Strategic Workforce Planning Lead

Strategic Workforce Planning Lead is needed to support a leading technology-communication provider.

Are you ready for your next professional adventure?

Your new role

We have the opportunity of a Strategic Workforce Planning Lead to join our client’s team in Paddington, London. The team works on hybrid working basis and are also open to remote opportunities.

• Contract Length: 3 months
• Daily rate: Competitive pay rate (Inside IR35)
• Hours : 4 days a week

Role Purpose

As a Strategic Workforce Planning Lead, you will be delivering Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP) pilots across selected functions by translating business priorities into clear workforce implications. You will be creating and deploying an SWP toolkit, guiding business leaders through structured SWP conversations and build data-driven models that integrate workforce supply. You will also use available HR data to map current workforce suppled and model future workforce demand with robust Excel-based scenario modelling.

Responsibilities:

• Work closely with Group OE team to deliver SWP pilots with selected business areas, defining scope, clarifying objectives and guiding leaders through a structured, insight driven planning approach.
• Facilitate strategic discussions with business leaders to understand their key business priorities, challenges and future scenarios, and translate these into clear SWP questions.
• Consolidate future business inputs relevant to SWP—including plans, forecasts and strategy documents—to produce a clear view of demand trends.
• Define priority roles and skills with business stakeholders and OE team members, to deliver future business strategy, considering how roles may evolve across functions, locations and skill pools.
• Identify and quantify demand drivers, such as strategic initiatives, volume shifts, technology changes or customer expectations, and assess how these drivers shape future role requirements.
• Assess current workforce supply using available HR data, analysing the distribution of roles, skills, locations and cost to establish a baseline for planning.
• Build SWP model that links demand drivers with role requirements and integrates supply, skills, location and cost to generate forward looking workforce scenarios.
• Model multiple strategic scenarios to help leaders understand workforce sensitivities, risks and cost implications, and use insights to inform workforce strategies.
• Synthesize complex insights into clear outputs, producing high quality presentations that outline findings, risks, workforce options and recommended next steps.
• Collaborate closely with OE, HRBPs, Finance and business stakeholders to validate assumptions, refine insights and embed SWP thinking into decision making.
• Develop and deliver a practical SWP toolkit, including frameworks, templates and guidance to drive consistency and repeatability across future SWP cycles.

Key Performance Indicators:

• SWP Pilot Delivery: Successful completion of SWP pilots together with Group OE Team for all agreed functions within the 3‐month timeframe. Clearly defined and documented scope, assumptions, and outcomes for each pilot.
• SWP Toolkit Development: Delivery of a complete, user friendly SWP toolkit including templates, frameworks, guidance and examples.
• Business Engagement & Leadership Alignment: Affective facilitation on strategic conversations with HR Directors, HRBPs, Finance and business leaders

What you’ll need to succeed

• Extensive experience in delivering Strategic Workforce Planning in complex matrix organisations, preferably in consulting environments
• Strong analytical capabilities with advanced Excel skills and SWP Excel data modelling.
• Ability to simplify complex problems into clear frameworks, narratives and decision-ready insights.
• Experience working with HR data related to workforce supply, skills, roles, locations and cost
• Advanced Excel proficiency (Essential)
• Experience in designing methodologies, frameworks or planning tools (Desirable)
• Background in workforce planning, strategy, organisational design or HR consulting (Essential)