Senior Legal Counsel, Employment Law, UK and Europe

Job Summary

We are seeking an experienced Senior Legal Counsel, Employment Law, UK and Europe (Fixed term for 12 months) to provide high-quality legal advice and strategic support on employment law matters across the UK and Europe. This is a key advisory role, supporting the Bank in managing complex employee relations matters, employment disputes, litigation, regulatory people-related issues, and employment law aspects of broader business and HR initiatives.

The successful candidate will work closely with HR, Employee Relations, business stakeholders, internal specialist teams, and external legal counsel to help manage legal, regulatory, reputational, and financial risks arising from people-related matters. The role also provides the opportunity to contribute to Group-wide projects with an employment law dimension and to support the development of strong, pragmatic, and commercially aligned legal solutions

Key Responsibilities

• Advise on and manage employment litigation and disputes across the UK and Europe, including working with external legal counsel to determine strategy and tailor legal advice to the business area's needs.
• Coordinate key aspects of employment litigation, including disclosure processes and witness statement preparation, ensuring obligations are met and documentation is aligned with business context.
• Partner with Corporate Communications and relevant stakeholders to manage reputational risk in relation to sensitive employment matters.
• Identify and assess settlement opportunities, advising HR, Employee Relations, and business stakeholders on appropriate settlement strategy.
• Prepare and negotiate settlement terms in connection with employment disputes and contentious exits.
• Provide legal advice on complex employment matters, including investigations, accountability reviews, disciplinary and grievance matters, performance management, restructures, redundancies, and termination of employment.
• Advise on regulatory people-related issues, particularly those connected to remuneration and contentious regulated references.
• Review and advise on Data Subject Access Requests where employment disputes or employee-related issues are involved, including identifying red flag or noteworthy documents.
• Support employment law aspects of HR policy, strategy, and Group-wide projects, coordinating input from internal Employment Law colleagues or external counsel where required.
• Advise on internal policies, procedures, employment contracts, global templates, and best practice updates for HR, Employee Relations, and business stakeholders.
• Provide occasional support for M&A integration, including advice on staff consultation obligations, restructuring, and TUPE-related matters.
• Work collaboratively with the eDiscovery & Data Advisory team to enhance the Bank's approach to employee data and data subject access matters.

Skills and Experience

• Strong employment law expertise, with experience advising on complex UK employment law matters and exposure to European employment law issues. Knowledge of employment law in France, Poland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland and/or Germany would be helpful.
• Proven experience managing employment litigation, disputes, and contentious employee relations matters.
• Experience drafting and advising on employment contracts, HR policies, internal procedures, and employee-related legal documents.
• Strong understanding of employee relations matters, including disciplinaries, grievances, redundancies, restructures, performance management, and termination of employment.
• Experience advising on employee data privacy matters and Data Subject Access Requests would be advantageous.
• Knowledge of regulatory issues affecting employees, particularly remuneration and Conduct Rules-related matters, would be beneficial.
• Excellent analytical skills, with the ability to assess complex facts, identify core legal issues, and provide pragmatic advice in situations that may be ambiguous or evolving.
• Strong organisational skills and the ability to manage multiple matters, priorities, and stakeholders simultaneously.
• Excellent communication skills, including a clear and concise written style and the ability to adapt tone and level of detail to different audiences.
• Strategic mindset, with the ability to recognise broader organisational, commercial, reputational, and regulatory implications beyond the immediate legal issue.
• Collaborative working style, with the confidence to partner effectively with HR, Employee Relations, business stakeholders, external counsel, and internal specialist teams.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Teams.

Qualifications

• University degree in Law, or another university degree plus GDL conversion from an accredited law school.
• UK Solicitors Regulation Authority practising certificate.
• Ideally 5+ years' post-qualification experience in employment law.

About Standard Chartered

We're an international bank, nimble enough to act, big enough for impact. For more than 170 years, we've worked to make a positive difference for our clients, communities, and each other. We question the status quo, love a challenge and enjoy finding new opportunities to grow and do better than before. If you're looking for a career with purpose and you want to work for a bank making a difference, we want to hear from you. You can count on us to celebrate your unique talents and we can't wait to see the talents you can bring us.

Our purpose, to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, together with our brand promise, to be here for good are achieved by how we each live our valued behaviours. When you work with us, you'll see how we value difference and advocate inclusion.

Together we:

• Do the right thing and are assertive, challenge one another, and live with integrity, while putting the client at the heart of what we do
• Never settle, continuously striving to improve and innovate, keeping things simple and learning from doing well, and not so well
• Are better together, we can be ourselves, be inclusive,

What we offer

In line with our Fair Pay Charter, we offer a competitive salary and benefits to support your mental, physical, financial and social wellbeing.

• Core bank funding for retirement savings, medical and life insurance, with flexible and voluntary benefits available in some locations.
• Time-off including annual leave of 30 days per year plus public holidays and 3 days' volunteering leave.
• Flexible working options based around home and office locations, with flexible working patterns.
• Proactive wellbeing support through Unmind, a market-leading digital wellbeing platform, development courses for resilience and other human skills, global Employee Assistance Programme, sick leave, mental health first-aiders and all sorts of self-help toolkits
• A continuous learning culture to support your growth, with opportunities to reskill and upskill and access to physical, virtual and digital learning.
• Being part of an inclusive and values driven organisation, one that embraces and celebrates our unique diversity, across our teams, business functions and geographies - everyone feels respected and can realise their full potential.