Senior Consultant

Job Title: Senior Consultant – Workforce

Department: Consultancy and Research

Location: Bristol/Sheffield office with hybrid working available

Pay Scale: £63,000k per annum

Contract: Permanent

Hours: Full Time (37.5 hours per week)

The Workforce Development Trust

The Workforce Development Trust is a not-for-profit organisation that provides services that support employers to develop skilled, sustainable, and efficient workforces in the UK and abroad. We operate via our four brands; Skills for Health, Skills for Justice, SFJ Awards, iCQ Awards and People 1st International, which deliver specialist, targeted skills interventions to support a variety of frontline public services.

The Workforce Development Trust is growing and we're looking for talented consultants to join our expanding Consultancy & Research Division. With ambitious plans for the years ahead, we're building on our success across health, justice, emergency services and the wider public sector to deliver work that makes a real difference.

We have multiple positions available at Consultant and Senior Consultant level, offering the chance to lead and contribute to a wide variety of projects, from national workforce transformation programmes to local service redesign and capability frameworks. Working within a collaborative, matrix team, you'll bring your own specialist strengths while contributing across the full breadth of our consultancy offer.

If you're passionate about improving how public services plan, develop and support their people and you thrive in an environment where evidence, innovation and purpose come together we'd love to hear from you.

Job summary

As a Senior Consultant-Workforce, you will play a pivotal role in the design, leadership and delivery of workforce transformation programmes across health, justice, emergency services, and the wider public sector. You will be part of a small, senior team of consultants operating within a matrix model. Each postholder will lead on a particular area of expertise; such as workforce analytics, strategic planning, or workforce/organisational development while contributing across the full spectrum of the consultancy offer.

Assignments may span national policy-level reviews, regional workforce reform programmes, or provider-level workforce diagnostics and delivery plans. The role demands a high level of subject matter expertise, autonomy, and personal leadership, alongside a proven ability to work collaboratively with internal colleagues and senior external stakeholders.

You will be expected to interpret complex workforce challenges, co-design innovative and realistic solutions with clients, and shape delivery that is both technically sound and practically implementable. You'll work across a wide-ranging portfolio, including (but not limited to) workforce supply and demand modelling, training needs analysis, workforce redesign, skills framework development, and career pathways.

Team Structure and Specialisms

This post is one of a number of equivalent Senior Consultant-Workforce roles within the Consultancy & Research Division.

Each postholder brings a primary domain specialism, while working across projects with others.

Your core specialism may lie in one or more of the following areas:

• Workforce Analytics: including workforce supply and demand modelling, scenario planning, forecasting, and dashboard development
• Workforce Planning & Strategy: including pathway and service redesign, strategic workforce planning, integrated and multidisciplinary workforce models
• Workforce and Organisational Development: including career pathways, TNA, capability frameworks, talent and succession planning, and OD interventions

This matrix approach ensures that our consultancy offer is both deep and agile, with individual expertise contributing to system wide change.

What is the impact of the role on the business?

As a Senior Consultant – Workforce, you'll be shaping and leading major programmes that strengthen workforce capability across the UK's health, justice, emergency services, and wider public sectors. You'll help our clients tackle complex challenges like workforce shortages, skills gaps, and system redesign, translating strategy into practical, evidence-based solutions. Your work directly influences national reform programmes, improves frontline capacity, and helps build the future public service workforce.

Key business skills necessary for the role?

This role calls for both strategic thinking and delivery discipline. You'll need excellent stakeholder engagement and consultancy skills, the ability to interpret complex evidence, and the confidence to lead projects end-to-end. Strong project management and analytical capability are essential, as is the ability to produce compelling, well-structured outputs. Experience in workforce analytics, planning, or organisational development, ideally gained through consulting or senior service roles will set you apart.

What does the daily work look like?

You'll lead and contribute to multiple workforce transformation projects, sometimes designing a national workforce framework, other times running workshops with clients to test solutions. Expect a mix of analytical work, client-facing delivery, and collaboration with colleagues across our matrix consultancy team. Hybrid working gives you autonomy to focus deeply from home and to connect in person for workshops, planning, and relationship-building. Every day brings new challenges, new sectors, and the opportunity to make a visible difference.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Planning and Development

• Contribute to the annual business planning process and the delivery of both function and corporate business objectives.
• Lead or co-lead high-profile commissioned projects across a portfolio of public sector clients

Technical Leadership by Specialism

• Provide technical and strategic leadership in your area of specialism (e.g. analytics, planning, OD)
• Develop tools, methodologies and approaches to enhance the organisation's delivery capability in that domain

Management and Delivery

• Lead multi-disciplinary project teams, including associates, analysts, and subject matter experts
• Undertake line management responsibilities as required

Quality Assurance and Standards

• Ensure the quality, accuracy and consistency of outputs produced within your portfolio of work
• Contribute to the development and maintenance of internal QA processes, including peer review, benchmarking, and internal learning loops

Please download full JD and person specification here and our job pack here

This job requires some days in the office. Please consider if you are willing to relocate before applying.

Please include your CV and cover letter. In your covering letter, please give specific examples of work you've done or experiences you've had that demonstrate how you meet the requirements of this post and why this role feels like a good fit for you.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted

Please note, we reserve the right to alter the closing date before the one stated

Benefits:

• Generous annual leave entitlement up to a maximum of 28 days, plus public holidays and a potential Christmas closure
• Flexible working - 50% working from home with a dress for your day approach
• Staggered start and finish time
• Employee referral recruitment scheme
• We provide enhanced leave, bereavement, carers, maternity, paternity and sickness leave.
• Health and wellbeing benefits, access to our mental health first aiders, a confidential employee assistance programme, free eye tests and payment for an annual flu jab
• Enhanced pension scheme, with a contribution matching up to a combined 12%, and the option to join the Salary Exchange Pension Scheme along with death in service coverage at three times annual salary.
• Flexible employee benefits, portal including a cycle to work scheme
• Buy annual leave scheme
• Organisational development days and departmental training budgets
• Payroll giving, this is a tax-free way to donate to any charity, good cause or place of worship

The Workforce Development Trust is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes everyone.

If your experience differs a little from what is outlined in the job description, or you are missing a desired qualification, yet you think you can bring value to this role, please apply, we would like to hear more about you.

We strongly encourage people of all gender, religion, ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientation, and individuals with disabilities to apply.

If you need any reasonable adjustments at any point, please let us know. In your application, please feel free to advise on your preferred pronouns, for example she/her, he/him, they/them etc.

Closing date: Wednesday 19th November 2025.