Workforce Capability & Development Lead - Quilter

About the Business Quilter plc is a leading wealth management business, helping to enable brighter financial futures for every generation. Quilter oversees £157.4 billion in customer investments (as of August 2026). It has an adviser and customer offering spanning financial advice, investment platforms, multi-asset investment solutions, and discretionary fund management. The business is comprised of two segments: Affluent and High Net Worth. Affluent encompasses the financial planning business, Quilter Financial Planning, the Quilter Investment Platform and Quilter Investors, the multi-asset investment solutions business. High Net Worth includes the discretionary fund management business, Quilter Cheviot, together with Quilter Cheviot Financial Planning - offering a highly personalised service to private clients, charities, trustees, and professional partners. Quilter Cheviot has presence throughout the UK, Ireland and Channel Islands. At Quilter we never stand still. Our foundations are rooted in our extraordinary expertise, which is trusted by hundreds of thousands of customers, but we have great ambitions to stay one step ahead and make an even greater difference to the people and communities we serve, including our colleagues. Our business is transforming, continually modernising, and becoming even more customer centric. So, if you want to be bold in the pursuit of your ambitions, bring new ideas, and challenge and evolve what we do, it's the perfect time to join us! About the Role Level: 5 Department: HR Location: Southampton, United Kingdom or London, United Kingdom (Hybrid - 2-3 days per week with regular travel to both locations) Contract Type: Permanent Regulated/Non-Regulated: Non-Regulated This role will lead Quilter's approach to understanding and closing the workforce capability gaps that are most important to our strategy. You will work across the organisation to build a clear view of changing business priorities, future workforce needs and emerging capabilities, then translate that insight into practical, measurable interventions that strengthen organisational performance. Operating at a senior level, you will combine strategic workforce insight, business partnering and capability expertise. You will work closely with senior leaders, HR leadership and business partners, Transformation, Technology and other business stakeholders. In partnership with the Culture & Change Lead, you will help ensure that priority capabilities are not only identified, but adopted and embedded across the organisation. You will lead a small, focused capability team, with two direct reports supporting mandatory learning operations, levy administration and supplier or platform coordination. Delivery will also involve working through a matrix of HR colleagues, internal stakeholders, technology teams and external partners. Key responsibilities Strategic workforce capability planning: Build and regularly reassess a view of the capabilities needed to deliver Quilter's strategy. Identify critical gaps and future skill requirements, develop capability roadmaps, and advise senior leaders on capability risks, opportunities and investment priorities. Strategic partnership and transformation: Build trusted relationships with senior leaders and connect workforce capability, leadership development, culture and organisational change. Partner with the Culture & Change Lead and transformation programmes to support sustainable adoption and business outcomes. Capability programme design and delivery: Design and deliver targeted organisation-wide capability programmes, including AI adoption, leadership and customer capability. Ensure solutions are practical, relevant to roles, scalable, cost-effective and focused on outcomes. AI capability and adoption: Shape an enterprise-wide approach to AI capability development. Define the skills and leadership capabilities required for different workforce groups, evaluate AI-enabled solutions and support responsible adoption, productivity and business performance. Technology-enabled learning: Introduce and embed digital and AI-enabled learning approaches that improve access to relevant, in-role and on-demand development. Work with HR and Technology colleagues to evolve the learning ecosystem. Mandatory learning and compliance: Oversee the delivery of mandatory and regulatory learning, balancing compliance, efficiency and user experience, while identifying opportunities to simplify and automate activity. Skills and Growth Levy: Own Quilter's levy approach and utilisation, with clear governance and oversight so funding supports priority capability areas. Insight, measurement and continuous improvement: Define measures of success, track adoption, application and business outcomes, and use workforce and capability data to demonstrate impact and inform recommendations for senior leadership and Board-level discussions. Team leadership and delivery: Set clear priorities for the capability team, create an inclusive and accountable working environment, and coordinate effectively across internal teams, technology providers and external partners. Regulatory obligations Although this is not expected to be a directly customer-facing role, the capability, mandatory learning and regulatory training activity overseen by the role will support colleagues to maintain the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed to deliver appropriate customer and business outcomes. About You You will be comfortable moving between strategic thinking and practical delivery, working with a wide range of stakeholders to turn complex workforce needs into focused action. We are interested in the skills, experience and potential you can bring, including experience gained through different career paths or sectors. Essential experience - Significant experience leading organisation-wide capability, workforce development or talent initiatives in a complex organisation. - Experience identifying capability gaps and translating them into measurable, business-focused interventions. - A strong commercial and strategic mindset, with the ability to connect workforce capability to organisational performance and future needs. - A track record of building credibility and influencing senior stakeholders across multiple business areas. - Experience leading large-scale capability, adoption or behavioural change programmes in ambiguous and fast-changing environments.A strong understanding of digital, data-led and tec