you operate effectively in ambiguity, manage a broad workload without dropping the ball, and stay calm when situations are difficult.
• Commercially astute you understand how the business makes money and how people decisions affect the P&L, utilisation, and client outcomes.

What Success Looks Like

• Employee relations ER matters are handled promptly, fairly, and without escalation to external legal support except in genuinely complex situations.
• Retention voluntary attrition is tracked, understood, and below industry benchmark. Flight risks are identified early and acted on.
• Manager capability line managers are visibly more confident and effective in their people management as a result of coaching and support from this role.
• Compensation salary benchmarking is current, the pay framework is documented and defensible, and the annual review process runs smoothly and on time.
• Workforce planning the executive team has a clear and current view of headcount needs, and hiring decisions are made with a structured people plan behind them.
• Talent reviews completed biannually, with outputs that are genuinely used to inform development, succession, and retention decisions.
• M&A readiness when a transaction arises, the people-side due diligence is led confidently and comprehensively with no material surprises.
• People reporting the CEO and leadership team receive accurate, timely, and insightful people data on a regular cadence without having to ask for it.
• Culture Actus Verto is a place where people feel informed, valued, and clear on how they grow. The Head of HR is a visible and trusted presence in the business, not a back-office function.