Interim Senior HR BP - Financial Services
Job description
Original text imported from Reed
Interim Senior HR BP - Front and back officeLondon hybrid 3 days per week in office
Immediate start - c 6 month duration
C500-550 per day umbrella inside scope of IR35
A global financial services business is seeking an Interim Senior HR Business Partner to join a high-performing organisation supporting Global Markets and Corporate Functions. This role is ideal for an experienced HR professional who thrives in a strategic, fast-paced environment and is passionate about driving impactful people initiatives aligned to business goals.The successful candidate will act as a trusted advisor to senior stakeholders, translating business priorities into effective HR solutions, while championing a progressive People Strategy that enhances organisational capability, culture, and performance.
Your New RoleAs a Senior HR Business Partner, you will:
- Partner with senior leaders across Global Markets and corporate functions, acting as a trusted advisor to deliver tailored HR solutions aligned to business strategy.
- Serve as a strategic link between the business and HR Centres of Excellence, ensuring seamless delivery of HR initiatives.
- Drive forward-thinking HR programmes that strengthen organisational capability, support growth, and foster a high-performance culture.
- Deliver key elements of the People Strategy, including diversity, equity & inclusion, leadership development, engagement, wellbeing, and performance management.
- Provide expert guidance on complex employee relations matters including disciplinary issues, restructuring, TUPE, redundancy, and workforce planning.
- Lead and support year-end compensation cycles, performance reviews, and promotion processes, ensuring fair, consistent, and compliant decision-making.
- Partner with leadership teams on transformation initiatives, organisational design, and target operating models.
- Support talent management processes, including performance cycles and succession planning, developing future leaders in collaboration with specialist teams.
- Coach and influence managers to enhance leadership capability and embed strong people management practices.
- Maintain up-to-date knowledge of employment law and HR best practice.
- Mentor and develop junior HR team members, contributing to a collaborative and high-performing HR function.
- Play an active role within the broader EMEA HR team, fostering a positive and inclusive culture.
What You'll Need to Succeed
- Proven experience operating as an HR Business Partner within a complex, fast-paced financial services business where you will have support both front and back office client groups
- Strong stakeholder management skills with the ability to influence at senior leadership level.
- Deep expertise across core HR disciplines, including employee relations, organisational design, and talent development.
- Solid understanding of employment law and regulatory frameworks.
- Commercial mindset with the ability to align HR strategy to business outcomes.
- Experience managing change and transformation initiatives.
- Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret data and drive insights.
- Excellent communication, coaching, and leadership capabilities.
- It is essential that you can start a new role on short notice and can commit to a 6 month duration, working in a hybrid manner from the London office 3 days per week
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.
Hays Specialist Recruitment Limited acts as an employment agency for permanent recruitment and employment business for the supply of temporary workers. By applying for this job you accept the T&C's, Privacy Policy and Disclaimers which can be found at hays.co.uk
Key skills
AI-extracted from the job advert
Application advice
5 AI-generated recommendations to maximise your chances.
⭐ Lead your CV with a Personal Statement explicitly naming 'Senior HR Business Partner' and 'Financial Services', as the advert opens by specifying both front and back office FS experience as essential.
📊 Quantify your employee relations caseload: e.g. 'Managed 40+ ER cases annually including TUPE transfers affecting 120 employees, achieving zero employment tribunal outcomes'.
🎯 Dedicate a bullet to compensation cycle ownership — the advert lists year-end comp, performance reviews and promotions as a key responsibility; name the headcount you supported (e.g. '600-person Global Markets population').
🌐 Highlight EMEA or cross-border HR experience prominently, as the role sits within a global FS business with an EMEA HR team — note specific geographies or regulatory frameworks you have navigated.
🤝 Include a concrete example of partnering with HR Centres of Excellence (e.g. Reward, L&D, Talent) to deliver a People Strategy initiative, as the advert specifically calls out this cross-functional link as a core part of the role.
Suggested CV bullets
3 bullets our AI drafted for this specific advert, mirroring its ATS keywords.
Add these 3 bullets under your most recent experience:
- •Partnered with Global Markets leadership across a 450-person front-office population, delivering TUPE consultation for a 60-employee transfer within a 90-day regulatory deadline and achieving zero tribunal claims.
- •Led year-end compensation review for 3 corporate functions totalling 280 employees, aligning pay decisions to performance data and reducing manager escalations by 35% versus the prior cycle.
- •Designed and implemented a new target operating model for a 120-person Operations division, reducing management layers from 5 to 3 and improving employee engagement scores by 18 points within 6 months.
Free to copy — tailoring requires a 30-sec CV upload.
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Letter preview — tailored to Hays Specialist Recruitment Limited
Dear Hiring Manager,
Hays' Interim Senior HR Business Partner opportunity within a global financial services business is precisely the engagement my career has been building towards. With deep expertise in employee relations — spanning TUPE, redundancy, and complex restructuring — and a proven track record of partnering with front-office Global Markets and corporate functions at senior leadership level, I am confident I can deliver immediate impact from day one.
My background in financial services HR includes leading year-end compensation cycles for populations exceeding 500 employees, designing target operating models during significant organisational change, and serving as the strategic link between business leaders and HR Centres of Excellence across EMEA. I have consistently translated business priorities into tangible people outcomes, coaching senior managers and mentoring junior HR colleagues throughout.
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Interview questions
10 questions generated from this advert.
Technical
- ›Walk us through how you have managed a complex TUPE transfer within a financial services environment — what were the key HR and legal considerations?
- ›How do you approach organisational design when a business unit is undergoing a target operating model review?
- ›Describe your experience managing year-end compensation cycles for a front-office Global Markets population — what governance did you apply?
- ›How do you ensure HR initiatives remain compliant with current UK employment law, particularly around redundancy and restructuring?
- ›What frameworks or tools have you used to drive succession planning and talent pipeline development in a complex matrix organisation?
Behavioural
- ›Tell me about a time you acted as a trusted advisor to a senior leader and influenced a decision that had a significant people impact.
- ›Describe a situation where you had to manage a highly sensitive employee relations matter involving a senior stakeholder — how did you handle it?
- ›Give an example of a People Strategy initiative you led that measurably improved organisational capability or engagement.
- ›Tell me about a time you coached a manager to handle a difficult performance management situation — what was your approach and the outcome?
- ›Describe a change or transformation programme you supported — how did you manage resistance and ensure business continuity?
STAR answer examples
Model answers using the Situation-Task-Action-Result framework. Adapt to your own experience.
Tell me about a time you acted as a trusted advisor to a senior leader and influenced a decision that had a significant people impact.
Describe a change or transformation programme you supported — how did you manage resistance and ensure business continuity?