The salary for this role is £66,436. Onsite working is expected for 3 days each week, however, we actively support requests for flexible working.
This role is based at Culham, Oxfordshire
This role requires employees to complete an online Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS), including The Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) checks for criminal convictions and possibly a search of open source data.
The Role
As Head of Pay and Reward, you will support the Director of People and Culture as a member of the People & Culture (P&C) Senior Leadership Team in delivering the People Strategy to enable UKAEA to achieve its corporate goals.
You'll be responsible for the organisation’s strategic direction on all Pay and Reward matters and lead a team of Pay and Reward specialists to deliver outcomes which improve recruitment and retention, ensure compliance, and contribute to successful business growth.
Additional Responsibilities
- Responsible for supporting the Director of People and Culture as a member of the P&C Senior Leadership Team in developing the People Strategy and annual People Plans, aligned to the UKAEA mission and goals.
- Support and collaborate with colleagues across the department in the delivery of departmental priorities.
- Contribute to developing strategic business planning by ensuring that the People agenda is reflected in it. This involves developing a deep understanding of organisation strategy and direction, bringing your previous experience & knowledge of market trends, benchmarking and best practices in Reward management.
- Utilising your vast experience in Reward, lead and manage a team of specialists in the Pay and Reward team, which involves recruiting, managing and developing the team to build a culture of continuous improvement.
- Manage and support strategic Reward projects including scoping, design and delivery, ensuring compliance with Reward processes.
- Ensure UKAEA’s existing Pay and Reward strategy and processes are in line with public sector pay policy. This will include proposing and supporting ideas for changes to how UKAEA manages Pay, Reward and recognition within these constraints and the psychological or material benefit or disbenefit of such changes on different parties.
- Understand the needs of the business and secure organisational buy-in on Pay and Reward projects, demonstrating credibility to build strong relationships with stakeholders at all levels and influencing senior managers to facilitate effective organisational change.
- Take ownership for Reward processes, ensuring regular salary and benefits benchmarking, and job evaluation, working in partnership with the Head of Payroll and People Operations.
- Lead on Reward in pay negotiations with Trade Union colleagues, and employee representative groups on other Pay and Reward matters, influencing as appropriate.
- Responsible for the preparation and publication of statutory reports.
- Collaborate closely with other specialists in the People Department in the development of the People agenda on issues such as gender pay (including the preparation and publication of the annual gender pay gap report) and total Reward.
- Champion equality, diversity and inclusion in all areas of UKAEA’s work, including supporting women and other minority groups, such as colleagues identifying as disabled or LGBTQ+, and those from diverse ethnicities, etc., to start, succeed in and progress within a predominantly male, white engineering and scientific community.
- Lead on engagement with UKAEA’s sponsoring department and other government departments on all Pay and Reward matters.
- Contribute to broader corporate initiatives as a member of the senior cadre of UKAEA, and ensuing our pay and benefits offering is effectively communicated across the organisation.
- Manage the Reward aspect of all People policies and ensure the team provides training and support the People team to enhance their knowledge of reward practices.
- Work closely with the Director of People & Culture and Chief Executive Officer as their specialist adviser on Pay and Reward.
Budget Responsibility
- Indirect impact on the paybill of ~£85M (through Director of People & Culture), making recommendations on the best use of funds to support the business requirements. Miscalculations can result in overspend or underspend.
Essential Skills, Experience and Competence Required:
- Educated to degree level or demonstrable equivalent experience
- MCIPD (Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) or willing to work towards
- Significant knowledge and experience of strategic pay policy in the public sector, preferably within the Civil Service or Arm’s Length Bodies
- Experience of working at a strategic level
- Excellent planning skills
- Excellent attention to detail,
- Excellent people skills, including developing others
- Confident in delivering presentations and attending senior level meetings
- Creative in finding solutions to support the organisation to achieve its goals
- Enthusiastic and motivational
A full list of our benefits can be found here https://careers.ukaea.uk/life-at-ukaea/employee-benefits/
We welcome applications from under-represented groups, particularly individuals from black and other ethnic minority backgrounds, people with disabilities, and women. Our Executive team, supported by our 'Equality, Diversity and Inclusion' (EDI) Partner and Inclusion Ambassadors, actively promotes EDI and takes steps to increase diversity within our organization. We reinforce best practices in recruitment and selection and evaluate approaches to remove barriers to success.
Please note that vacancies are generally advertised for 4 weeks but may close earlier if we receive a large number of applications.
