Regional Workforce Manager

Location: Nationwide, with regular presence at Sizewell C (Suffolk coast)
Business Unit: Expanded (Piling), part of Laing O'Rourke – LINK - Expanded Piling | Expanded Ltd
A newly created role – shaping the future of our workforce
We are looking for a passionate and driven Regional Workforce Manager to join our established Workforce Team at Laing O'Rourke. This is a newly created position, supporting our Expanded Piling business at Sizewell C (Suffolk coast) and across projects nationwide.
At Laing O'Rourke, our workforce is our greatest asset. We're proud of our directly employed people, and this role is central to ensuring they feel supported, valued, and set up for success. You'll play a key part in how we forecast, recruit, train, retain, and care for our PAYE trades workforce – ensuring we continue to deliver excellence while putting our people first.
What You'll Be Doing
In this role, you'll be the link between the operational teams and our trades and labour workforce (e.g. carpenters, steel fixers, piling operatives and apprentices) – ensuring consistency, fairness, and compliance across workforce management.
Responsibilities include;

• Forecasting & Resourcing – coordinating short, mid, and long-term labour forecasts; ensuring efficient movement of operatives across projects to minimise redundancy.
• Recruitment & Onboarding – adopting and managing the recruitment process for trades and labour, ensuring fairness and compliance; supporting apprentice recruitment and progression.
• Training & Development – working with Learning & Development and Sustainability teams to ensure all training, apprenticeships, and client requirements are delivered.
• Health, Safety & Wellbeing – promoting initiatives like Mission Zero, fatigue management, and mental health support; ensuring alignment with H&S teams.
• Industrial Relations & Compliance – managing union engagement, disciplinary and grievance processes, and ensuring consistency with IR policies.
• Communication & Engagement – building trust and relationships with our workforce, ensuring they feel heard, supported, and part of our business.
• Reporting – producing accurate and timely reports on workforce activity, performance, and trends.
  

What We're Looking For
You'll be;

• People-focused – you care deeply about looking after our workforce, listening, and acting fairly, while also being resilient and firm when needed.
• Experienced – ideally with a trades background and/or exposure to workforce management, industrial relations, or HR (CIPD is desirable, but we'll support training if you don't have it).
• Energetic & Mobile – happy to spend around 60% of your time at Sizewell C (Suffolk coast) and 40% across UK projects.
• Organised & Commercially aware – comfortable with forecasting, reporting, pay benchmarking, and managing multiple workforce priorities.
• A Strong Communicator – approachable and empathetic, able to sit down with operatives and leadership alike, cutting through issues and finding solutions.
  

Why join us?

• Be part of a tight-knit, supportive workforce team where everyone has each other's back.
• Play a pivotal role in the Sizewell C project while also shaping workforce practice across Expanded Piling nationally.
• Make a real impact – supporting apprentices, developing people, and ensuring our trades workforce feel valued and supported.
• Work in an environment that values fairness, care, and professionalism while encouraging drive, resilience, and leadership.
  

Apply Now
If you're passionate about people, thrive in a fast-paced environment, and want to help shape the way we support our workforce at Expanded/Laing O'Rourke, we'd love to hear from you.
We offer a competitive remuneration package (base salary + car/travel allowance) with access to Private Medical Insurance; enhanced pension and parental leave schemes; Life/Dental/Critical illness insurance and income protection; 33 days holiday inc. bank holidays + 1 paid day for volunteering; professional development opportunities and more!      
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]