Early Careers Strategy Consultant (Contract Assignment) - #2167396

Early Careers Strategy Consultant (via Adecco Outsourcing).

Duration - 4-6 weeks

Location - Hybrid (predominantly remote with occasional stakeholder workshops as required)

Start Date - Targeting the beginning of November 2026

Assignment Overview

Adecco Outsourcing is seeking an experienced Early Careers Strategy Consultant to support a leading UK retailer in defining and shaping its future Early Careers proposition.

The client has existing activity across schools engagement, apprenticeships and graduate programmes but is looking to establish a clear, practical and sustainable Early Careers strategy that aligns these initiatives into a cohesive talent pipeline.

This is a hands-on consulting engagement rather than a large-scale transformation programme. The successful consultant will work closely with senior stakeholders to capture existing thinking, challenge where appropriate, and translate ideas into a simple, actionable strategy and implementation roadmap.

The emphasis is on practicality and delivery. The client is not seeking a lengthy consulting report, but a clear plan that can immediately be put into action.

Key Objectives

You will be responsible for:

• Reviewing the client's current Early Careers landscape.
• Conducting stakeholder discussions and discovery sessions.
• Assessing current schools, apprenticeship and graduate activity.
• Identifying strengths, gaps, risks and opportunities.
• Defining a future-state Early Careers vision.
• Creating a practical Early Careers strategy.
• Developing a prioritised action plan and roadmap.
• Recommending approaches to improve attraction, development and retention of early career talent.
• Providing market insight and best practice recommendations.
• Producing a client-ready set of deliverables that can be immediately adopted.

Experience Required

We are particularly interested in individuals who have:

• Experience within Early Careers, Talent, HR Consulting or Workforce Strategy.
• Designed and implemented graduate, apprenticeship or emerging talent programmes.
• Led Early Careers strategy engagements.
• Experience working within large corporate or retail environments.
• Strong stakeholder management skills.
• Experience turning strategic concepts into practical action plans.
• Strong workshop facilitation capability.
• Excellent written communication and presentation skills.

Please be advised if you haven't heard from us within 48 hours then unfortunately your application has not been successful on this occasion, we may however keep your details on file for any suitable future vacancies and contact you accordingly.

Adecco Emerging talent is an employment consultancy and operates as an equal opportunities’ employer.