Senior Legal Counsel - Employment

Job Type: Permanent

Location: Based from our Birmingham/London/Edinburgh offices with hybrid working options.

Flexible working: All of our roles are open to part-time, job-share and other types of flexibility. We will discuss what is important to you and balancing this with business requirements during the recruitment process. You can read more about Phoenix Flex here.

Closing Date: 4.11.25

Salary and benefits: From £75,000 plus an indicative bonus range of 30%-60%, private medical cover, 38 days annual leave, excellent pension, 12x salary life assurance, career breaks, income protection, 3x volunteering days and much more.

The Role

The fixed-term role of Employment Senior Legal Counsel will involve a wide range of responsibilities including advising internal stakeholders (HR Consultants, Business Partners and HR Directors) on all employment law matters including contentious and non-contentious issues, commercial agreements and employee-relations issues.

The role will require a candidate who has the ability to build strong relationships with colleagues and stakeholders and is confident in delivering regular employment law training sessions to HR People consultants and managers as well as knowledge updates to HR Business Partners, HR Directors and legal counsel colleagues.

Key Responsibilities

The role will provide advice on and policies and procedures, including outsourcing agreements, re-organisations and redundancy.

The Employment Senior Legal Counsel will have responsibility for managing active tribunal litigation, working closely with external advisers and HR colleagues. The role also involves identifying, analysing and communicating employment risks to senior stakeholders and escalate risk and control issues appropriately.

This role will include duties such as advising commercial legal colleagues and internal stakeholders on TUPE matters, supporting with drafting and negotiating settlement agreements and advising on the employment aspects of commercial contracts.

The Employment Senior Legal Counsel also will advise the Group’s Speak Up panel in relation to whistleblowing and employment aspects of internal investigations.

Who are we?

We want to be the best place that any of our 6,600 colleagues have ever worked.

We’re Phoenix Group, we’re a long-term savings and retirement business. We offer a range of products across our market-leading brands, Standard Life, SunLife, Phoenix Life and ReAssure. Around 1 in 5 people in the UK has a pension with us. We’re a FTSE 100 organisation that is tackling key issues such as transitioning our portfolio to net zero by 2050, and we’re not done yet.

What are we looking for?

• A candidate with strong  PQE as an employment lawyer in-house in a financial services organisation or commercial law firm.
• Excellent technical knowledge and understanding of all aspects of employment law, including whistleblowing and an understanding of the financial services regulatory regimes.
• Experience in managing employment Tribunal litigation.
• Demonstrates sound commercial judgement and ability to analyse situations and information and provide strategic advice on contentious and non-contentious matters.
• Outstanding written and oral communication skills and good team player.
• Experience in providing training to HR and legal colleagues.
• Ability to influence and assist key stakeholders and senior management to ensure the best legal solution to meet commercial and strategic Group objectives.

Essential Criteria

• Experience inhouse or from private practice in employment law
• Experience in managing employment Tribunal litigation.
• Ability to balance legal risk with business needs, advising stakeholders on risk tolerance and options
• Excellent communication skills to convey complex legal issues clearly to non-lawyers

We want to hire the whole version of you.

We are committed to ensuring that everyone feels accepted and welcome applicants from all backgrounds. If your experience looks different from what we’ve advertised and you believe that you can bring value to the role, we’d love to hear from you.

 If you require any adjustments to the recruitment process, please let us know so we can help you to be at your best.

We’re reviewing applications as they come in, so apply early to avoid missing out.

Find out more about #LifeAtPhoenix

• Guide for Candidates: thephoenixgroup.pagetiger.com/guideforcandidates
• Find or get answers from our colleagues: www.thephoenixgroup.com/careers/talk-to-us

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