Senior Manager - Strategic Workforce Planning and Skills

This role delivers Sage's Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP) and skills approach in practice. Reporting to the Director, the Senior Manager translates the enterprise strategy, SWP methodology and governance into repeatable workforce and skills plans across a set of assigned functions or business areas. Working closely with Strategic People Business Partners (SPBPs), Finance and business teams, the role operationalises the SWP cadence, maintains job architecture and skills data, and produces the analysis and insight that support build, buy, borrow and automate decisions. The role operates with increasing autonomy within an agreed framework. It is accountable for the quality, consistency and usability of workforce and skills outputs for its area. This is a hybrid position, 3 days per week from the London office. Key Responsibilities Summary of role The Senior Manager, Strategic Workforce Planning is responsible for turning Sage's workforce planning and skills strategy into practical plans across assigned functions and business areas. Working closely with Strategic People Business Partners, Finance and business leaders, you'll provide the workforce insight needed to make informed build, buy, borrow and automate decisions, while supporting Sage's move towards skills-based workforce planning. What I will be doing You'll deliver Sage's Strategic Workforce Planning approach across assigned functions, building workforce plans and scenarios that identify future gaps, risks and priorities across cost, capacity and capability. You'll provide analysis to support 1-to-3-year workforce decisions, including skills gaps, location, workforce investment, automation and role redesign as work evolves through technology and AI. You'll maintain and apply Sage's job architecture and skills framework, helping embed skills into workforce planning, Talent Acquisition, Talent Management and Learning & Development. You'll build and maintain workforce metrics, dashboards and planning tools, improving the quality and consistency of workforce data and providing actionable insights on capacity, productivity and investment. Acting as a trusted adviser, you'll partner with functional leaders, SPBPs, Finance and People teams to translate business needs into practical workforce plans and bring relevant external and market insight into decision-making. What we are looking for We're looking for someone with strong experience in strategic workforce planning, workforce analytics or a related People strategy discipline, with the ability to turn business strategy and data into practical workforce decisions. You'll be comfortable developing workforce scenarios, analysing skills and capability gaps, and balancing considerations across cost, capacity, location and organisational structure. You'll have strong analytical and stakeholder management skills, with the confidence to advise business and People leaders and work collaboratively across Finance and specialist People teams. Experience with job architecture, skills frameworks, workforce data and transformation would be particularly valuable, alongside an understanding of how technology, AI and automation are changing future workforce and skills requirements.