Talent Acquisition Lead

About The Role

Hippo Digital is a rapidly growing digital consultancy passionate about building and delivering transformative digital solutions for a diverse range of public and private-sector clients. We are recruiting for a Talent Acquisition Lead to support our next phase of growth.

Our collaborative and agile culture empowers our teams to make a genuine impact. As a Talent Acquisition Lead at Hippo, you will be accountable for the recruitment strategy, priorities and hiring outcomes across one of our key talent portfolios.

This is a senior, hands-on role. You will combine portfolio leadership with the direct delivery of critical, senior and difficult-to-fill appointments. You will work closely with profession leaders and hiring managers to translate workforce demand into practical recruitment plans, while providing day-to-day direction and coaching to the Talent Acquisition Partner supporting your portfolio.

Our talent strategy enables Hippo to build the capabilities needed to deliver secure, scalable and well-engineered digital services for our clients. You will use market insight, recruitment data and commercial judgment to ensure we focus our recruitment effort on the right people, roles and priorities.

Your Role in a Nutshell

• Portfolio Ownership: Take accountability for recruitment performance and hiring outcomes across an assigned portfolio, which may cover technical permanent, non-technical permanent or associate recruitment.
• Recruitment Planning: Translate approved and forecast workforce demand into a clear, prioritised and deliverable portfolio recruitment plan.
• Hands-on Recruitment: Personally lead the end-to-end recruitment of selected critical, senior, specialist or difficult-to-fill roles.
• Strategic Sourcing: Develop sourcing and attraction strategies for recurring and business-critical capabilities, building proactive pipelines rather than relying solely on reactive applications.
• Trusted Adviser: Act as the senior recruitment partner to Profession leaders and hiring stakeholders, providing evidence-based advice on talent availability, salaries, timescales, assessment and delivery risk.
• Team Direction: Provide clear priorities, day-to-day direction, coaching and recruitment expertise to the Talent Acquisition Partner supporting your portfolio.
• Inclusive Excellence: Ensure attraction and assessment processes are inclusive, structured, proportionate and appropriate to the professional disciplines within your portfolio.
• Candidate Experience: Maintain a consistent and engaging candidate experience, ensuring communication, feedback and decision-making are timely and professional.
• The Consultancy Mindset: Identify professionals who combine deep craft expertise with the communication, adaptability and client focus required to succeed in a consultancy environment.

Skills and experience that you need

• Talent Acquisition Expertise: Significant experience delivering end-to-end recruitment in a fast-paced environment, including senior, specialist and difficult-to-fill appointments.
• Digital Talent Knowledge: A strong understanding of one or more of the talent markets relevant to Hippo, including:
• Engineering and Cyber: Software engineering, cloud, architecture, quality engineering and cyber security.
• Data: Data engineering, analytics, data science and related specialist capabilities.
• User-Centred Design: User Research, Content Design, Service Design and User Experience Design.
• Product and Delivery: Product Management, Business Analysis, agile delivery and Delivery Management.
• Associate / Contractor recruitment: Sourcing, engaging, and managing flexible contractor or associate talent to meet short-term project demands.
• Expert Sourcing: Advanced direct-sourcing skills and experience developing proactive pipelines for scarce, specialist or recurring capabilities.
• Stakeholder Leadership: The credibility and confidence to advise senior stakeholders, constructively challenge assumptions and facilitate decisions when priorities compete.
• Assessment Expertise: A strong understanding of structured and inclusive assessment methods, from technical exercises and system-design discussions to portfolio reviews, case studies and competency-based interviews.
• Data-Driven Mindset: A methodical approach to recruitment, using applicant tracking systems and analytics to understand demand, pipeline health, conversion, source effectiveness and delivery risk.

What makes us great