Future Leader Program

• Own the end-to-end strategy and delivery of the firm's multi-stage leader development programs, ensuring there are accelerator programs at key stages of development to build the Firm's required future leadership talent (e.g. Early, Mid, and Senior).
• Ensure a world-class approach to early career programs, including graduate recruitment, trainee development, apprenticeship schemes, and internship/vacation scheme programs.
• Partner with key stakeholders across the relevant to ensure all program design elements and development interventions are created to inline with program and talent outcomes.
• Oversee the design and continuous improvement of early careers onboarding, induction, and development programs, ensuring a consistently high-quality experience for all early career joiners.
• Monitor program metrics—including retention, performance, diversity, and progression data—and use insight to drive improvements and report outcomes to senior stakeholders.
• Ensure compliance with relevant regulatory and professional requirements for early careers programs, including Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) training requirements where applicable.

Stakeholder Engagement and Project Leadership

• Build and maintain strong relationships with senior business leaders, HR Managers, and Centres of Excellence to ensure talent management and early careers activities are embedded across the firm and well understood by the business.
• Act as a trusted adviser to business stakeholders on talent and early careers matters, providing clear, evidence-based, and commercially grounded recommendations.
• Lead and contribute to firmwide and UK HR projects, particularly those with a talent, learning, or pipeline development focus.
• Support the preparation of materials, presentations, and briefing documents for senior stakeholder meetings, talent reviews, and Board-level reporting as required.
• Feed talent insights into UK and global succession planning processes to support the identification of critical roles and future leaders.

Process and Governance

• Ensure adherence to HR policies and procedures, and contribute to the development and refinement of policies relating to talent management and early careers.
• Develop and document talent management and early careers methodologies, processes, and best practice guidance for use across the People function.
• Gather feedback from participants, managers, and stakeholders to continuously improve talent and early careers programs and processes.
• Maintain appropriate confidentiality and data governance standards in the handling of all talent and early careers data and related documentation.

Your Experience

• Significant experience in a talent management leadership role, ideally within a professional services or similarly complex, high-performance environment.
• Proven track record of designing and delivering talent management frameworks and early careers programs at scale, with demonstrable impact on retention, pipeline, and performance.
• Experience of managing and influencing senior stakeholders, and of operating effectively in a matrixed, international organization.
• Prior experience in designing enterprise-wide capability models.
• Exposure to HR information systems (e.g., Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, or equivalent) and applicant tracking or talent management platforms is desirable.

Qualifications

• Educated to degree level or equivalent, preferably in Human Resources, Business, Psychology, Education, or a related discipline.
• Occ Psych qualification is desirable; a coaching qualification or equivalent is advantageous.

Additional Skills

• Strong programme management skills, with the ability to lead multiple complex initiatives simultaneously and deliver to agreed timelines and quality standards.
• Ability to use data and market insight to support decisions and communicate findings in a compelling and accessible way to a range of audiences, including senior leadership.
• Excellent interpersonal and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to build trusted relationships, influence without authority, and navigate complex organizational dynamics.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to produce high-quality briefing materials and presentations for senior audiences.
• A collaborative and proactive working style, with sound commercial judgment and the ability to balance strategic thinking with hands-on delivery.
• Commitment to inclusion and diversity, with a demonstrable understanding of how to embed equitable practices into talent and early careers programs.

Technical Skills

This list of duties and responsibilities above is not exhaustive. It is intended to describe the general content of, and requirements for, the performance of this job. As such, the role may also include the undertaking of additional tasks as required.

Application Policy

Applications and CVs (direct or via agency) are only accepted online via the portal. Queries related to our roles must be directed to the relevant recruitment team and not the partners, practices, or stakeholders (lateralrecruitment@linklaters.com for legal roles or ukbtrecruitment@linklaters.com for business team roles).