Employment Associate/Senior Associate 4+ PQE (Birmingham, Bristol or Leeds)

Our Employment, Pensions and Immigration team continues to be a market leader across a range of sectors including the local and central government, health and care insurance and finance, commercial, higher education and housing sectors.

The team operates on a truly national basis, providing our lawyers with the opportunity to work with a variety of colleagues and clients. Acting mainly for employers, our roster of clients includes national and multi-national organisations, and we support them to improve their employment practices and manage workforce issues, as well as defending employment claims and seeking to mitigate risks for clients. We act alongside our complementary multi-disciplinary teams such as information law, commercial and regulatory teams.

Bevan Brittan has strong recognition in the independent legal directories - Chambers & Partners and Legal 500. In both guides we are consistently ranked in the top tier for our practices across the UK, with multiple individuals recognised as leading lawyers.

We have worked with the firm for over 20 years and are never disappointed with the service and outcomes. The lawyers are responsive and helpful, making stressful situations easy to manage. Legal 500, 2026

The role

We are looking for either an Associate or Senior Associate (4+ PQE) to join us, based in our Bristol, Birmingham or Leeds office (with flexible hybrid working), ideally with experience in one or more of the sectors above.

As a member of the national employment practice the primary focus of your role will be working in the following sectors: local and central government, health, commercial services, and housing but with opportunities to work in higher education and financial services too.

Building relationships, both externally with our clients and across our internal teams, is key. In this role, you will have the opportunity to work with regulatory and commercial colleagues. You will ideally have some TUPE and transactional experience.

You will also have the opportunity to undertake a variety of work-types from transactional, to advisory support, to contentious work. The depth and breadth of the markets in which we operate will provide the opportunity and flexibility to work on novel and complex employment law issues.

With your skill and expertise, it is envisaged that you would:

• Manage your own caseload across both contentious and non-contentious work areas
• Work with and support a number of our partner leads and colleagues across all four of our offices
• Provide management and supervisory support to junior colleagues
• Support on training and client relationship management

What we are looking for from you

The successful candidate will be involved in providing sound, commercial employment advice and would ideally have some or all of the following skill set/experience:

• A broad range of employment experience, ideally gained across one or more of our key markets above
• Advising on restructures/redundancy processes
• Advising on employee relations issues including settlement negotiations
• Strong litigation and/or advocacy experience and a capability and desire to manage complex, high profile litigation as part of a team
• TUPE experience including drafting/negotiating related warranties and indemnities and advising on workforce aspects of commercial transactions, including information and consultation processes
• Undertaking transactional due diligence, often as part of a wider corporate or commercial transaction with multidisciplinary teams
• Reviewing/drafting policies
• Delivering training and actively contributing towards business development activities
• Supervision of junior colleagues
• Good client management skills and an interest in business development

We offer a structured career pathway to meet both your and our needs.

Make a Real Impact

Bevan Brittan is a leading commercial law firm. Alongside our recognised expertise in housing, local government, and health and social care, we are specialists in the construction, energy and resource management, higher education and financial services sectors.

Supported by valued business services professionals, our award-winning and growing legal teams work together to support almost 2,000 organisations with commercial, corporate, property, finance, regulatory, employment and litigation (commercial and clinical negligence) legal and advisory services.

As a responsible business, we embrace four values: Relationships, Reputation, Responsible and Results. These give us a sense of purpose. They influence the decisions we make and how we work with each other. Importantly, they motivate us to deliver meaningful outcomes for our clients and the communities that we’re part of.

Consistently recognised as one of The Times Best Law Firms and highly ranked across the legal directories, we are proud of our hard-earned reputation. Our 2024/25 financial results confirmed both revenue and profit growth for a twelfth consecutive year, ensuring our ability to continue investing in our people.

As a firm we embrace our differences, we act responsibly, now and for the future and we support you to be your best through our hybrid working model and professional development opportunities.

Looking to the future, we’re targeting ambitious growth and success. And we’re looking for the best people to be part of it.