Compensation Manager – retail or hospitality
England (ideally Midlands or South based)– remote working with weekly visits to Head Office
£65-77,000 + bonus + car allowance + benefits + career opportunities
Are you ready to shape the future of reward in one of the UK’s most recognisable consumer brands?
We’re seeking a strategic, commercially-minded Compensation Manager who can bring fresh thinking to pay structures, incentive design and reward frameworks that truly engage a diverse, fast-paced workforce. This is a role for someone who wants to be more than an analyst or partner – you’ll be a trusted advisor to senior leaders, influencing decisions that impact thousands of colleagues across the UK & Ireland.
The Role
This is a pivotal role within our Clients People function, sitting at the heart of how we attract, retain and recognise talent. You’ll be responsible for shaping and leading the full compensation agenda, ensuring their reward offering is both competitive in the market and compelling for colleagues.
In practice, this means:
Owning the annual pay and bonus cycles, from design and modelling to execution and communication, ensuring fairness, accuracy and alignment with business performance.
Benchmarking and pay positioning, staying ahead of the market to make sure their pay structures remain competitive and sustainable.
Advising senior leadership, acting as the go-to expert for compensation decisions, balancing commercial priorities with fairness, equity and compliance.
Leading on executive and long-term incentives, supporting the design and delivery of schemes that drive leadership accountability and business growth.
Data-driven insights, analysing pay trends, equal pay and gender pay to provide actionable recommendations that shape strategy and enhance EVP.
Governance and compliance, ensuring all compensation practices meet legal requirements and company policy, while anticipating future legislation.
Continuous improvement, proactively challenging current ways of working and introducing new approaches, tools and frameworks to keep us at the forefront of reward practice.
This is a high-profile, business-facing role where you’ll have exposure to the Exec team, Board-level reporting and external regulators. It’s about shaping reward in a way that not only supports growth but also reflects their culture and values.
About you
Degree educated with further qualifications in Reward
To thrive, you’ll bring the blend of technical expertise, commercial judgement and influencing ability needed to set the standard in compensation. You will have incredible progressive experience gained within fast moving retail or hospitality organisations and understand what world class Compensation programmes look like in progressive organisation
We’re looking for someone who can demonstrate:
Compensation expertise, deep knowledge of compensation principles including pay structures, incentive design, executive reward and benchmarking frameworks (experience with WTW global grading is essential).
Commercial acumen, you connect reward outcomes with business performance, and can articulate the “so what” to senior stakeholders.
Analytical strength, comfortable modelling complex pay scenarios, handling large datasets, and producing insight that drives action.
Strategic mindset, able to look beyond process to consider how compensation underpins engagement, retention and EVP.
Influence and impact, you can hold your own with senior leaders, simplify complexity for a broad audience, and inspire confidence with your recommendations.
Resilience & pace, you enjoy working in a dynamic environment where priorities shift and deadlines are tight.
Credibility in context, ideally experience gained in a multi-site, consumer-facing or service-led organisation, where agility and pragmatism are key.
Why join?
This is a chance to make your mark in a high-profile role, where your work directly shapes the colleague experience and the organisation’s ability to attract and retain top talent. You’ll join a collaborative HR team with big ambitions and a leadership group that values innovation in reward.
If you’re ready to bring your expertise to a household-name brand and help set the standard for compensation excellence, we’d love to hear from you.
To apply please email your CV