Head of People

An exciting and rare opportunity for a role you can make your own in a 2025 'Breakthrough Culture Award' Winning SME:

We’re looking for our next Head of People to help us develop and grow our talented, friendly and high performing teams.

This is far from a traditional HR role, it is a strategic leadership role focussing on talent, retention and organisational effectiveness with real influence and requiring a high level of energy. We enjoy an exceptional employee retention rate, and we know our people stay with us because we’ve created an environment where they feel valued. We are looking for that someone who will always strive to make our workplace experience even better.

We’re a SaaS company based in Glasgow’s city centre. We offer hybrid flexible working, though this role is people-facing and we’d like you based nearby working mostly in the office for 3 to 5 days/week, but to suit your life.

It is a varied role as you’ll own our people strategy, our learning and development and some of our people operations. You will be shaping how individuals, teams, and leaders grow inside the company as well as attracting and recruiting talent to join us. This means working hands on directly with our people to grow their capabilities, happiness and job satisfaction. Sitting somewhere between people management and development, the role does not include direct line management responsibility and is integral in shaping our business strategy.

A little bit about us: freetobook is a family business and we have always put people and relationships at the heart of what we do. The environment is relaxed yet passionate - being great at what we do really does matter to us. It’s a close-knit team of 34 comprising mainly software developers and customer success with the remainder made up of key support roles. During a period of growth, the business has invested deeply in retention, leadership quality, and long-term performance, and is now focussed on consolidating that.

Why this role stands out:

• Strategic ownership of how talent and leadership evolve across the company
• A rare opportunity to apply organisational psychology in a real business context
• High level of influence without being boxed into traditional HR structures
• Focus on long-term performance, not short-term fixes

Your core responsibilities would include:

• People and performance management across freetobook, nurturing our culture.
• Running 121s and annual reviews to ensure personal growth, job happiness and high performance.
• Being a trusted advisor and coach/mentor to the whole team, as you partner directly with them to ensure they succeed.
• Working closely with the team, ensuring they have the necessary training, learning and development opportunities to aid personal and business growth.
• Providing a strategic view to ensure the right people are in the right roles at the right time.
• Crafting and defining progression paths so that we can retain great people by providing an opportunity for them to grow their careers with us.
• Ensuring that we recruit effectively by finding the right places for advertising/recruiting people, job descriptions, interviewing etc.
• Creation and delivery of onboarding, induction, training & development plans for new starts & interns.
• Working alongside Developers, Snr Devs, Staff+ Devs, Product Managers, Directors etc. to ensure our values are reflected in our processes, routines and actions.
• Checking that there are processes and mechanisms in place for those values and behaviours to actually flourish.
• Providing management and guidance in relation to ER and HR matters.
• Leading on our Pay Philosophy and ensuring our approach to benefits keeps up with expectations.

You’ll be:

• A real people person, easy to engage with and fascinated by what makes us all tick individually and together.
• Passionate about helping people learn and develop themselves, as well as doing that for yourself.
• A great listener, understanding not just what’s said but what’s actually meant.
• Project-orientated, capable of taking an idea through to completion on your own.
• A thinker, working out what works best and why, always trying to improve.
• Someone with a strong and authentic voice, willing to challenge us all from Devs to Directors.
• Equipped with some Customer or Services teams experience - this is an advantage but not essential.
• Ideally experienced in the tech industry, though this is an advantage not essential, it’s your depth of experience with developing people we’re looking for.

Along with these attributes, you must be able to demonstrate clearly past successes in people management and development and just as importantly hold these values yourself. Ensuring growth and development across a business requires input from all and we're looking for that someone who enjoys the challenge of bringing it all together to make it happen.

We politely ask that your application include both a cover letter and CV. Please specify in your letter whether you are looking for full or part time. This role is based in Glasgow, United Kingdom and as such all normal working days must be carried out in the United Kingdom, preferably in the office.

Working Culture, Benefits & Salary – includes:

• Focused but fun working environment, giving freedom and flexibility to be come up with own ideas
• We do the right thing, looking long-term, valuing people over pure profit
• Opportunity to solve interesting problems and build on your successes
• Ownership for your role and results
• Flexible and Hybrid working opportunities
• Tailored learning opportunities: 121 coaching, conferences, further qualifications through external training, mentor introductions, bespoke development reviews
• Company events and annual bbq for all the family
• Great £ package: competitive salary, annual pay review, quirky freetobe bonus, health & wellbeing acute cover, enhanced pension scheme, enhance maternity, paternity and adoption leave, generous holiday allowance, phone on contract cycle
• On-site gym including free classes and training with our Wellness Champion Personal Trainer
• Access to Cycle to Work and on-site parking
• Casual dress – we don’t wear suits!

Freetobook is an equal opportunities employer, always.

Salary range £55-70K depending on experience. Schedule: Monday to Friday

The process:

Please send your covering letter + CV to Kit Gambles, Head of People kit@freetobook.co.uk

Application deadline: 30 April 2026 (we advise early applications)

Interviews to be held on: 6-7 May 2026 (or by arrangement).

Expected start date: 01/06/2026

Job Types: Full-time, Part-time, Permanent

Pay: £55,000.00-£70,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• Casual dress
• Company events
• Company pension
• Cycle to work scheme
• Enhanced maternity leave
• Enhanced paternity leave
• Free fitness classes
• Free flu jabs
• Free parking
• Health & wellbeing programme
• On-site gym
• On-site parking
• Sick pay
• Work from home

Ability to commute/relocate:

• Glasgow G3 7HU: reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting work (required)

Application question(s):

• Applications MUST be submitted with a Cover Letter as well as a CV, or they will not be considered due to volume of AI applications through online platforms. We will consider each fully tailored application using real humans.

You must be able to work in the office in person in Glasgow - initially all the time, and then we can offer hybrid if appropriate.

Education:

• Bachelor's (preferred)

Experience:

• Training & development: 2 years (preferred)
• Recruiting: 2 years (preferred)

Work authorisation:

• United Kingdom (required)

Location:

• Glasgow G3 7HU (preferred)

Work Location: Hybrid remote in Glasgow G3 7HU