Job Description

Job description

We are looking to recruit a fixed-term Senior HR Advisor as part of our busy, quality-focussed HR team. This is an exciting and rewarding opportunity for the right individual to continue their HR career in a truly generalist role that provides exposure to all aspects of people management.

The fixed term period is expected to commence in either December 2025 or January 2026. If you are currently working as an experienced HR Advisor and are considering your next career move, we would like to hear from you!

Overall purpose of the role

Our Human Resources team sits at the very heart of Audit Scotland. You will be joining five professionals helping around 340 colleagues across our organisation. Audit Scotland's vision is to ensure that public money is well spent to meet the needs of Scotland's people. In 2024 we published a new People Strategy to support the delivery of our vision and launched our new values. Our values underpin all that we do: equality, integrity, independence, innovation and respect

This role helps our HR team to deliver an excellent generalist HR support service across Audit Scotland. As an experienced HR professional, you will play a large part across a variety of workstreams including, managing end-to-end recruitment campaigns, processing all payroll variables and contractual variations, providing advisory support as it relates to matters of policy, employment law and employee relations case management, workforce data analysis and HR systems administration. It is a varied role, with plenty of autonomy and excellent opportunity for career development.

What you will be doing

You will help Audit Scotland achieve their vision by:

Delivering effective recruitment campaign management, ensuring recruiting managers are supported and meticulous adherence to our internal policies and procedures and employment good practice. Supporting all aspects of the employee lifecycle ensuring accurate and appropriate documentation and records. This includes appointments of new employees, employment changes, leaver processing, and monthly payroll variables. Providing effective advisory support to line managers on a range of issues, including employment law, policies, processes and employee relations case management. Annually reviewing and revising staff handbook policies in accordance with updated legislation and best practice guidance. Collating and analysing workforce data, producing KPIs for onward consideration by senior staff and identifying any courses of potential intervention. This will include data analysis for annual reports the HR team produce, such as the gender pay gap and equality reports. Coaching and mentoring junior members of the HR team, including reviewing work to ensure clerical and factual accuracy. Carrying out job evaluations for any new or re-evaluated existing roles to ensure our reward structure operates in an objective and fair manner. Support our Equality Network Groups and consider how our people initiatives may be improved by fostering a DEI-centric culture

Knowledge and experience

You are an experienced HR Advisor, with strong planning skills and the ability to balance transactional HR work alongside project work. You are an effective team player and self-motivated with a passion for delivering a high-quality HR service, You will support the wider HR team and work in partnership with internal stakeholders, external consultants and employee union representatives, and are adept at effective relationship building and stakeholder engagement. You must be capable of managing and prioritising your workload, understanding when and where to seek additional support and approval. You have an eye for detail and enjoy the autonomy of planning and delivering your portfolio of work without the need for close management.

Person specification - specific knowledge and experience

Essential:

You have proven experience of working in a generalist HR advisory role, managing the range of employee lifecycle events coupled with sound experience and knowledge of HR policies, systems and processes. (S/I) You are confident in providing advice and guidance to all levels of the organisation on employment-related matters, knowing when to seek support from more senior colleagues. (I) You must be capable of managing and prioritising your workload, as well as positively responding to change when reprioritisation needs to take place. (S/I) Good attention to detail and ability to calculate employee changes to salary or allowances. (S/A) Proficient with Microsoft Office (Outlook, Word and Excel). (S/I) A good standard of written English, with experience of writing reports or documents. (S/A/I) You are emotionally intelligent and can demonstrate strong empathy for others, effective communication, conflict resolution and interpersonal skills. (I) You are committed to continuous service improvement. You will also strive to improve your own performance through feedback from other team members and relevant stakeholders in order to identify and facilitate your own career development objectives. (I)

Desirable:

You are an accredited CIPD member, ideally accredited or working towards Level 5 or higher. (S/I) Experience of graduate recruitment project management. (S/I) Experience or passion for diversity and inclusion improvements. (S/I) Experience in the public sector or an understanding of the differences between private and public sector employers. (S/I)
*S = Shortlisting criteria I = Interview criteria A = Assessment / Exercise

Interested? Next Steps:

Click the apply button?to complete an?application form. If you wish, you can?also?share your CV.?

Please note, based on the volume of applications received, we may not be able to consider CVs. Therefore, please ensure your application reflects the essential criteria

. We offer a range of benefits, please visit our careers page for more information on our careers page.
Our application deadline is

Sunday, 26 October 2025 at midnight. Please note, we reserve the right to close the campaign earlier based on application volume. Therefore, we would encourage you to submit your application as soon as possible.

Interviews are expected to take place week commencing

03 November 2025

in either our Glasgow or Edinburgh office.

Audit Scotland

Our vision is that public money is well spent to meet the needs of Scotland's people.

To achieve this, we support the Auditor General for Scotland and the Accounts Commission to provide clear, independent and objective assurance on how effectively public money is being managed and spent. Our work covers about 59bn of public spending, almost 300 public sector accounts, and the services and projects that affect all people and communities in Scotland.

As well as what we do, how we do it is integral to delivering our vision and critical to our wellbeing and our organisational success. We put our organisational values of equality, independence, innovation, integrity and respect at the heart of everything we do.

We employ around 340 staff in a wide variety of roles, working from our main offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and through a network of regional offices across Scotland.

There has never been a more interesting or important time to join us. We offer a rewarding place to work, a supportive and open culture and a wide range of professional development opportunities. Benefits include 42 days of annual leave including public holidays, an attractive local government pension scheme with 17.6% employer contributions, personal development allowances and flexible working hours. We've also been named one of the top 25 workplaces in Scotland and the UK's tenth best accountancy workplace in the 2023 Best Companies awards.

Diversity and Inclusion

We value the unique perspective a diverse workforce brings to what we do. Therefore, we're keen to increase representation in our workforce and support progression of minority ethnic groups. We are also a proud disability confident employer.

Reasonable Adjustments

Audit Scotland's recruitment process may include various stages and activities including application forms, online assessments, and interviews, to assess whether you meet the requirements of the role.

As a Disability Confident employer, we are committed to providing inclusive and accessible recruitment where everyone is supported to perform at their best.

When applying for a job with Audit Scotland, you will be asked in the application form if you need an adjustment at any stage of the recruitment process. Please include the reason you require an adjustment(s) and details of what adjustment(s) might help.

Some examples of adjustments that have been given to candidates include changing the time, location or format of interviews and providing additional time in any assessments and interviews. This is not an exhaustive list, and we will consider any adjustments that you might need.

As part of our commitment to equality and diversity, our equality network groups would be delighted to offer an insight into Audit Scotland's culture of inclusivity. If you consider yourself to have a visible or hidden disability and wish to hear more about life at Audit Scotland or wish to speak with someone about the possibility of any adjustments, please contact Careers@audit.scot or call 0131 625 1500 for further information and a member of the HR team will be in touch.

How we work

We employ around 340 staff in a wide variety of roles. They work flexibly at home and in the office as well as from audit sites across Scotland. This is not your typical work from home or work from office type job. We are flexible about working patterns and we have transformed how we deliver high-quality public audit. We support you to work in the ways that achieve the best results for you, your team, and the business, including your physical location and how you manage your hours. Put simply, we trust you to do your job, and want you to have the ability to have a rewarding work-life balance and best support your individual circumstances, be that childcare, adult carer responsibilities or managing disabilities.

We welcome applications from across the UK. Some travel, however, to our Edinburgh and Glasgow offices or client sites will be necessary at times, but you do not need to live in Scotland to work for us.

Other conditions

Audit Scotland is committed to ensuring that:

We minimise our impact on the environment in accordance with Government policy affecting public sector organisations. We uphold the principles of equality, fairness & diversity. We all work within a safe environment and adhere to good standards of health & safety. All information is protected and managed appropriately. We maintain independence and political neutrality.
Job Type: Temporary
Contract length: 12 months

Pay: From 40,663.00 per year

Benefits:

Flexitime
Work Location: In person