Head of Organisational Effectiveness
Salary: £80,000 - £90,000
Department: HR, Chief Operating Office
Hours: Full-time (we're happy to discuss flexible working arrangements)
Location: Stratford, London Office-based with high flexibility (typically 1-2 days per week in the office)
Closing date: 23:59 on 16th November.
This vacancy may close earlier if a high volume of applications are received or once a suitable candidate is found.
At Cancer Research UK, we exist to beat cancer.
We are professionals with purpose, beating cancer every day. But we need to go much further and much faster. That's why we're looking for someone talented, someone determined, someone like you.
We have an exciting opportunity for a collaborative and delivery‑focussed Head of Organisational Effectiveness to join our brand new team.
We're creating a new Organisational Effectiveness Centre of Expertise to help CRUK plan, design and deliver work more effectively. As Head of OE, you will build and lead this new team‑bringing together strategic workforce planning, organisational design, the people‑side of change, and employee experience, inclusion and wellbeing into a clear, joined‑up offer.
Your focus is to set simple, usable standards, turn insight into prioritised actions, and provide leaders with a clear, decision‑ready view of progress and risks. You'll also energise CRUK’s evolution in how work gets done–spotting critical capabilities, advancing skills‑based planning, shaping more flexible team structures, and advising on the implications of emerging technologies (including AI) for roles and ways of working–while ensuring inclusion, wellbeing and employee experience are embedded throughout, so teams can adapt faster and achieve more.
In a supportive working environment, you'll discover something new every day, whether it's a new connection, a new method of engagement or a talent you never knew you had. You'll also be surrounded by people who are as dedicated to beating cancer as you are.
What will be some of the main responsibilities?
* Lead strategic workforce planning across CRUK, designing tools and activity that help teams plan for future skills, roles, and capacity, enabling HRBPs to run the Strategic Workforce Planning cycles.
* Maintain a clear view of People Plan priorities and performance, linking strategy, resources, and risks to support informed decision‑making.
* Ensure organisational design aligns with workforce insights, presenting clear options and trade‑offs to support effective operating models.
* Drive people‑side change practices across CRUK, embedding PROSCI‑ADKAR as the standard and partnering with programme teams to support delivery.
* Oversee delivery of the people‑focused elements of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategy, ensuring they are embedded in everyday practice.
* Build HR capability in planning and performance, helping teams use tools and routines confidently to support organisational goals.
* Lead and develop the Organisational Effectiveness team, working with external experts when needed and collaborating with other Heads to align priorities and delivery.
What skills are we looking for?
* Proven enterprise Strategic Workforce Planning expertise, translating strategy into demand/supply views and scenarios, creating usable playbooks for HRBPs, and running simple, repeatable cycles.
* Strong portfolio & performance leadership, building a single view of People Plan priorities, capacity, risks and benefits, and running short, effective performance reviews that enable timely decisions.
* Deep organisational design experience, shaping structures, roles, spans/layers and decision paths with clear options and trade‑offs, aligned to workforce insights.
* Confident use of data and clear storytelling, combining qualitative and quantitative insight, defining a small set of meaningful indicators, and partnering with Data & Insight to produce decision‑ready options.
* Strong integration of employee experience, inclusion and wellbeing, turning sentiment and people data into actionable improvements and operationalising the people elements of the EDI strategy; sets psychologically safe, accessible practice by default.
* Governance and assurance craft with commercial judgement, designing lightweight standards and reviews that balance speed with risk/compliance and directing external spend to the highest‑impact work.
What will I gain?
Each and every one of our employees contributes to our progress and is supporting our work to beat cancer. We think that’s impressive.
In return, we make sure you are supported by a generous benefits package, a wide range of career and personal development opportunities and high‑quality tools, policies and processes to enable you to do your job well.
Our benefits package includes a substantial retirement plan, a generous and flexible leave allowance, discounts on anything from travel to technology, gym membership, and much more.
We don’t forget people have lives outside of work too and so we actively encourage a flexible working culture.
Our work’— from funding cutting‑edge research to developing public policy’—will change the world. It’s exciting to be part of our team.
How do I apply?
We operate an anonymised shortlisting process in our commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion. CVs are required for all applications; but we won’t be able to view them until we invite you for an interview. Instead, we ask you to complete the work history section of the online application form for us to be able to assess you quickly, fairly and objectively.
For more information on this career opportunity please visit our website or contact us.
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