Head of People Services (6 month FTC)

Job Title: Head of People Services  
Contract Type: Fixed Term Contract (for 6 months starting from July 2026)  
Full time: 34.5 hours), we are open to a conversation about how you work these hours 
Location: Hybrid – split between home and our London Office. Our Hybrid model for this role will mean 1-2 days in the office per week, with one of these days being a Wednesday (this is non-negotiable). 
Salary Range: £76,000 - £84,000 benefits and recognition 

About us 
At Macmillan you'll find talented people working together to do whatever it takes to support people living with cancer. We're going all out to find even better ways to help even more people who need our support. Our values are at the heart of who we are and everything we do, inspiring our thinking and guiding our actions. find talented people working together to do whatever it takes to support people living with cancer. We're going all out to find even better ways to help even more people who need our support. Our values are at the heart of who we are and everything we do, inspiring our thinking and guiding our actions. 

Role Purpose
This is an exciting 6 month opportunity to drive the HR agenda and People Plan for your area of HR, aligned to the organisational strategy and people aspirations for Macmillan. In this role you will lead and define the strategy for the People Services function for Macmillan, including a constructive and effective approach to industrial relations. You will lead a high performing team and be an inspirational leader across the Division and wider People & Culture Directorate.

In this role, some of your key responsibilities will be (full detail of these can be found on the attached role profile):

• To enable the charity’s strategy by leading the delivery of an excellent, forward thinking, future focussed, customer centric People Services function with a continuous improvement mindset, excelling in service delivery for our customers.
• To enable the charity’s strategy by delivering fit-for-purpose, cost effective and innovative People Services function.
• To lead and develop employment policies and industrial relations approaches which strengthen Macmillan’s position as an employer of choice and support effective attraction, retention, motivation, performance, and career development.
• Enable Macmillan to continue to evolve and grow by delivering a first-class change offer through a team of experts.
• To ensure the use of the most effective external suppliers including alternative sourcing arrangements for specific transactions / processes including Occupation Health provisions and HR systems and platforms.
• Facilitate effective insight to people metrics to drive conversations and prompt activity to improve organisation performance.
• Partner with the other People & Culture teams to deliver a fully integrated HR service
• Continue to review and develop the People Services offer, delivering the best return on investment for Macmillan and the internal customer.
• Lead and locally manage/facilitate the delivery of complex employee and industrial relations advice and coaching to the People Services team. Provide advice and guidance to senior leaders on more complex HR, employee relations, and industrial relations issues – utilising employee lawyer in consultation.

About you: 
To do this role, you will have

• Excellent knowledge of HR and associated employment law and practices.
• Proven experience in employee relations, policy development, HR process improvement and systems experience.
• Demonstrable experience of working in a unionised environment, with the ability to manage complex industrial relations effectively.
• Excellent customer focus and personal credibility to build productive working relationships at all levels and identify how our People Services can best contribute to Macmillan’s success.
• Experience of advising senior leaders and managers on all areas of HR and industrial relations, taking into account legislation, best practice, and adherence to policy
• Supplier management experience.
• Proven experience in managing ambiguity and delivering pragmatic solutions in a very fast-paced environment, driving significant process and functional improvement.
• Coaching skills, underpinned by a collaborative and supportive style of working.
• Experience of providing analysis of people data and identifying trends and developing interventions to address issues.
• Experience of managing budgets.
• Experience that will position the appointee to be able to stand in for the HR Director as needed at internal and external meetings / events.
• Commercial, private sector and/or third sector experience.
• Strong leadership experience, gained through senior manager roles in a relevant field.
• Proven ability to motivate, inspire and develop teams to deliver high performance.
• Proven ability to succeed and collaborate in a complex matrix environment.
• Successful track record of implementing sustainable organisational change, whilst maintaining performance and morale.

Recruitment Process
Application deadline: 11:59pm on Wednesday 17^th June 2026
First interview dates (provisional): week commencing 6^th July 2026

To ensure fairness and consistency to select the best candidate for this role, all our applications are anonymised up until an interview has been confirmed. 

We are an organisation that is committed to setting candidates up for success, so we can support you to be at your best during the application or selection process, please contact Macmillan TA Team TATeam@macmillan.org.uk for advice, or a conversation on reasonable adjustments.  

We welcome applications from everyone who meet the criteria and strongly encourage individuals to apply who have a disability, impairment or health condition or individuals who identify as Black, Asian or from another minority ethnic background, as these groups are currently under-represented at Macmillan. Our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy here along with our internal employee representation body, ‘Our Voice’ and 8 Employee Network groups help us promote fairness and belonging, becoming an engaged and inclusive organisation for all our people.