Hiring Your First Head of People — When and How

There's a moment in every scaling company when "we'll figure out HR later" stops being a viable answer.

Usually it lands somewhere between a team of 25 and 40 — when hiring is breaking, onboarding is haphazard, performance reviews don't happen, and the founder is spending more time on people problems than on the strategy that's supposed to be their job. The moment for a Head of People (or whatever the right title turns out to be) has arrived. The question is what kind, when exactly, and what to actually expect them to deliver.

This guide is about the first People hire — when it makes sense, what level to hire at, what to pay, and the patterns of mistake that consistently catch out UK scale-up founders making this hire for the first time.

The signals that a structured People function is overdue. None individually are decisive; three or more is the pattern.

Hiring is breaking. Job descriptions don't exist or aren't current. Pipeline is ad-hoc. Onboarding varies wildly by who joins which team. Candidates are slipping through the process or accepting offers elsewhere because you're slow.

Performance management doesn't really happen. 1:1s are inconsistent. Quarterly reviews don't exist or are paper exercises. Underperformers aren't getting the conversations they need; high performers aren't getting the growth they want.

Compensation has drifted. The salary structure is no longer coherent. People doing similar work are paid materially differently. Equity grants are ad-hoc. The next senior hire requires re-banding the whole company.

Team culture isn't being intentionally maintained. Onboarding doesn't carry the early values forward. New hires aren't sure what 'good' looks like. The original team is noticing the drift.

You're spending more than 20% of your week on people issues. Hiring loops, conflict mediation, comp questions, performance conversations. If this is more than a day a week and you're not getting back, the function needs an owner who isn't you.

HR and People are not the same role, and confusing them is one of the more expensive hiring mistakes at this stage.

Traditional HR: compliance, contracts, payroll, employee relations, policy. Reactive function. Useful at all stages — but usually outsourced (to a fractional HR provider or PEO) until you cross around 100 employees.

People (or Talent): proactive function. Owns hiring, onboarding, performance, comp design, culture, leadership development. This is what most scale-ups need at the 25–40 employee stage. The HR compliance work can continue to be outsourced or handled as a sub-function.

Common titles for the first hire: Head of People, Head of Talent, People Operations Lead, Director of People. The title matters less than the scope — make sure the brief is clear.

Profile of a good first Head of People for a UK scale-up at 25–50 employees.

Scale-up operating experience. They've done this hire — first People function at a scaling company — before. Big-company HR backgrounds often don't translate cleanly. The systems they know are calibrated for 1,000-person companies, and they default to building too much structure too early.

5–10 years of relevant experience, often as VP/Head at a slightly smaller scale-up. The right candidate has typically been the No.2 or No.3 person in a People function at a 100–300 person company, and is ready to be the No.1 person at a smaller earlier-stage one.

Owns the function but builds with managers. They don't want to do all the people work; they want to build the systems so managers do it well. The wrong candidate wants to centralise; the right candidate wants to enable.

Has built hiring at speed. Most scale-ups doubling in size annually need a Head of People who can build a hiring engine that ships 25+ senior hires a year. Their last role should evidence this.

Cultural translator. They'll inherit a culture you built; they'll need to preserve it while professionalising the systems. This requires judgement that pure systems-builders sometimes lack.

What to pay a first Head of People in the UK in 2026.

Base salary:

• Director of People / Head of People at 25–50 person scale-up: £85,000–£120,000.
• More senior People leader (VP-level) at 50–100 person scale-up: £110,000–£150,000.
• Adjust for sector (fintech and SaaS tend higher), and for London location premium.

Equity: typically 0.25–0.75% over 4-year vest, depending on level, sector and stage. Higher (1%+) occasionally for very senior hires at earlier stage.

Bonus: usually 10–20% of base, tied to hiring and other operational milestones. Some scale-ups skip the cash bonus and add to equity instead.

Where to find candidates:

• Peer founder networks. Founders who've recently made this hire are the strongest source — they can recommend candidates they considered and didn't hire, or refer the strong No.2 from their current People team.
• Specialist People-and-Culture recruiters. Several UK firms focus on this specifically (often more useful than generalist exec recruiters at this level).
• Direct outreach. Approach No.2 / No.3 candidates at slightly larger scale-ups one stage ahead of you. This is often the strongest pipeline if you have time to source.

The mistakes founders most commonly make on this hire.

Mistake 1: Hiring from BigCo because the title is impressive. Senior HR people from large corporates often struggle in scale-up environments. The systems they know are calibrated for thousands of employees, and they default to building too much process too early. Scale-up operating experience matters more than corporate seniority.

Mistake 2: Hiring two levels up. The Chief People Officer from a 500-person company will arrive at your 35-person scale-up, find a tiny team and minimal systems, and within six months will be either frustrated or pushing for headcount the company can't yet support. Hire one level above where you are now, not three.

Mistake 3: Confusing HR and People. Hiring a pure HR / compliance person when what the company needs is a proactive People leader. Symptom: lots of policies get written; nothing actually changes about hiring quality or performance management.

Mistake 4: Not aligning on scope before they start. "Build the People function" is too vague. Specific 30/60/90 plan, agreed in writing before they sign, is the difference between a hire that ships value in year one and one that spends a year orienting.

Mistake 5: Stepping back too completely. The Head of People doesn't replace the founder's role in culture and key hires. Founders who delegate culture entirely usually find the company drifting in 12 months. The right pattern: People owns the systems and rhythms; founders stay involved on senior hires and culture-setting moments.

What good looks like in the first 12 months after the hire.

By month 3: hiring system documented and shipping. JDs current. Pipeline tooling in place. Candidate experience consistent. Onboarding for new hires has a clear shape.

By month 6: performance rhythm running. Manager 1:1 cadence established. Quarterly check-in template in use. Comp framework drafted and reviewed.

By month 9: leadership development for emerging managers underway. Culture work intentional — values articulated, hiring-for-values rubric in place. Early signs of internal promotions working.

By month 12: the function is running. The founder is materially less involved in day-to-day people issues. Hiring velocity has stepped up. Performance management is consistent across teams. Comp is coherent and defensible.

If by month 12 the function is still on the basics — hiring system half-built, performance rhythm not running, founder still in every difficult people conversation — the hire isn't working. Have the honest conversation now. Most failed People hires are visible by month 9 and ignored until month 18.

This is also one of the most-discussed hires in Helm Forums. Members regularly share the brief they used, the candidates they considered, the questions they asked, the references they got. The peer-to-peer transfer of recent experience on this specific hire is one of the highest-leverage uses of Forum time.