{"id":2196329,"url":"https://alion.io/job/aqa-2026-people-adviser","title":"People Adviser","company":{"id":1791368,"name":"AQA","domain":"aqa.org.uk","url":"https://alion.io/company/aqa-org-uk","size_band":"501-1000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":null},"role":"HR","role_family":"HR","seniority":null,"employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Manchester, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":34000,"max":38300,"currency":"GBP","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":50667},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Microsoft Office","optional":false},{"name":"Service Desk","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-09T19:37:52Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-09","last_verified_at":"2026-10-21T11:19:18Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":13,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":13},"description":"At AQA, we’re committed to advancing education and we’re committed to our people. As the largest provider of academic qualifications in the UK, we mark over 10 million exam papers each year and it’sour people who make this happen.\nJob title: People Adviser\nContract type: 12-month Fixed Term Contract\nLocation: Manchester, M15\nSalary: £34,000 to £38,300\nWorking Arrangements: Hybrid working - 2 days a week in office (Tuesdays & Thursdays)\nWorking hours: 35 hours per week with flexible working hours (8am - 4pm OR 9am to 5pm)\nPeople join us for the work, but stay for the team. We're supportive, collaborative, and genuinely enjoy what we do.\nLooking for a role where your employee relations expertise will make a real impact? At AQA, you'll join a passionate People Team where you'll take ownership of a diverse and complex employee relations (ER) caseload from an early stage. We believe great people practices create the foundation for a positive employee experience and organisational success. As we continue to support our colleagues through change, growth and business priorities, we're looking for an experienced People Adviser to join our People Team on a 12-month fixed-term contract.\nIf you're an experienced HR professional with a broad range of practical ER experience, who enjoys managing formal cases end-to-end whilst building trusted relationships with managers, we'd love to hear from you.\nWhat's in it for you?\nThis is an opportunity to work on meaningful people challenges while developing your expertise within a collaborative and supportive People function.\nWork on a diverse range of complex and high-impact ER matters with exposure to managers across the organisation\nFree access to an on-site gym and games room in our modern Manchester office\nAccess opportunities for ongoing professional development and continuous learning as well as employee assistance and wellbeing programmes\n25 days' annual leave, rising to 30 days with service, plus additional Christmas closure days \nA generous pension scheme with combined contributions of up to 18.5%, available from your first day \nUp to five paid volunteering days each year.\nAn inclusive, values-led culture supported by employee networks including LGBTQ+, neurodiversity, empowering women, wellbeing, ethnic diversity and interfaith communities \nPurpose of the role\nAs a People Adviser, you’ll be working in a team of 4 Advisers, alongside the People Partnering and Employee Relations team, who value knowledge sharing, teamwork and delivering excellent support across the organisation. You'll take ownership of a varied ER caseload, supporting managers across AQA with practical, people-focused advice on complex workforce matters.\nFrom an early stage, you'll independently manage a varied range of formal ER cases, involving leading workplace investigations, interviewing employees and witnesses, preparing investigation reports and supporting managers through formal meetings and outcomes.\nAlongside case management, you'll help managers navigate sensitive and complex workforce issues with confidence, coaching them through challenging conversations, performance concerns and sensitive employee situations, ensuring fair, consistent and legally compliant approaches that balance business needs with colleague experience.\nIn this role, you'll be responsible for:\nLeading a range of formal ER cases from start to finish, including grievances, long-term and short-term sickness absence cases, formal capability processes, probation reviews, failed probation cases, disciplinary matters and conduct concerns.\nFacilitating workplace investigations, gathering evidence, interviewing employees and witnesses, supporting independent hearing managers to assess findings and producing clear, balanced investigation reports.\nAdvising managers on appropriate courses of action, ensuring decisions are fair, consistent, evidence-based and aligned with company policy and employment legislation.\nCoaching and supporting managers through difficult conversations, performance concerns, attendance issues and complex employee dynamics.\nPreparing for and facilitating formal meetings, including capability, attendance, disciplinary, grievance and probation-related hearings.\nMaking recommendations and supporting managers through decision-making processes and formal outcomes.\nBuilding confidence and capability within the management population by providing practical, commercially focused ER guidance.\nYou'll thrive in this role if you have:\nSignificant experience in a People Adviser, HR Adviser or Employee Relations-focused role, with responsibility for independently managing formal ER cases.\nDemonstrable experience leading investigation processes, interviewing employees and witnesses, supporting hiring managers to evaluate evidence and producing high-quality investigation reports.\nExperience confidently handling formal grievance, sickness absence, capability, disciplinary and probation processes from start to finish including supporting reviews and handling failed probation cases, conducting witness interviews, preparing investigation reports, managing formal capability and attendance processes, and guiding managers through challenging employee situations.\nExperience chairing or supporting formal ER meetings and advising managers on appropriate outcomes.\nA proven track record of coaching managers through difficult conversations, challenging employee situations and sensitive workplace issues.\nSound knowledge of UK employment law and confidence applying legislation, policy and best practice to real-life ER scenarios.\nThe ability to balance empathy with objectivity whilst making practical, risk-based recommendations.\nStrong written communication skills with experience drafting formal documentation, outcome letters and reports.\nCIPD Level 5 qualification (or equivalent experience).\nThe confidence to quickly establish credibility and take ownership of a caseload early in the role.\nExperience of Employment Tribunals is not essential\nDiversity and Inclusion Statement\nAt AQA, we are committed to fostering a workplace that celebrates diversity and promotes equity and inclusion. We believe that a diverse team brings richer perspectives and drives better outcomes. Our ED&I strategy ensures that everyone-regardless of religion, ethnicity, gender identity or expression, age, disability, sexual orientation, or background-is valued, respected, and empowered to thrive. We actively promote inclusive language, avoid stereotypes, and strive for representation across all dimensions of diversity. We welcome applications from individuals of all backgrounds and lived experiences.\nWhat's Next?\nTo apply, please submit your CV and cover letter as part of the application process and answer screening questions.\nApplication deadline: Please apply with your CV and Cover letter by 19th October \nInterview process: Teams interviews to start on W/C 26th Oct with face-to-face interviews the following week\n#MCRE #LI-MK1\nRecruitment Agencies\nWe have a preferred supplier list (PSL) in place.\nUnsolicited CVs will be treated as a gift. We will not be subject to or liable under your terms and conditions for agency fees.\nFull Job Description\nSummary\nTo provide the highest quality HR service through coaching, guiding, supporting and advising managers and colleagues on all aspects of the employee lifecycle, ensuring compliance with policies, employment law and regulations with consideration to risk and commercial management and ensuring a positive colleague experience. Having a hands-on approach and taking ownership of specific business area delivering proactive interventions in response to identified business and colleague needs.Landscape: The People Adviser role is a key member of a team of three advisers, providing high quality HR advice to managers and colleagues across the business. The team sits within People Partnering and Employee Relations department (22 colleagues). The department provides a range of services including: business area strategic support, diagnosis, consultancy and delivery of people-related services and projects; subject matter expertise in diversity and inclusion and employee relations; HR policy development and associated training development; operational support with people queries; and joiners, movers and leavers administration and checks.Activities:\nProactively participate, facilitate, support and advise managers about employee lifecycle matters for example from the point of recruitment to the leaver process, policies, variations to contract, secondments, leavers, organisational development, and respond to colleague queries as appropriate.\nProactively participate, facilitate, support and advise managers about employee relations matters such as absence management, performance management, grievance, disciplinary, capability, probationary, change management and TUPE, ensuring compliance with employment law and company policy, with consideration to risk and commercial management, and respond to colleague queries as appropriate.\nLead on the development and implementation of projects including restructures, policy implementation and people plans in conjunction with the Senior People Partner/People Partner, ensuring deadlines are met in line with business plans and employment legislation.\nConduct benchmarking and evaluations of job roles utilising external data and systems. Proactively participate in regular job evaluation meetings.\nCoaching and developing managers in order to improve their capability and empower them to make decisions, challenging and escalating where necessary.\nManage collaborative relationships across People Group teams, other key teams and managers.\nInterpret data into relevant reports, identifying themes and trends, ensure agreed follow up action is taken to enable implementation of decisions.\nEnsure the People Service Desk ticketing system and other systems/records are maintained and that high standards of service and performance and continuous improvement are demonstrated at all times.\nResults driven approach to managing complex employee relations cases that escalate to higher stages in the process in conjunction with Employee Relations Team, Senior People Partner/People Partner, business managers and Trade Unions/Employee Forum.\nResponsible for maintaining the relationship with recognised Trade Unions/Employee Forum in support of employee relations cases, as and when required.\nTo comply with all AQA’s policies and other legislative requirements, including but not limited to Health, Safety and the Environment, Diversity and Inclusion and Information Security Management System.\nTake responsibility for your own continuous professional development to meet existing and future business needs.\nTravel to other AQA sites, sometimes necessitating overnight stays, as the need arises.\nTo be successful in this role, you will need to know:\nCIPD qualified or equivalent - Level 5, or equivalent levels of experience.\nProven experience of advising, guiding and supporting managers on a range of employee relations and employee lifecycle matters, at various stages and complexities and managing the application of policies, procedures and processes.\nClear written and verbal communication skills, strong proven interpersonal skills, adaptable to a range of circumstances with an approach to achieving consistently high standards of work.\nExperience of challenging stakeholders at different levels where appropriate.\nStrong organisational skills, ability to prioritise and plan ahead.\nProficient use of HR systems and Microsoft Office applications.","description_format":"text","description_chars":11623,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Annual leave","Continuous learning","Equity","Flexible schedule","Hybrid work","Paid volunteering days","Professional development"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United Kingdom","iso":"GB","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Standards & Industry Bodies"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-09T19:37:52Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":77,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.852,"p_room":0.9,"age_days":12,"expected_fill_days":25,"reasons":["conf:18","velocity","win:mid"],"computed_at":"2026-10-22T06:10:10Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":50667,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/aqa-2026-people-adviser","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/aqa-2026-people-adviser.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-23T00:33:34Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":961,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-24T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":1791368},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=1791368"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Faqa-2026-people-adviser"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Faqa-2026-people-adviser"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Faqa-2026-people-adviser"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/aqa-2026-people-adviser\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Faqa-2026-people-adviser"}]}