A bit about us

At Waterstons, we don’t just build technology—we create meaningful business transformations. With a global presence spanning the UK and Australia, we partner with businesses to unlock their full potential through innovative solutions.

Our clients tell us our people are our greatest strength, and who are we to disagree? That’s why we invest in our team with unlimited holidays, flexible working, and private healthcare—because we believe the best work happens when people feel valued.

Did we also mention that we’ve been awarded Gold Investors in People for a fourth consecutive time?

What You’ll Be Doing

Our success depends on our people, that’s why this role is all about helping our people and our managers to thrive. As our Senior People Business Partner, you’ll be the right hand to the Head of People and Culture and support the team, keeping us joined up, focused on what matters and making everyday experiences brilliant and supportive. You’ll partner closely with leaders, coach managers and make sure our people practices are fair, inclusive and truly support of our people.

Your Day-to-Day

• Be a trusted partner for our leaders and managers. You’ll offer thoughtful, practical people advice that fits who we are, and helps teams do their best work.
• Alongside the Head of People and Culture, keep the P&C team moving in the right direction, supporting strategic priorities together, simplifying ways of working and removing blockers where needed.
• Look after the day-to-day colleague experience so it feels smooth and consistent. That could mean welcoming new starters and conducting great inductions, to our benefit offering, payroll support and excellent people practice and compliance.
• Translate the 3-year people strategy, alongside the Head of People and Culture into an annual roadmap, setting key targets and goals.
• Use people analytics to bring insights, support decision-making, and evaluate impact.
• Provide day-to-day and functional support for the People Partner, L&D Lead and Talent Specialist, with clear goals, coaching, and development plans.
• Define and continuously improve ways of working, SLAs, governance and operations.
• Keep our policies simple and useful, and make sure we meet our responsibilities around employment law, privacy and security without fuss.
• Oversee performance and career development frameworks and career pathways that support growth and development.
• Align the L&D roadmap to strategic capability needs; champion manager and leadership development and measure impact on performance, engagement, and retention.
• Partner with L&D to embed essential people leadership skills across our leadership team and line managers
• We don’t have many, but being able to lead and coach on complex employee relations matters, ensuring consistency with our culture and values whilst balancing fairness, and legal compliance – but always doing the right thing by our people.
• Balance what’s right for people with what’s right for the business, helping us make good choices, together.

What we're looking for

• If some (or most) of the following sound like you, we'd love to hear from you:
• You’ve got HR business partnering experience in a complex, fast-paced setting (professional services or technology is a plus).
• You know UK employment law and complex ER casework inside out, and you bring a steady, human touch to these situations.
• You bring strong experience in organisation design, workforce planning, leadership and manager capability and change management.
• You build trust quickly, listen well and communicate with clarity, especially when things get difficult.
• You enjoy making processes simpler, joining things together across P&C, L&D, Talent and the wider business to turn plans into successful delivery.
• You’re comfortable with data, people analytics and HRIS and can translate data into decisions.

Nice to have

• CIPD Level 7 or equivalent experience.

How We Take Care of You

As well as offering a competitive salary, we have an attractive benefits package including:

• A healthy work life balance with flexible and agile working being the norm
• Unlimited holiday allowance
• EV car scheme (salary sacrifice)
• Room to grow with supported development opportunities and sponsored training
• Enhanced family policies
• If you ever need it, company sick pay and life assurance
• Supported wellbeing with regular initiatives, an employee assistance programme and private medical insurance
• Flexible benefits such as a dental scheme, eye care support, season ticket loan and cycle to work
• We require a security check to be carried out on all colleagues due to the nature of some of our clients’ industries.

Waterstons is committed to creating and an inclusive, understanding, and flexible place to work. We value diversity, equality and inclusion and encourage everyone to 'bring their whole selves' to work. We believe that a company that works to truly embrace and value diversity, create an environment where everyone from any background can do their best work, and feel valued and appreciated is a better company to work for.

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