Talent Acquisition Business Partner

VIVO, a 50:50 joint venture between Serco and EQUANS, has been awarded places on the Defence FM and Housing Maintenance framework contracts.

VIVO embodies both experience and innovation. It combines Serco’s comprehensive track record delivering engineering, technical and FM services to the UK MOD for over 55 years with EQUANS’ market leading FM, energy, asset optimisation and regeneration capabilities.

Talent Acquisition Business Partner

Location: VIVO Estate/ Hybrid Working
Contract: Full Time, Permanent

Own the Recruitment Agenda. Partner with the Business. Shape What Comes Next.

VIVO Defence Services is looking for an experienced Talent Acquisition Business Partner to join our Recruitment team as we move into the next stage of our development.

Over recent years, we have transformed our recruitment performance, significantly reducing agency reliance, increasing direct hiring and improving the speed and efficiency of recruitment.

We are now evolving again.

Our new operating model will align our Talent Acquisition Business Partners directly to VIVO's contracts, creating greater ownership, stronger operational relationships and a more strategic approach to recruitment.

This isn't simply a role managing vacancies. You will become the dedicated Talent Acquisition partner for your portfolio of contracts, owning recruitment activity from end to end while developing a deep understanding of the business, its people and its future workforce requirements.

What You'll Do

You'll take ownership of recruitment across your assigned contracts, working closely with Contract Directors, operational leaders, HR Business Partners and the wider Recruitment team.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Owning end-to-end recruitment delivery across your contract portfolio, including high-volume, specialist, hard-to-fill and senior vacancies.
• Acting as the single Talent Acquisition point of contact for your contracts, building strong relationships with senior stakeholders and Hiring Managers.
• Developing contract-specific recruitment approaches aligned to operational priorities and future demand.
• Partnering with the business to improve visibility of future workforce requirements, critical skills and emerging recruitment risks.
• Using recruitment data and market intelligence to provide meaningful insight and support workforce-planning discussions.
• Producing and presenting regular contract-level recruitment reporting, covering performance, pipelines, risks, agency usage and recruitment trends.
• Building sustainable talent pipelines for recurring, critical and hard-to-fill roles.
• Driving direct sourcing activity and identifying new ways of reaching specialist talent.
• Managing agency relationships within your portfolio, challenging unnecessary agency use and maintaining focus on recruitment cost.
• Supporting greater internal mobility and visibility of internal talent across the business.
• Working with HR and operational stakeholders to support talent and succession pipelines.
• Developing relationships with social value and employment partners to broaden access to talent and support contract commitments.
• Ensuring recruitment activity remains compliant, consistent and delivers a positive candidate and Hiring Manager experience.
• Identifying opportunities to continuously improve recruitment processes, performance and stakeholder experience.
• You'll be supported by our Talent Acquisition Delivery Partner, who will provide cross-contract support across sourcing, candidate management, recruitment systems and data, reporting, talent pipelines and recruitment coordination.

What We're Looking For

We're looking for someone who combines strong recruitment delivery experience with the confidence and commercial awareness to operate as a genuine Business Partner.

You'll ideally bring:

• Strong experience delivering end-to-end recruitment in a complex organisation.
• Experience managing multiple vacancies and competing priorities.
• Excellent direct sourcing and candidate engagement capability.
• Strong stakeholder-management skills, with the confidence to partner with senior operational leaders.
• Experience using recruitment data and MI to identify trends, risks and opportunities.
• An understanding of workforce planning and how recruitment can support longer-term business requirements.
• Experience managing agency relationships and controlling recruitment costs.
• Strong organisational skills and the ability to work independently across an allocated business area.
• A proactive, solutions-focused approach with the ability to challenge constructively.
• A strong understanding of candidate experience, recruitment governance and fair selection practices.
• Experience recruiting within Facilities Management, Engineering, Construction, Defence or another complex/regulated environment would be advantageous.

Why This Role Is Different

This role sits at the heart of our new Recruitment Operating Model.

Rather than recruiters being allocated work according to vacancy level, each Talent Acquisition Business Partner will have end-to-end ownership of an allocated portfolio of VIVO contracts.

That means developing genuine operational knowledge, understanding workforce challenges before they become vacancies and becoming a trusted recruitment partner to the leadership teams you support.

You'll have the opportunity to help us develop capabilities including:

Workforce planning • Recruitment intelligence • Internal mobility • Talent pipelines • Market insight • Succession support • Recruitment risk management

while continuing to deliver the high-quality recruitment service our business depends on.

VIVO Defence Services

The role you have applied for is with VIVO Defence Services, a joint venture between Serco and EQUANS. By applying for this role, please be aware that information contained within your CV may be shared between VIVO Defence Services, Serco and EQUANS during the recruitment process.

At VIVO, we are committed to building a diverse and inclusive organisation that supports the needs of all. Therefore, we will make reasonable adjustments at interview through to employment for our candidates and strongly encourage applications from a diverse candidate pool.

We are open to discussions around flexibility and flexible working and operate a hybrid work structure in many of our business areas. We are proudly a Disability Confident Employer. Disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the job will be given the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities at an interview. If candidates wish to request extra time to apply then they should contact 0345 010 4000 and ask to speak to a VIVO Recruiter.