Head of Progression and Mobility

Informa Group Plc.; Abingdon; Hybrid; GBP 125,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading academic publishing firm in the UK is looking for a Head of Progression to enhance career growth and talent mobility. This role involves partnering with key leaders to design and implement progression pathways across the organization, fostering a culture of development and engagement. Ideal candidates should possess strong project management and strategic thinking abilities, along with a proven track record in HR initiatives. This position offers flexibility and a robust benefits package.

Benefits

A competitive salary + bonus

25 days annual leave

Medical insurance for self and dependants

Pension contributions

Training and development

Qualifications

• Experience leading strategic, multi-stranded change programmes, ideally in a global setting.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional teams.

Responsibilities

• Partner with key stakeholders to design and activate a clear approach to progression.
• Lead key deliverables within the People Team's strategic priority around progression.
• Work with leaders to develop distinct promotion pathways.

Skills

Strategic thinking

Project management

Data-driven decision making

Communication skills

Collaboration

Education

Experience in career development frameworks

Understanding of HR data analytics

Job description

Informa is a leading academic publishing, business intelligence, knowledge, and events business, creating unique content and connectivity for customers worldwide. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a member of the FTSE 100.

Taylor & Francis is one of the world’s largest publishers of high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarly journals, books, e-books, and reference works. We empower learners, thinkers and doers with trusted knowledge that advances research and enriches lives. We bring together diverse people, ideas, and opinions to validate and publish the experts, theories and truths that matter. And we’ve been doing this in an unbroken arc since 1798.

Our purpose is to foster human progress through knowledge. We strongly believe that this requires us to encourage and examine different ideas and voices so that any work that meets our exacting levels of quality deserves to be included in our publications. This requires open minds, the opportunity for robust debate, and the courage to defend perspectives that stand up to scrutiny, even if they conflict with our personal beliefs or values. Because that’s the only way to find the best obtainable version of the truth and, ultimately, foster human progress. If you agree, then we’d love to hear from you.

Job Description

We are seeking an experienced Head of Progression will work closely with the Director of Organizational Culture and partner other leaders to define and activate a progression value proposition for T&F, heading up a strategic project to drive engagement and talent goals through a re‑energised approach to progression and mobility at T&F.

The Head of Progression will lead People Team project leads to define, activate and expand routes to creating career growth opportunities through promotion and experiential learning. The role will work with Business Partners, L&D, Reward and Recruitment partners to use data and insight to support vertical and lateral progression, ensuring colleagues have multiple opportunity to grow their careers, skills, and impact within the organization.

The role will manage agreed activities and initiatives that provide continued, sustainable impact to colleague mobility at T&F, fostering a culture where development and progression is embedded in the organizational DNA.

Qualifications

Key Responsibilities:

Partner with the Director of Organisational Culture and other leaders to design, activate and communicate a clear approach to progression at T&F, building and sharing key information to empower and enable colleagues in their future career choices.

Lead key deliverables within a People Team strategic priority around progression, applying a product mindset to colleague promotion and related experiential learning.

Progression definitions and foundations.

• Provide clarity around a progression proposition, working with leaders to communicate a clear set of commitments, processes and opportunities that colleagues can understand and actively engage with.
• Review the T&F career architecture as a ‘go-to’ progression framework to underpin career interventions, updating to keep pace with organisational change and enabling colleagues to better navigate potential opportunities.
• Work with L&D to establish core competencies that support our big ambition, designed to bring basic alignment across skills and behaviours to different business areas.
• Use data and insight to identify impactful opportunities in progression

Progression processes design and activation

• Work with the People team and business leaders to develop and articulate simple, transparent processes relating to deliver progression and promotion commitments
• Support the Head of Reward to prepare for a consistent cyclical review process
• Work with leaders and People Team to identify and design distinct promotion/ progression pathways for key roles, including assessment processes in partnership with the TA team.
• Partner with L&D team to build a structured career experience programme of ‘active’ career experience: from taking part in programmes like the ‘Innovation Challenge’ to being a mentor or buddy, a community committee lead, part of a Colleague Resource Group or taking on additional responsibilities within a team or business area, clearly linked to architecture and talent/ succession paths. Work with L&D to extend a ‘badging’ system around such activities, understanding how colleagues can build experiences to learn new skills and demonstrate their potential.

Communicate, partner and measure

• Work with the Director of Organisational Culture and Director of Executive and Internal Communications to develop a clear approach to transparent communication and organisational storytelling in relation to progression and opportunity.
• Bring life to the opportunities available to colleagues to progress their careers and gain relevant experience through transparent and creative communication & engagement.
• Work with the Pulse Business Leads to track Pulse feedback and related action, with particular focus on Career Progression.
• Align with the TA team and PLOD team to ensure progression and mobility dovetails with recruitment and development strategies and frameworks.
• Track data relating to key aspects of progression to understand gaps, opportunities and change over time to understand the impact of interventions and ongoing issues.
• Partner with relevant Informa Colleague Experience teams as needed to drive consistency, efficiency and alignment.

What we're looking for:

This role requires experience of balancing strategic thinking with practical implementation, using data to drive decisions while maintaining a strong focus on colleague experience and organizational culture.

Strategic Leadership

• Experience leading strategic, multi-stranded change programmes, particularly in career development or talent mobility, ideally in a global setting.
• Experience working with senior leadership to define and activate organizational talent strategies
• Track record of using data and insights to drive HR decision-making and demonstrate ROI

Technical HR Knowledge

• Experience in career development frameworks, talent management, succession planning or internal mobility programs, ideally in a global setting.
• Knowledge of HR data analytics and metrics related to talent retention and progression
• Understanding of role evaluation methodologies and career architecture design
• Understanding and vision relating to aligning formal and experiential development with career development

Collaboration and Influence

• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional teams or taskforces to successful change implementation
• Experience working with multiple stakeholders across different business areas
• Strong influencing skills to gain buy-in from senior leaders and colleagues
• Ability to align initiatives with broader organizational strategies
• Resilient and able to work with ambiguity

Communication

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Experience in creating compelling internal communications around career development
• Ability to translate complex HR concepts into accessible guidance for colleagues
• Skills in organizational storytelling to showcase successful career paths

Project Management

• Experience managing strategic projects/ programmes with clear deliverables
• Ability to transition strategic initiatives into sustainable BAU activities
• Skills in measuring project outcomes and demonstrating impact

This role offers an exceptional opportunity to shape the future of career development at Taylor & Francis while making a lasting impact on colleague experience and organisational culture.

Additional Information

Closing Date: 12th January 2026

You must have the right to work and live in the UK.

The role is open either on a permanent or secondment basis and part time options will be considered.

Location:The successful candidate will be able to utiliseour balanced working model. We ask that candidates live within acommutable distance of our Milton Parkoffice to ensure that as a balanced worker they can make it to our office location to collaborate as required. There isan expectation for a minimum of 3 days per week in-person time.

We believe that great things happen when people connect face-to-face. That's why we work in-person with each other, or with customers and partners, three days a week or more. When you’re not spending time together in one of our offices or other workplaces – like at conference – you get the flexibility and support to work from home or remotely.

What we offer in return:

• A competitive salary + bonus
• 25days annual leave
• 4 volunteering days annually
• Day off for your birthday
• Pension contributions
• Medical insurance for self and dependants; life cover and personal accident cover for self
• Seasonal social and charitable events
• Training and development
• Tools and equipment for remote working

Training And Professional Development:

We’re passionate about ensuring you have all the tools and resources at your fingertips to reach your short and long-term career goals. We’ll support you in your journey by working together on your own bespoke Taylor & Francis Development Plan, ensuring you have the resources, tools, support and coaching that will get you where you want to be.

Interview process:

Once you have submitted your application, we may get in touch with you for an initial screening conversation or ask you to complete a short video interview to enable us to better understand your skills, experience, and motivation. Following this, you will be invited to attend a competency-based interview, either virtually or in person. Typically, we’d then finish the interview process with a final, 2nd stage interview before extending an offer to the successful applicant.

We want all our candidates to shine in our recruitment process. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to ensure you are able to show us your best self. This could include having the application form in a different format, more time for questions, or anything else – please ask us, we are happy to flexible! Please [e-mail]

Being Yourself at Taylor & Francis:

If you’re excited about working with Taylor & Francis to foster human progress through knowledge, we invite you to apply even if your existing skills and experience don’t fit every item listed above. At Taylor & Francis, we are at our best and most successful when colleagues can be themselves and make a contribution regardless of their identity or background. As a colleague, you will have the opportunity to further innovate and develop in areas that you are passionate about. Our goal is to empower you with the resources, incentives, and flexibility you need to enjoy success at work and to live a healthy, balanced life.

Taylor & Francis is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We believe in and value diversity of people and thought, fostering a supportive and inclusive environment where all colleagues can learn and succeed as their true selves. Taylor & Francis recruits, develops, and retains colleagues without regard to any protected personal characteristics or other non-merit based factor.

We genuinely care about our colleagues, promoting work-life balance, wellbeing, and flexible working. We believe that the skills and experience you bring to Taylor & Francis are invaluable. We want you to have the opportunity to develop your abilities, and to innovate and develop in areas which you are passionate about. To find out more about our business and the great career opportunities please go to our Careers Site: http://www.taylorandfrancisgroup.com/careers

Or better yet check out our LinkedIn ‘Life’ Page, highlighting our accomplishments, employees, and company culture. It’s also a good way of meeting our recruitment team, who will be happy to advise you on your journey here at T&F.