People Lead

Methodfi; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A dynamic consultancy in London is seeking its first dedicated People Lead to shape recruitment, development, and culture as it grows. This strategic role involves collaboration with leadership to develop people strategies that align with business goals while maintaining a supportive and dynamic work environment. The ideal candidate will have substantial experience in leading people strategy in a consultancy and will foster a culture of growth and wellbeing. This role offers competitive compensation and flexible working arrangements.

Benefits

25 days paid time off

Enhanced parental leave

Flexible working hours

Summer closure week

Paid emergency carers leave

Qualifications

• Experience leading people strategy in a services environment, ideally consultancy or agency.
• Proven experience in shaping people systems during growth.
• Managed recruitment processes end-to-end.
• Designed and implemented progression frameworks and appraisal systems.
• Worked at senior level on organisational challenges.

Responsibilities

• Own the overall people strategy reflecting company values and goals.
• Create progression frameworks and implement learning strategies.
• Monitor team wellbeing and shape supportive policies.
• Work with leadership to forecast hiring needs and workforce capability.

Skills

Strategic thinking

Excellent judgement

Clear communication

Systems thinking

Job description

The role

You'll be the first dedicated People Lead at Projects by IF, shaping how we attract, develop, and retain brilliant people as we grow. This is a strategic role: you'll work closely with the leadership team to build people systems and help codify our culture, which will sustain our growth while protecting what makes IF distinctive. You'll balance two priorities: what's right for the team and what's right for the business. Sometimes these align naturally; sometimes they require careful judgment. You'll need to hold both perspectives and help the leadership team navigate thoughtfully.

You'll own the overall people strategy and make sure our approach to hiring, development, and progression reflects our values and supports our commercial goals. You will predominantly work with freelance recruiters to source candidates, although this might be required from time to time.

Specific areas of ownership

Recruitment process and strategy

• You’ll look at hiring strategy, culture and standards, partnering closely with our Freelance Talent Acquisition Lead who owns day-to-day delivery.
• Ensure we're hiring for skills, values alignment, and long-term potential
• Own the candidate experience from first contact through to onboarding
• Build our employer brand and articulate what makes IF a distinctive place to work

Learning, development and progression

• Create clear progression frameworks so people understand how they can grow here
• Design and implement our approach to learning and development
• Build appraisal and feedback systems that feel meaningful rather than bureaucratic
• Own role levelling and compensation process
• Identify skills gaps and plan how we'll address them as the business evolves

Culture and team health

• Be an ambassador of our values and model the behaviours we want to see in our team
• Monitor team wellbeing and address issues before they become problems
• Shape policies and practices that support a healthy, sustainable working environment
• Help us maintain our culture as we scale and navigate how we embed culture in a hybrid environment
• Play a key part in team communications
• You will be supported by external HR support, but you would be expected to support internal leaders and managers through any performance or team issues

Strategic people planning

• Work with leadership to forecast hiring needs and capability gaps
• Contribute to business planning with a clear view of what our people strategy enables
• Advice on organisational design as we grow
• Management and reporting of people data, i.e. engagement, retention, DEI etc

About you

Experience

You will have:

• Led people strategy in a services environment, ideally a consultancy, agency, or studio
• Built or significantly shaped people systems during a period of growth
• Managed recruitment processes end-to-end, even if you haven't done hands‑on sourcing
• Designed and implemented progression frameworks, appraisal systems, or L&D programmes
• Worked at a senior level with leadership teams on organisational challenges

Skills

• Strong strategic thinking: you see how people's decisions connect to business outcomes
• Excellent judgement: you can balance competing priorities and make sound calls in ambiguous situations
• Clear communication: you can explain your reasoning and bring people along with you
• Systems thinking: you can design processes that work at scale without becoming bureaucratic and make the best of AI tools to support a process

Attributes

• Genuinely interested in what makes organisations healthy and effective
• Comfortable with the ambiguity and pace of a growing business
• Able to advocate for people while understanding commercial realities
• Values‑driven, with the backbone to hold the line when it matters
• Curious about what IF does, you don't need to understand it all, but you should want to understand what we do and why it matters

Your location

IF is based in London and we’re looking for someone based here or within commutable distance. We’re largely a remote‑first team and currently spend Wednesdays together in a studio next to Old Street station. We also spend some time with clients but plan this to be infrequent and valuable. Client‑facing work requires flexibility but we’re designing a setup to enable deep‑work and balance.

The hiring process

You’re likely to meet one member of the team at each stage because we’re a small team. We may use an AI notetaking service to assist your interviewer in capturing the conversation.

We will ask that you walk us through some work at each stage, varying in depth and focus depending on the stage and who you’re meeting. We’ll share more during the process so that you can prepare.

1. An initial 30 minute introductory call to discuss the role, your experience and ensure alignment.
2. A 60 minute interview to discuss your background in more detail. We’ll dig into your experience and also ask some questions based on real‑world IF context.
3. A 60 minute interview to have a final chat about your work, as well as your ways of working, motivations and working at IF.

Salary and benefits

The salary band for this role is 60-80k. We’ll assess experience throughout the interview process to determine where within this band you would join. Our benefits also include:

• A time off allowance of 25 days each calendar year, in addition to bank holidays (which typically tops this up to around 33 days).
• Christmas closure. The dates for this differ each year but we’re offline between Christmas and New Year to enjoy this busy holiday season.
• We also aim to schedule a week‑long summer closure each year, to all be offline during the warmer months, putting on the collective breaks and pausing all notifications.
• 5 days of paid emergency carers leave. Last minute caring responsibilities need to be prioritised and this leave is there to support you taking the time you need.
• Enhanced parental leave for all genders and routes to becoming a parent.
• A proactive and considered approach to balancing work and life. You can read more about our team‑wide practices below, and this is teamed up with an openness to understanding and supporting individual needs.

Working at IF

We encourage a balanced way of working. We’re ambitious, hardworking and constantly juggling the demands of our work. However, we also offer flexibility and a deep appreciation of life outside of work. We’re creating an environment where you will do some of the most fulfilling work of your career and with that comes a deep commitment to our collective network’s care and wellbeing.

• Core hours. We’re online and schedule meetings 1000-1600. Outside of that, we encourage you to to start and end your day between 0730-1900, allowing you to design your working day around your needs and preferences.
• Flexible Fridays. We try to keep this day meeting free to facilitate a sense of calm and completion to end the week. And once work is finished, clock off. There’s no expectation to work the whole day if the work is done.
• Thoughtful approach to sync vs. async work. To deliver our expertise we must carve out time for deep‑work. How we communicate, document and spend time together is thoughtfully designed and iterated upon.