Senior Reward Business Partner NEW

Manchester, Lancashire
Hays Specialist Recruitment Limited

Are you an experienced Reward leader who thrives in a commercially focused, people-centric environment? This is a rare opportunity to join a high-performing professional services organisation in a pivotal role shaping the firm’s reward strategy, governance, and operational delivery across the full reward life-cycle.

As the business continues to evolve, they are seeking a reward lead who can bring insight, challenge, and strategic thinking – while remaining hands-on enough to deliver critical annual reward processes.

The Opportunity

You’ll play a central role in helping the organisation attract, retain, and reward top talent, owning and leading key reward cycles and frameworks. This is not a back-office role – you’ll be highly visible across the firm, partnering closely with HR Business Partners and senior leaders to influence decision-making and elevate reward capability.

You will lead on:

• Salary & bonus cycles end-to-end, including April salary review and annual bonus review.
• Preparing and presenting REMCO packs, including investment modelling and recommendations
• Compensation benchmarking and market insights
• Pay transparency initiatives and governance
• Gender Pay Gap reporting and submissions
• Oversight of employee benefits, trainee reward frameworks, and Workday-based processes
• Identifying pay risks, outliers, and trends across service lines
• Upskilling HRBP’s to confidently discuss reward with leaders
• Building and maintaining a strong external reward network
• Ensuring operational excellence across the wider reward life-cycle.

You’ll be supported by a small team, including one direct report, two senior reward managers, and a junior benefits team, with scope for this role to take broader ownership as the function evolves.

About You

We’re looking for a Reward professional who brings:

• Strong experience in professional services (PE-backed exposure advantageous)
• Proven experience leading salary, bonus, and governance cycles
• Confidence operating with senior stakeholders and presenting to REMCO.
• A proactive, connected, commercially minded approach
• A collaborative style – someone who enjoys being out in the business, not behind a spreadsheet.

This role would suit someone stepping into a Head of Reward remit or an established Reward leader seeking a broader, more commercially impactful position.

Location & Working Pattern

• Manchester or Liverpool (travel between multiple sites initially to build relationships)
• Hybrid: 2-3 days per week in the office
• Full-time hours with flexibility available

Benefits

A highly competitive package including:

• Pension matched up to 8%
• 27 days holiday + bank holidays + your birthday off
• Flexible bank holidays (choose how you use the 8 days)
• Discretionary bonus
• Private medical & health cover
• Death in service
• Medical screenings
• Employee Benefits Trust (EBT)
• Flexible working policies

What you need to do now.

If you’re interested in this role, click ‘apply now’ to forward an up-to-date copy of your CV, or call us now.If this job isn’t quite right for you, but you are looking for a new position, please contact us for a confidential discussion about your career.

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