Shape the Future of Early Talent
The Opportunity
This is an exciting opportunity to join a business that is deeply committed to building a sustainable, high-performing, and diverse talent pipeline. We are looking for a Head of Early Talent to lead the design and execution of our Early Careers Strategy, ensuring our future workforce is equipped to deliver on our ambitious growth plans.
You will be responsible for attracting, developing, and retaining high-potential talent through outstanding Internships, Graduate Programmes, and Apprenticeships. This is a strategic leadership role, sitting at the heart of our Talent function, shaping the way we engage and grow the next generation of leaders.
You will work closely with senior stakeholders, HR colleagues, and external partners to ensure our early talent programmes deliver impact, enhancing capability, culture, and long-term performance.
What will the role look like?
You Will Be Central In
- Leading the design and execution of a future-focused Early Careers Strategy aligned to business and diversity goals.
- Overseeing the delivery and continuous improvement of graduate, intern, and apprenticeship programmes across multiple functions.
- Building strategic partnerships with academic institutions and industry bodies to attract diverse early talent.
- Managing a high-performing team while driving inclusive outreach, assessment, and employer brand initiatives.
What skills & experience are we looking for?
We are looking for a strategic and hands-on leader with experience shaping early careers programmes at scale.
Ideally, You Will Bring
- Proven experience in talent acquisition, HR, or programme leadership, with a focus on early talent or campus recruitment.
- Strong expertise in designing and delivering graduate, intern, and apprenticeship programmes.
- Skilled in stakeholder engagement, team leadership, and delivering exceptional candidate experiences.
- Data-driven, collaborative, and committed to inclusion, development, and future-focused talent strategy.
We value curiosity, purpose, and pace. If you are motivated to shape meaningful, future-ready talent programmes, we would love to hear from you.
About Us
We are an international engineering and construction company delivering state-of-the-art infrastructure and buildings projects for clients in the UK, Middle East and Australia.
Certainty, reliability, quality – this is what our clients want. And at Laing O'Rourke, we have more than 150 years of experience delivering it. Laing O'Rourke's story is one of energy, passion, ambition, people and teamwork. We harness the power of our experience, stretching back over a century and a half to deliver certainty for our clients.
As part of the Disability Confident scheme, we would like to enable access to candidates with long term health conditions and disabilities through the ‘Offer an interview scheme'. This supports applicants that meet the essential criteria by offering an interview for the advertised position. Please let us know prior to interview what adjustments are required as well as discussing how we can support you in the workplace.
We want to ensure our recruitment process is accessible to all. If you need the application form in an alternative format or you would like to know more about our recruitment process, please email [email protected] 
