Head of People Operations

Migrant Help have an exciting opportunity to recruit a Head of People Operations to join our team!

Location: Dover (hybrid)
Contract: Permanent
Salary: £55,000

About us: 

Migrant Help is a leading charity that was established in 1963 and delivers a range of support and advice services to people affected by displacement and exploitation across the UK. Our vision is for a global society that protects vulnerable people, treats them with respect and enables them to reach their full potential.

We foster a culture in which equality, diversity and inclusion are recognised, valued and encouraged. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from, we match your skills with the needs of our organisation, as long as you share our values, vision and goals. We welcome applications from candidates regardless of their age, religion or belief, race, gender reassignment, disability, sexual orientation, sex, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity.

The Head of People Operations role:

Part of the People & Culture team, the Head of People Operations is a new and exciting role at Migrant Help. You will be responsible for leading and delivering efficient, compliant, and high quality people related operational services across the organisation. The role provides management oversight of Operations, Payroll and People Systems and Employee Relations. A key part of the role will be managing the overseeing the provision of high-quality advice, guidance, and coaching to managers across the People & Culture function. This includes the management of complex employee relations matters such as disciplinary and grievance cases, appeals and organisational restructures.

If you have demonstrable experience overseeing people processes with the ability to challenge and influence, and are looking for an exciting role that makes a difference, we’d love to hear from you!

Key responsibilities of our Head of People Operations:

People Operations & Service Delivery

• Lead the end to end delivery of people operational services, delivering against established SLA, including employee lifecycle activities - onboarding, employee changes and exits.
• Ensure People policies, processes, and procedures are consistently applied and continuously improved.

People Systems, Data & Reporting

• Oversee and optimise People systems (e.g. PeopleHR, payroll system, Perkbox).
• Ensure accuracy, integrity, and effective use of people data.

Policy, Compliance & Governance

• Maintain and develop People policies aligned to employment law and organisational values.
• Ensure compliance with UK employment legislation and organisational contractual obligations.

Payroll

• Provide operational oversight of payroll and benefits administration, working closely with Finance and external providers.
• Ensure accurate, timely payroll delivery and effective issue resolution.

The experience and skills you need

• Demonstrable experience of managing an HR/People & Culture team(s) to successfully delivering against an SLA in a regulated environment
• Strong working knowledge of UK employment law with demonstrable experience of confidently and competently advising on employee relations issues.
• Experience of identifying, managing and mitigating organisational risk arising from people issues across the employee life cycle
• Proven people management and leadership capability.
• Ability to interact with and influence various levels of people across the organisation
• Excellent active listening with ability to process and share information effectively

Migrant Help is committed to safeguarding those we provide a service to, applicants will have to undergo strict vetting procedures throughout different stages of the recruitment process therefore:  

This post is subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check therefore applicants must:

• Be able to provide documents to show their right to work in the UK (such as Passport, work visa, settled status document, certificate of registration, naturalisation as a British citizen, Biometric Residence Permit etc.)
• Provide full employment history for the previous 3 years and/or suitable documentation to cover any gaps in employment

These are some of the benefits we offer

• Our working week is 35 hours per week offering flexibility and work life balance
• Enhanced family friendly provisions
• Employees will gain an extra day annual leave per year to a maximum of 39 days, including bank holidays (pro-rata).
• Option to buy or sell up to 5 days of annual leave
• Access to Perkbox, an employee rewards and benefits platform with over 9,000 deals and discounts, a range of free perks, employee wellbeing support and other additional employee benefits and recognitions.
• Wellbeing support.
• Migrant Help offers employees a non-contributory pension scheme Migrant Help pays 8% worth of employee salary into the pension scheme.

Closing Date: 22nd June 2026

If you are interested in becoming our new Head of People Operations, please click 'APPLY' today. We look forward to hearing from you!

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be a valuable tool during the application process, for example to help structure your sentences and identify your transferable skills. However, please ensure you don’t rely on it entirely. As your application will be reviewed by people, not systems, it is often easy to recognise when AI has been heavily used. We want to hear your unique voice and understand your experience.

??Selection Criteria

• Your application will be assessed against the job description and person specification, which can be found via the above link, we therefore recommend you review both before you apply.
• We encourage applications from disabled people and aim to progress candidates who meet the minimum criteria to the next stage of the recruitment process, For more information on how we apply the disability confident scheme.

Please note this vacancy may close early depending on applications received

As part of your role, it is important you operate within Migrant Help’s values: Protection, Diversity, Equality, Partnership, Innovation and Excellence.

Migrant Help is proud to be an equal opportunities employer.