Reward Lead (Fractional)

About the role

Unity Advisory is a scaling business, and we're building our approach to pay from a blank page rather than inheriting someone else's structure. That's deliberate: we want reward that reflects how Unity actually works — Partner-led client teams, Functional Leader-led enablement teams, and a culture built on trust, direct feedback and progress over process — not a generic framework lifted from a larger, more traditional firm. This is a senior, fractional specialist role — someone who can design that reward architecture from scratch in a small number of focused days a week, then hand the running of it to the wider People Team and payroll as we scale.

It suits someone energised by building something new rather than maintaining an existing system — comfortable with ambiguity, confident making early judgement calls, and able to design a framework simple enough for a young business today but sound enough to still make sense as Unity grows.

What you'll own

• Reward strategy and philosophy: define and evolve Unity's approach to pay — how we position against the market, how pay works across client-facing and enablement tracks, and how reward reinforces Unity's "progress over process" culture rather than working against it
• Pay structure and benchmarking: build and maintain salary bands and grading across roles and levels, benchmarked against relevant professional services and advisory market data
• Pay review cycles: design and run the annual (or biannual) pay and bonus review — timelines, guidance for Partners and Functional Leaders, calibration support, and sign-off with the Management Team / Partners Group
• Benefits: own the benefits offering end to end, including provider relationships, renewals, flexible benefits design and clear communication of value to employees
• Pay equity and compliance: run regular pay equity analysis (including gender pay gap reporting where applicable), keep Unity compliant with UK reward-related employment law, and flag risk to the CPO early
• Reward governance and data: keep reward data accurate and current in our people systems, and produce clear reporting for the Management Team on pay spend, equity and market position
• Advisory support: partner directly with Partners and Functional Leaders on individual pay decisions — new hire offers, promotions, retention cases — giving clear, defensible recommendations grounded in the framework, not one-off improvisation

What success looks like in year one

• A published, defensible pay and grading framework that Partners and Functional Leaders trust and actually use
• A clean, well-governed annual pay review with no surprises for the Management Team
• Reward decisions that are consistent, benchmarked and easy to explain — in keeping with Unity's "trust and accountability" and "no surprises" principles

What we're looking for

• Senior reward / compensation & benefits experience, ideally including time in professional services, consulting or another partnership-style environment
• Equally comfortable designing a framework from a blank page and getting into the detail — benchmarking data, banding mechanics, benefits contracts
• A pragmatic operator who can scope reward work realistically into 2.5 focused days a week, prioritising the highest-leverage work first
• Confident advising Partners and senior leaders directly, with recommendations grounded in evidence rather than precedent alone
• Comfortable working with light process and high trust — building just enough structure, and no more

How this role fits at Unity

You'll sit in the People Team, working closely with the Chief People Officer, the L&D Lead (a fellow fractional specialist), People Ops, and Partners and Functional Leaders across the business. Reward decisions at Unity draw on the same "collective insight, direct feedback" approach that runs through how the firm manages performance and probation — calibrated and evidence-based, never made in isolation.

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