About The Role

As People Business Partner for Ark’s Birmingham region, you will deliver excellent stakeholder engagement to all of your region’s primary, secondary and all-through schools. Ensuring the effective delivery of a proactive and efficient People service and ensuring that strategies are in place to balance the needs of individual academies whilst supporting the delivery of Ark’s strategic objectives.

You will join a skilled and experienced Business Partner team as well as being expected to be a contributing member of the wider People team, bringing your professional knowledge and personal creativity to continuously improve the quality of the People service.

This role requires someone who is able to flex their management skills to work with a broad range of stakeholders and ensure a consistently high standard of service to the Ark schools in the Birmingham region.

The People Business Partner (Birmingham) will report into Head of Business Partnering. This role is currently operating hybrid working in our West London Office on a fixed term basis working full time.

1st round interviews will be taking place in person on 03/11/2025.

Key Responsibilities

• Partner with the Birmingham Regional Director to enable the effective development and implementation of People strategies, plans and practices
• Support your region on all key People processes, providing guidance, coaching and constructive challenge when appropriate
• Effectively engage, and work collaboratively with Central function leaders to positively influence the high performance and professional Central support services to your region
• Lead on local trade union consultations and negotiations
• Own, analyse, and report People data in ways that underpins best practice and effective people management and planning (including management intelligence and on which strategic decisions can be made)

Key Requirements

• CIPD Level 7 (or equivalent)
• Right to work in the UK

Benefits

• Our hybrid working model aims to offer the best of both worlds, striking the right balance between in-person collaboration and remote working. You will work a minimum of two days per week in our state-of-the-art office in West London allowing you to connect with colleagues, with the flexibility to work remotely, or in the office over the remaining days
• In addition to our current hybrid working arrangements, employees can request to work fully remotely for up to 10 working days a year, whether this be in the UK or abroad
• Our flexitime policy allows you to work your hours around our core hours of 10.00 - 16.00, helping you prioritise your work-life balance and personal commitments
• 27 days annual leave plus bank holidays, rising with each year of service up to 30 days after 3-years’ service. This entitlement is pro rata for part time employees. This entitlement excludes bank holidays
• Full office closure between Christmas and New Year
• As an Ark employee, you will have the opportunity to be part of the TPT (The Pension Trust) scheme, our workplace pension scheme where we make an 11% contribution; you are not required to contribute towards this scheme unless you choose to. Depending on your role you may also be entitled to LGPS which is a defined benefit scheme where you contribute a percentage based on how much you earn (as do we) in exchange for a guaranteed amount in your pension pot every year
• Access to high-quality professional learning throughout your career, offering both face-to-face sessions and a bespoke online learning platform
• Access to Ark Rewards scheme offering savings from over 3,000 major retailers, interest-free loans available for season tickets or a bike, gym discounts offering up to 40% off your local gym and free eye tests

About Us

Ark is an education charity that exists to make sure that all children, regardless of their background, have access to a great education and real choices in life. Our network of 39 schools reaches traditionally underserved communities in Birmingham, Hastings, London and Portsmouth. We educate 30,000 pupils and have nearly 3,000 teaching staff across our network. We also incubate and scale innovative ventures, which we roll out beyond our network of schools for the benefit of teachers, pupils and the education system as a whole. Current Ventures include Ark Curriculum Plus, which equips teachers with the subject expertise needed to ensure students succeed, and Ark Start, a growing chain of nurseries offering affordable, high-quality early years education. Recently, Ark moved to new offices at EdCity – a unique not-for-profit development in West London, in partnership with Hammersmith & Fulham council. EdCity is designed to bring mission-aligned organisations together to focus on improving the lives of children, especially through education. It offers leased offices, a range of venues for training and events, and an innovation hub for the education sector to connect, collaborate and learn together.

Diversity and inclusion

We aim to build a diverse and inclusive organisation where everyone – staff and students – can do their best work and achieve their full potential. We want to reflect and represent diverse perspectives across our organisation because we know that doing so will make us stronger and more effective. To know more about Ark’s diversity and inclusion commitments, please click on this text.

Safeguarding statement

Ark is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people in its academies. In order to meet this responsibility, its academies follow a rigorous selection process to discourage and screen out unsuitable applicants.

Ark requires all employees to undertake an enhanced DBS check. You are required, before appointment, to disclose any unspent conviction, cautions, reprimands or warnings under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975. Non-disclosure may lead to termination of employment. However, disclosure of a criminal background will not necessarily debar you from employment - this will depend upon the nature of the offence(s) and when they occurred. To read more about Ark’s safer recruitment process, please click this text.

Please note we will be reviewing applications on an on-going basis and this role may close earlier than advertised depending on the level of response. We strongly encourage to submit your application at your earliest convenience.

For any questions, please contact recruitment@arkonline.org.