Talent Acquisition Specialist - 12 month FTC

National Physical Laboratory (NPL); Teddington; On-site; GBP 55,000 - 75,000; Full time

Job summary

National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is seeking a passionate Talent Acquisition Specialist to own end-to-end recruitment across multiple business areas, partnering with stakeholders to attract and secure top talent. You'll shape innovative sourcing strategies, drive candidate experience and build strong pipelines in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.

This role offers the chance to influence hiring strategy at a national science leader.

Qualifications

• Extensive end-to-end recruitment experience across in-house and agency environments.
• Proven ability to fill complex or hard-to-fill roles.
• Experience managing 20+ roles simultaneously.
• Leads improvement projects with measurable outcomes.
• Uses data and market insights to guide hiring decisions.
• Delivers specialist talent in competitive markets.
• Skilled in guiding senior stakeholders on recruitment best practices.
• Experience negotiating offers with multiple parties.
• Builds proactive talent pipelines for niche skill sets.
• Able to balance competing priorities while maintaining delivery quality.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end recruitment across multiple business areas.
• Deliver talent solutions in competitive markets.
• Develop sourcing strategies to uncover hard-to-find talent.
• Influence senior stakeholders with market insight and data.
• Navigate tight hiring timelines with confidence.
• Lead challenging offer negotiations with stakeholders.
• Create long-term talent attraction and pipelines for niche skills.
• Drive continuous improvement of recruitment practices.
• Advise hiring managers on best practices and market trends.
• Shape organisation capability to attract and retain critical talent.

Skills

End-to-end recruitment

Stakeholder management

Talent acquisition strategy

Data-driven recruitment

Offer negotiations

Pipeline development

Hard-to-fill markets

Multi-role portfolio management

Recruitment process improvement

Ambiguity tolerance

Job description

At NPL, we know that great people drive great outcomes. You’ll be working closely with the rest of our Talent team, People team colleagues and business stakeholders, to help shape how we attract, engage and hire top talent, ensuring we stay ahead of the market and continue building the skills needed for our future success.

About the Role

At NPL, we know that great people drive great outcomes. You’ll be working closely with the rest of our Talent team, People team colleagues and business stakeholders, to help shape how we attract, engage and hire top talent, ensuring we stay ahead of the market and continue building the skills needed for our future success.

This newly created role reflects our commitment to building best‑in‑class hiring practices and ensuring we remain competitive in a dynamic talent market through both operational excellence and strategic talent acquisition.

Through our vital research, the National Physical Laboratory is helping support scientific and commercial innovations, international trade, environmental protection and health and wellbeing. It’s why our people mean everything to us, as they’re the ones behind our greatest achievements.

What you’ll be doing

• Take ownership of some of the organisation's most complex and business‑critical hiring challenges.
• Deliver exceptional talent solutions in highly competitive and candidate‑short markets.
• Develop innovative sourcing strategies to uncover talent where traditional approaches fall short.
• Build credibility with senior stakeholders, influencing workforce decisions through data and market insight.
• Navigate competing priorities, changing business demands and tight hiring timelines with confidence.
• Lead challenging offer negotiations to secure sought‑after talent against strong market competition.
• Create and execute long‑term talent attraction and pipelining strategies for niche skill sets.
• Drive continuous improvement, challenging existing practices and identifying opportunities for greater impact.
• Act as a trusted advisor to hiring managers, providing expert guidance on recruitment best practice and market trends.
• Play a key role in shaping the organisation's ability to attract, engage and retain critical talent.

About You

As a Talent Acquisition Specialist, you will take ownership of the end‑to‑end recruitment process across a range of business areas, partnering with stakeholders to identify, attract and secure high‑calibre talent. You'll be a trusted advisor to hiring managers, using market insight, data and innovative sourcing strategies to support workforce planning and hiring decisions.

This is an exciting opportunity for someone who is passionate about candidate experience, employer branding and continuous improvement, and who thrives in a collaborative, fast‑paced environment.

Essential experience required

• Extensive end‑to‑end recruitment experience, with a background of in‑house as well as agency environments
• A strong track record of delivering complex or hard‑to‑fill appointments
• Experience of managing a large portfolio of roles at any given time (20+)
• Experience leading talent acquisition improvement projects, identifying the causes of recruitment challenges and delivering measurable improvements to hiring outcomes and candidate experience
• Proven ability to solve complex hiring challenges using data, market insights and recruitment expertise.
• Demonstrated success delivering specialist talent into highly competitive and hard‑to‑fill markets.
• Experience leading complex offer negotiations involving multiple stakeholders, competing opportunities and commercial constraints.
• Strong track record of building and engaging pipelines of scarce, passive and difficult‑to‑reach talent.
• Experience influencing and constructively challenging senior stakeholders to improve hiring outcomes.
• Ability to manage multiple competing priorities while maintaining high‑quality recruitment delivery.
• Experience driving improvements across recruitment processes, technology and candidate experience.
• Proven judgement in identifying hiring risks and implementing effective mitigation strategies.
• Demonstrated success developing innovative attraction strategies for niche and specialist skill sets.
• Experience leading end‑to‑end recruitment campaigns requiring resilience, commercial judgement and strategic thinking.

Why join us?

At NPL, you'll be part of an organisation whose work has real‑world impact. You'll join a supportive and collaborative team where your ideas and expertise will help shape the future of talent acquisition. In return, you'll have opportunities to develop your career, influence recruitment strategy and play a key role in attracting the people who enable NPL to deliver world‑leading science and innovation.

We actively recruit citizens of all backgrounds, but the nature of our work in specific departments means that nationality, residency and security requirements can be more tightly defined than others. You will be asked about this throughout the recruitment process. To work at NPL, you will need to obtain BPSS security clearance.

NPL and DSIT have strong commitments to diversity and equality of opportunity, and welcome applications from candidates irrespective of their background, gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, or age, providing they meet the required criteria. Applications from women, disabled and black, Asian and minority ethnic candidates in particular are encouraged. All disabled candidates (as defined by the Equality Act 2010) who satisfy the minimum criteria for the role will be guaranteed an interview under the Disability Confident Scheme.

About Us

The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is a world‑leading centre of excellence that provides cutting‑edge measurement science, engineering and technology to underpin prosperity and quality of life in the UK.

At NPL, we believe our success is a result of the diversity and talent of our people. We strive to nurture and respect individuals to ensure everyone feels valued by treating everyone on the basis of their own individual merits and abilities regardless of their own or perceived identity, as part of our commitment to diversity & inclusion, we hold memberships and accreditations to ensure we’re creating an environment where all our colleagues feel supported and welcome, please see our Diversity & Inclusion page.

We are committed to the health and well‑being of our employees. Flexible working and social activities are embedded in our culture to create a positive work‑life balance, along with a broad range of benefits. Our values are at the heart of what we do, and they shape the way we interact, develop our people and celebrate success.

To ensure everyone has an equal chance, we’re always willing to make reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process. If you would like to discuss, please contact us.