Lead People Partner - Highbridge & Devizes

Lead People Partner – Greencore Desserts 

Salary: Competitive salary 
Benefits: Bonus, Car Allowance, Company share save scheme, competitive matched Pension contributions, Life insurance up to 4x salary 
Location: Dual site, Highbridge and Devizes 
Ways of Working: Hybrid (Circa 4 days per week in the office) 
Hours of work: 08:30am-17:00pm (flexible as per business needs) 
Contract Type: Permanent 

Why Greencore? 
Following the combination with Bakkavor in January 2026, we’re one of the UK’s leading creators of convenience food, driven by a simple purpose: to make every day taste better. 

As a vibrant and fast-moving business, we’re proud to employ over 28,000 talented colleagues across 36 manufacturing sites and 21 distribution depots in the UK and the US. 

Together, we bring delicious food to life. Our products cover every meal occasion from breakfast through to dinner and dessert, with lunch and snacking in between. In FY25, our shared passion helped us achieve combined revenues of approximately £4bn. 

Our extensive direct to store (DTS) network, with 17 depots across the UK, allows us to deliver fresh and frozen food both our own and from trusted partners to thousands of stores every day, ensuring consumers enjoy the very best, whenever and wherever they shop. 

The Sites You’ll be Partnering 

Our Highbridge (Somerset) and Devizes (Wiltshire) sites form a key part of our chilled desserts business. Highbridge specialises in cheesecakes, tarts and sponges, while Devizes produces tarts, doughnuts, crumbles, pies and pastries. Together employing over 1,150 colleagues, the sites operate in fast-paced manufacturing environment, delivering high-quality products to all major retail customers across the UK. 

What you’ll be doing 
In this busy and exciting role you will work closely with site leadership to deploy the people strategy, acting as a trusted adviser who drives engagement, capability and high impact people solutions that support business performance in a fast paced operational environment. 

Role Accountabilities 
• Partner with site and functional leaders to deploy people priorities, providing pragmatic advice, challenge and insight to support effective leadership and delivery of business objectives 
• Lead, coach and develop the site people team, setting clear direction and creating a positive, inclusive and high performing team culture 
• Drive colleague engagement, communication and colleague voice activity, using feedback and surveys to deliver meaningful site level improvements 
• Lead day to day employee relations activity, including effective engagement with trade unions or colleague representatives, ensuring fair, consistent and timely outcomes 
• Support talent, succession and development activity at site level in partnership with Centres of Excellence, ensuring strong pipelines for critical roles 
• Support and embed organisational change and continuous improvement initiatives, managing people impacts to ensure sustainable adoption 
• Ensure compliance with employment legislation, data protection, people policies and human rights standards, proactively managing and escalating people risks 
• Build line manager capability through coaching and support, enabling effective performance management and high‑quality people conversations 

What we’re looking for 
• CIPD qualified (MCIPD/FCIPD) 
• Proven experience in a senior HR or people leadership role, ideally within a manufacturing or distribution environment 
• Strong working knowledge of UK employment legislation and employee relations 
• Experience leading and developing high‑performing, diverse teams 
• Proactive, organised and able to work flexibly in a fast‑paced environment 
• Confident communicator with the credibility to challenge and influence senior stakeholders