Head Of People Services (reward, Talent & Operations)

Head Of People Services (Reward, Talent And Operations)

Salary: £69,371pa - £79,372pa, with potential for further progression to £89,369pa with our pay progression scheme.

Location: Wilmslow

Contracted to our Wilmslow office, however, we offer flexible home and office-based working opportunities. There will be times when you will be expected to attend the office to collaborate with colleagues or travel due to business need. Please note, from Autumn 2026 our head office will move from Wilmslow to Manchester city centre.

Are you ready to lead a dynamic team and help shape the future of people strategy at the ICO?

We're looking for a Head of People Services to drive excellence across Reward, Talent Attraction, and HR Operations. This is a pivotal position within the People Services Directorate Senior Management Team, with the opportunity to lead strategic initiatives in pay and reward, shape our talent attraction and recruitment strategy, and drive improvement and innovation across our transactional HR services. You'll play a crucial role in supporting the development of our people to deliver the ICO's strategic vision.

Why work for the ICO?

• Pay progression scheme.
• Hybrid and flexible working options.
• 25 days paid holiday per year, plus privilege and public holidays.
• Flexi leave (up to 26 additional days leave per year).
• Pension (employer contribution around 28.9%).
• Online discount scheme to save money at major supermarkets, retailers, gyms, restaurants, insurance providers and many more.
• Health Cash Plan.
• Fantastic development opportunities to learn and progress.

Job description: key responsibilities

Reward, Talent And Operations:

• Providing professional and expert leadership to all matters related to pay and reward including the development of the ICO's reward strategies to ensure the organisation remains legally compliant and competitive.
• Overseeing the organisation's strategic approach to recruitment and talent identification, ensuring the ICO has a clear employer brand and maximises opportunities to innovate in attracting diverse talent.
• Development and ownership of the ICO's approach to workforce analytics, working closely with colleagues across the Directorate and wider organisation to ensure workforce data is used to best effect to drive decision making at organisational and local levels.
• Ensuring the ICO maintains effective and efficient HR shared services and payroll functions and takes all opportunities to improve and innovate.
• Acting at the People Services lead for the delivery, development and improvement of the Workday system.

Head Of People Services:

• Ensuring that the department is equipped with the right skills, tools, and talents necessary for executing their duties and leading on the professional development and coaching of staff within their area of responsibility.
• Conducting organisational diagnoses to determine which people strategies and services are most aligned to the functional governmental standards for People Services.
• Leverages workforce insights and analytics which focus business leaders on relevant people management issues while assessing potential strategies and solutions.
• Acting as the people lead for major projects and drawing on resources and expertise from across the Directorate as a whole.
• Developing and maintaining strong relationships with both local and national Trade Union colleagues.
• Providing effective leadership to their own team, ensuring that colleagues are clear about expected standards, motivated and developed to provide effective and efficient services.
• Ensuring that relevant budgets and contracts with third party suppliers are managed effectively, and that the ICO complies with requirements of its sponsor department and with government.
• Acting as an advocate for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.
• Championing People Services initiatives across the ICO, influencing and collaborating with senior management colleagues to ensure projects are delivered on time, to required standards and within budget.
• Developing appropriate standards and ensuring that effective mechanisms are in place to produce and monitor key performance indicators through Directorate People dashboards to ensure service delivery is in line with agreed standards.
• Deputise for the Director of People Services when necessary.
• Participate on behalf of the Commissioner/ICO as directed at meetings and events where senior representation is required.
• Acting as Information Asset Manager, with the responsibility of supporting the Information Asset Owner in ensuring good information governance and data protection compliance obligations are understood and applied by staff in the department.
• Participating actively in relevant corporate initiatives, including the business planning process, and undertake a senior management role in matters such as internal investigations.

Job description: person specification

Essential criteria assessed at application stage:

• Graduate Member of the CIPD, or equivalent level professional experience.
• Significant senior level experience within a Human Resources and specifically, a reward focused role.
• Experience of leading and managing people.
• Experience of leading significant change projects from concept to sign off.
• Experience of working effectively with Trade Unions.
• Proven and successful ability to build, lead, and integrate effective and lasting people management programmes within a business.
• Strong knowledge and understanding best practice in the field of human resources.

Essential criteria assessed during interview:

• Confidence and competence in the development of strategic approaches to the use of workforce data and analytics.
• Proven expertise in reward strategy development and delivery.
• Ability to convince others into following their direction and to build and maintain strong, trusting, and long-term relationships with others.
• Ability to work on multiple simultaneous projects and meet tight deadlines, be a creative and strategic thinker, work comfortably in group settings, be proactive and go beyond the call of duty, and have an ability to remain calm under pressure and in times of uncertainty, inspiring the same in their team.
• Ability to make complex and timely decisions in line with available evidence, the strategic context and professional values when there are unknowns.
• Capable of leveraging people metrics, drawing insights from plain data and information, which will enable informed decision making, management strategy formulation, and policy formulation.
• Able to conduct performance analyses on existent strategies, procedures, and policies, identifying threats or opportunities for improvement, and developing actionable and sustainable solutions where needed.
• Demonstrates successful experience building awareness on key organisational issues and presenting a relevant solution, guiding departmental heads, management, and stakeholders through a collaborative and shared decision-making process.
• Conveys information and instruction down the line in a clear and concise to ensure efficient and effective execution of duties by team members and to guarantee high-performance levels by the department.

Equality, diversity, and inclusion

The ICO is committed to promoting and enhancing equality, diversity, and inclusion. We are focused on developing a workforce that is representative of the communities we serve and together we are building an inclusive workplace where all of our colleagues have the opportunity to make a real difference. We are championing this through our Equality Diversity and Inclusion Board together with a number of staff networks. Read more about our commitment on our website.

Candidates with a disability who meet the minimum criteria for this vacancy will be invited to interview as part of the ICO's commitment to the Disability Confident Scheme.

If you are disabled or have an impairment and require an alternative application method, please email the HR team at recruitment@ico.org.uk.

Closing Date

Please submit your CV and cover letter by 23:59 Wednesday 19 November 2025. Your cover letter should be no more than 1,000 words and should clearly articulate how your experience and aspirations align with the specific expectations of this role.

We may close this vacancy early if we receive a high volume of applications. To ensure your application is considered, we encourage you to apply as soon as possible. If you require any reasonable adjustments to support your application, please contact us at recruitment@ico.org.uk.

In the event of a high volume of applications, we may not be able to invite all candidates who meet the minimum criteria to interview. However, we encourage you stay in touch and apply for future roles that match your interests.

All candidates who meet the minimum criteria and apply in-line with our guaranteed interview scheme for disabled and ethnic minority applicants will be interviewed.