Senior Business Partner - People and Culture

Role Description

We are a University with ambitious and distinctive characteristics and welcome applications from enthusiastic HR professionals to join our community.

About the Role

To support our ambitions we are seeking a Senior Business Partner with the ability and experience to help realise our people priorities and make a real impact on our staff and student experience through partnering with stakeholders across the University within Professional Service Units. 

About You

We welcome applications from individuals who are able to influence and partner successfully with a range of stakeholders. You will be a senior HR generalist who is MCIPD qualified, or equivalent experience, with demonstrable ER experience. This role is hands on and will have a strong focus on operational delivery as well as ensuring strategic initiatives are put into action.  Reporting to the Lead Senior Business Partner, you will have line management responsibility Business Partners, and as a team will support a range of centralised university services.

About Us

As a specialist postgraduate university, Cranfield’s world-class expertise, large-scale facilities and unrivalled industry partnerships are creating leaders in technology and management globally. Learn more about Cranfield and our unique impact here.

Our Values and Commitments

Our shared, stated values help to define who we are and underpin everything we do: Ambition; Impact; Respect; and Community. Find out more here.

We aim to create and maintain a culture in which everyone can work and study together and realise their full potential. We are a Disability Confident Employer.We are committed to actively exploring flexible working options for each role and have been ranked in the Top 30 family friendly employers in the UK by the charity Working Families. Find out more about our key commitments to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and Flexible Working here.

Working Arrangements

Collaborating and connecting are integral to so much of what we do. Our Working Arrangements Framework provides many staff with the opportunity to flexibly combine on-site and remote working, where job roles allow, balancing the needs of our community of staff, students, clients and partners.

How to apply                                   

For an informal discussion about this opportunity, please contact Louise Wootton, Lead Senior Business Partner (E): louise.wootton@cranfield.ac.uk

Please do not hesitate to contact us for further details on E: peoplerecruitment@cranfield.ac.uk. Please quote reference number 5409.

Closing date for receipt of applications:   26 October 2026

Please note that we reserve the right to close this advert prior to the stated closing date should we receive sufficient numbers of applications. Therefore, we would encourage you to complete and submit your application as soon as possible.