Head of Talent

Our Mission

To become the car-changing destination of choice. By combining technology, media and deep automotive expertise, we've turned how people buy, sell, advertise and lease cars on its head.

What started as a simple reviews site is now one of the largest online car-changing destinations in Europe. Last year alone we grew over 50% with nearly £3bn worth of cars bought on site, while £1.8bn of cars were listed for sale through our Sell My Car service.

In 2024 we went big and acquired Autovia - creators of AutoExpress and Evo magazines - doubling our audience overnight. Together we now have one of the biggest YouTube channels in the world with almost 10m subscribers and over 1.1 billion annual views, while we sell 1.2 million print copies of our magazines and have an annual web content reach over 350million.

And we're a long way from done!

Your Mission

We're looking for a strategic, hands-on Head of Talent Acquisition to own how Carwow attracts, hires and builds the teams that will get us there.

This is a leadership role at a genuine inflection point: you'll take full ownership of the talent acquisition function - from headcount planning and budget through to the quality of every hire we make - at a business that's scaling fast and changing shape as it goes.

You'll partner directly with senior stakeholders across the business to understand what they need to grow their teams, build the plans to deliver it, and hold the bar high enough that every hire raises the average performance and cultural strength of Carwow.

You'll lead and develop a high-performing talent team, own our employer brand in partnership with our Employee Experience team, and make sure DEI is built into how we hire rather than bolted on. You'll be the person who knows our hiring data - with live dashboards the business trusts - and who gets the most out of our tools (Ashby included) rather than just using them. Above all, you'll bring the rigour, creativity and pace that a fast-moving scale-up needs, and be comfortable picking up whatever the business needs next.

Key Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end workforce and capability planning - partnering with and challenging the Exec on what capability we need, when we need it, and whether hiring is always the right answer - and translate that into Carwow's talent acquisition strategy, headcount plan and budget, connected to broader workforce planning and succession.

• Build strong relationships with senior stakeholders to understand their talent needs and translate them into hiring plans that deliver against their goals, acting as a trusted advisor on hiring strategy and org design.

• Lead and directly influence our most senior and business-critical searches, including Exec-level hiring, bringing the judgement and market credibility to attract top-tier talent.

• Raise the calibre of talent we bring into Carwow - A-players on both performance and culture - backed by consistent scorecards, structured interview processes and quality-of-hire tracking, so we can prove, not just assume, that our bar is going up.

• Build out our talent intelligence capability so we're not just reacting to open roles - mapping critical and emerging skill pools ahead of need and giving the business a genuine edge as we scale.

• Lead, coach and develop a high-performing talent acquisition team - setting clear expectations, building a culture of ownership and continuous improvement, and flexing the team's capacity and structure as the business scales.

• Own how AI shows up across sourcing, process and productivity, and use your own expertise to get ahead of how the skills and talent Carwow needs will change, evolving how we assess and hire for it accordingly.

• Own employer brand and how Carwow shows up externally to candidates, working closely with the Employee Experience team on our proposition, story and candidate experience.

• Implement and embed our DEI strategy within talent acquisition, ensuring inclusive hiring practices are built into every stage of the process.

• Upskill hiring managers on how to hire the best talent - from writing better job specs to running structured, bias-aware interviews.

• Take on projects beyond your core remit as part of the wider leadership team's priorities.

Key Requirements

• Proven experience leading a talent acquisition function in a fast-paced, high-growth scale-up environment, ideally including significant periods of organisational change.

• Experience building, leading and developing high-performing talent teams, with strong people management and coaching skills.

• Excellent stakeholder management skills, including experience influencing senior leadership and translating business needs into talent plans.

• A data-driven approach - comfortable building and using dashboards and metrics (e.g. time to hire, cost per hire, quality of hire) to drive decisions and report upwards.

• Confident, expert-level knowledge of AI tools and how they apply to talent acquisition

• Hands-on experience implementing DEI strategy within hiring, with a track record of embedding inclusive practices into recruitment processes.

• You've owned senior, business-critical or Exec-level searches and know how to bring the credibility that level demands.

• Experience owning employer brand and candidate experience, partnering with People/Employee Experience functions.

• Comfortable operating in ambiguity, with evolving structures and shifting priorities, and able to balance long-term strategy with short-term delivery.

What's in it for you

• Hybrid working (2 days working from home)

• Competitive salary

• Matched pension contributions

• Share options - when we thrive, so do you!

• Bupa Private medical and dental insurance, for peace of mind, plus eyecare vouchers

• Life Assurance

• Monthly coaching sessions with Spill - our mental wellbeing partner

• Enhanced holiday package, plus Bank Holidays

• 28 days annual leave

• 1 day for your wedding

• 1 day off when you move house - because moving is hard enough without work!

• For your third year anniversary, get 30 days of annual leave per year

• For your tenth year anniversary, get 35 days of annual leave per year

• Option to buy 3 extra days of holiday per year

• The option to work from abroad up to 4 weeks

• Inclusive parental, partner and shared parental leave, fertility treatment and pregnancy loss policies

• Bubble childcare support and discounted nanny fees for little ones

• Up to £500/€550 home office allowance for that massage chair you've been talking about

• Generous learning and development budget to help you master your craft

• Regular social events: tech lunches, coffee with the exec sessions, lunch & learns, book clubs, social events/anything else you pester us for

• Refer a friend, get paid. Repeat for infinite money

Diversity and inclusion is an integral part of our culture. We know that diverse teams are strong teams, so we welcome those with alternative identities, backgrounds, and experiences to apply for this position. We make recruiting decisions based on experience, skills and potential, so all our applicants are treated fairly and equally.