🌱 Head of People (Maternity Cover)

You enjoy bringing structure and clarity to growing organisations without creating unnecessary process.

You're comfortable operating in an environment where priorities can shift quickly, and you have the judgement to work out what needs attention now, what can wait and where your involvement will have the greatest impact.

This isn't a "write policies and organise socials" kind of People role. You'll be just as comfortable getting into the detail and doing the work as you are contributing to bigger organisational decisions.

Above all, we're looking for someone with sound judgement, commercial awareness and the ability to build trusted relationships across the business. You'll be approachable and human, but equally comfortable having the difficult conversation, holding the line or challenging someone when it's needed.

Your experience might look something like this…

We're less interested in whether your previous title was exactly Head of People and more interested in the scope and level you've already been operating at.

You'll already have experience owning a broad People remit with significant autonomy, making difficult People decisions and independently partnering with senior leadership.

Whatever your previous title, you'll have already demonstrated the breadth, judgement and experience needed to lead a People function.

You'll likely have:

• Significant experience operating across a broad People remit, with clear examples of independently advising, influencing and challenging senior leaders.
• Experience in a technology startup or scale-up, so you understand the pace, ambiguity and trade-offs that come with growing businesses.
• Enjoyed being hands-on. This is a team of one, so you'll be just as comfortable coaching a manager as you are updating a policy, supporting recruitment or bringing new ideas to improve cross-team collaboration.
• A strong point of view on people topics, with the confidence to challenge, advise and influence senior stakeholders when it matters.
• Experience helping build a high-performance culture through better feedback, clearer expectations, manager capability and accountability.
• Experience navigating complex or sensitive People situations and being trusted to make sound decisions when there isn't always an obvious answer.
• A commercial lens on people decisions. You can think about headcount in terms of output and capacity, not just cost. You can connect hiring quality, team structure and manager effectiveness to what a 40-person company can actually build and deliver.
• The ability to frame People work in business terms. Whether you're making the case for a new hire, a structural change or an investment in manager development, you tie it back to productivity and growth, not just employee experience.

It would also be great if you've:

• Supported a US expansion or worked across UK and US employment practices, including hiring, compensation or partnering with EOR/PEO providers.
• Built or improved performance frameworks and can link these to compensation and career trajectory.
• Partnered across multiple business functions, rather than supporting just one area of the organisation.
• Worked on organisational design, restructuring or leadership coaching during periods of growth.

You’ll thrive here if...

This isn't a People role that sits on the sidelines.

As we grow, the challenge isn't simply hiring more people. It's helping the organisation scale well.

You'll be the person in the room bringing the People perspective, with the autonomy to make decisions, the confidence to challenge when it matters and direct access to the people shaping the business.

Because this isn't a placeholder role.

You'll join at a point where the business is evolving quickly, with genuine ownership, direct access to leadership and the opportunity to influence how Sensat grows over the next year.

You'll have a seat at the table, the autonomy to make an impact, and the chance to leave the People function stronger than you found it.

Why Sensat?

We’re building technology that helps infrastructure organisations make smarter decisions across some of the world’s most important projects.

We’ve proven where we create real value. Now, we’re focused on turning that success into a repeatable enterprise growth engine across the UK and US.

Sensat builds digital twin technology that's transforming how infrastructure projects are planned and delivered.

Behind that is a team of 40 people building technology that solves genuinely difficult problems.

As Sensat grows, how we build the organisation around that technology matters. This role will play a central part in developing our leaders, strengthening our high-performance culture and making thoughtful decisions around performance, compensation, organisational design and talent.

You'll join during a significant year of growth, with the opportunity to influence how we expand into the US, how our culture evolves and how we build the organisational capability needed for the next stage.

If you're looking for a role where you can genuinely influence how a growing company scales, we'd love to hear from you.

You don't need to tick every box to start a conversation. If this feels close to your experience and you're excited by the opportunity to shape the next chapter of Sensat's growth, we'd love to meet you.

Benefits

🏝️ Take a break using your 30 days of annual leave (in addition to bank holidays).
🌎 A flexible working environment.
🎓 Continue learning every day through your £500 personal development fund.
🥳 Regular social events! We’ve been to the theatre, racing around the tracks go-karting, had movie nights, watched the London Symphony Orchestra, line dancing lessons and murder mystery...
💓 We’ve got your back, be it immediate access to mental health support through Spill.
🩺 We care about our people and want to make essential healthcare accessible and affordable. That’s why we have an Opt-in Corporate health and wellbeing cash plan (offering up to £1700 in cash back annually) provided through BHSF.
💻 We want to enable you to do your best work without having to think about whether your tech will work, so we'll set you up with a MacBook, mouse & keyboard and £250 towards setting up your WFH environment.
💸 Pension: with Penfold. Employer contribution of 3%, employee contribution set at 5% but can be increased (relief at source or salary sacrifice).
🏋 Access to the benefits of our Fora office membership, including access to their gyms and fitness classes,