Career Pathway Leader, Learning & Development

mydentist (UK); Manchester; On-site; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

30 days holiday + bank holidays

Annual bonus scheme

Private medical insurance

Health & wellbeing benefits with GP &

Discounts at cinemas, retailers, cafes

Recognition schemes

Job summary

mydentist is seeking a Career Development Pathway Leader to drive learning strategy and lead a high-performing L&D team in Manchester. You’ll own the curriculum, define pathways, manage budgets, and engage senior stakeholders to align development with the 5-year plan.

Join a network focused on professional growth, internal promotion, and continuous learning, with a strong emphasis on collaboration across Operations and the Academy.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience setting learning strategy and leading learning teams across the full learning cycle in complex organisations.
• Track record of defining best practice content strategies, design and delivery mechanisms for large and small units of subject matter.
• CIPD Level 5 L&D qualification or equivalent experience (Level 7 desirable).
• Experience owning high-risk or high-cost portfolios and budgets with multiple senior stakeholders.
• Proven people leadership, including coaching and developing team members and managing performance.
• Strong influencing and stakeholder management at senior and executive level, with excellent facilitation and communication skills.
• Commercial acumen, able to build business cases and turn data into strategic recommendations.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve the career development curriculum for all colleagues up to head of department.
• Define career pathways with key stakeholders, growing internal promotion versus external hire year on year.
• Own the further study policy and budget, upskilling colleagues against business need.
• Network in dentistry and beyond, bringing external thinking in to keep the offering current.
• Set the annual pathway plan and priorities, deciding which programmes the team designs, activates, refreshes or retires.
• Set design and delivery standards for the pathway, and approve programmes before launch.
• Decide where to invest in new methods and technologies, using pilot insight from the team to scale what works.
• Connect every project into the overarching Career Development Pathway so the framework and journey are clear to all.
• Lead, coach and develop the Senior LAS and LAS, setting objectives and building capability and succession in the team.
• Shape the stakeholder strategy for the pathway, influencing senior leaders so learning is built into business planning.
• Present plans and recommendations to the People Leadership Team, and resolve escalated development challenges.
• Sponsor a culture where managers and coaches champion continuous learning, peer-to-peer coaching and career conversations.
• Own the learning scoping process for Career Development, approving project scopes before design work begins.
• Deliver the pathway plan on time, to budget and to agreed outcomes, with clear governance and sign off for cyclical events.
• Build business cases for investment in technology, and own procurement decisions and supplier contracts for the pathway.
• Approve launch and communication plans for major programmes, working with internal comms on branding and timing.
• Set the success measures for the pathway, so every programme is evaluated against agreed results.
• Use evaluation and engagement insight from the team to decide where to invest, redesign or retire programmes.
• Own the ROI case for the pathway, and evidence how it informs business decisions.
• Report L&D data clearly to senior stakeholders so they can react with agility.

Skills

Learning strategy

Team leadership

Full learning cycle

Budget management

Portfolio management

People leadership

Stakeholder management

Facilitation

Communication

Commercial acumen

Business cases

Data-driven decisions

Education

CIPD Level 5 L&D qualification

CIPD Level 7 (desirable)

Job description

mydentist is seeking a Career Development Pathway Leader to drive learning strategy and lead a high-performing L&D team in Manchester. You’ll own the curriculum, define pathways, manage budgets, and engage senior stakeholders to align development with the 5-year plan.

Join a network focused on professional growth, internal promotion, and continuous learning, with a strong emphasis on collaboration across Operations and the Academy.