Senior Resource Manager (12-month FTC)

We are looking for an experienced Senior Resource Manager to support our Real estate team and growing Resource Management function. This is a 12-month fixed-term contract, with a high potential for transitioning into a permanent role in the future.

About Us

CMS is a Future Facing firm with more than 80 offices in over 45 countries and 5,800+ lawyers worldwide. We combine deep local market understanding with a global perspective. We are passionate about building strong relationships with our clients, our people, and the communities we work in. We take a bold, dynamic, and agile approach to ensure our clients are able to face the future with confidence. We are driven by emerging technologies such as generative AI and readily embrace the possibilities it opens up for developing new and better ways of working. Our aim is to inspire, impact and support our clients and our people, helping them to maximize their potential and thrive.

About The Role

As the Senior Resource Manager, you will lead the fair and skill-based allocation of work across our Real Estate teams, ensuring equal opportunities and reducing unconscious bias. You’ll play a key role in supporting career development by matching people with work that aligns with their growth goals, boosting engagement and retention. You’ll proactively identify training, performance, and wellbeing needs, working closely with Partners, HR, and Learning & Development teams. By managing resource utilization efficiently across teams and locations, you’ll drive greater collaboration and profitability. Additionally, you will support the rollout and continuous improvement of a new resource management tool, enhancing processes and management information to aid decision-making.

[team information to be provided by the hiring partner/manager]

In this role, you can expect to get involved in a variety of work including:

• Working with the Practice Group Leads (PGLs), Team leads (TLs) and other Partners
• Develop an excellent working and trusted relationship with our partners to gain a deep understanding on their practice, pressure points and resourcing needs and keeping this knowledge up-to date.
• Build a Resource Management presence in key Teams team meetings and Partners’ meetings as necessary.
• Provide weekly utilisation and projected capacity reports to the Teams partners as well as providing more regular updates to the PGLs, TLs, and other partners as needed.
• Review utilisation and overall hours (i.e. including chargeable and non-chargeable time) stats on a daily and weekly basis flagging any areas of concern in real time to the partner group as required.

Working with Fee earners

• Develop an excellent working relationship with the fee earners (counsel, associates, trainees and paralegals) to understand pressure points, capacity, skill sets and skill gaps and assisting with matching the fee earners preferences (where possible) to work that becomes available.
• Understand and map the skills in the team (with the support of a new resource management tool), including where there are with outstanding experience needs as well as understanding their career aspirations.
• Proactively monitor, remind, and chase fee earners to update their capacity forecast on a weekly basis.

Working within the Practice Management Team and with other Business Support Services:

• Work closely with the other resource managers in the firm to develop a global, best practice approach to work allocation practices by sharing guidance and experience.
• Work closely with the Practice Management, Finance, HR , Project Management and Business Development teams on people initiatives, issues and best practices.
• Assist with (internal) secondments and recruitment.
• Liaise with trainee supervisors to monitor trainee performance and allocate appropriate range of work.

Analysis and Reporting

• Carry out weekly and monthly work allocation analysis to report on trends, recommendations to smooth utilisation or improve processes where needed and to flag any areas of concern to be addressed.
• Compare individual and the team’s forecasted utilisation against actual utilisation, on a weekly basis, and providing support to address consistent inconsistencies as needed.
• Be aware and keep track of holidays and mapping holidays to utilisation to pro-actively recommend work re-allocation solutions (where needed) ahead of time.

About You

We will invest in your ongoing training and development to support your professional goals and help you to thrive in your role from day one. Our opportunities are open to all suitably qualified applicants, so to be considered for this role, you must meet the following skills and experience:

• Experience in work allocation or resource management, ideally within legal, professional services, or corporate environments.
• Qualified lawyer or professional with a law degree or relevant legal/resource management background.
• Strong commercial acumen with excellent stakeholder management and client service skills.
• Outstanding communication, negotiation, and influencing abilities, with confidence engaging senior decision-makers.
• Proven project management skills and ability to drive change in ambiguous situations.
• Proactive, resourceful, resilient, and able to exercise strong judgment while handling sensitive information discreetly.
• Proficient in Excel; experience with resource management software is a plus.

What’s in it for you?

We want to reward you today and help you plan for tomorrow. We appreciate that everyone is different, therefore we have designed a benefits system that offers choice and flexibility based on individual needs and lifestyles. To name a few, these include:

• Competitive basic salary (reviewed annually)
• Flexible, hybrid working policy
• Generous bonus scheme
• Up to 25 days holiday (rising to 28 days with service)
• Holiday exchange scheme
• Private medical insurance
• Enhanced parental leave

If you would like to read more information regarding our range of benefits, please visit our Rewards & Benefits page on our website.

Equal opportunities

At CMS, we place diversity and inclusion at the centre of our culture and the heart of our organisation. As a firm we recognise, celebrate, and embrace the diverse talent our society has to offer because we know that to solve big problems, we need the best and brightest minds available to us. In support of this goal, we commit to actively breaking down barriers which stand in the way of those from diverse backgrounds and play our part in levelling the playing field.

As a Future Facing Firm, we strongly believe that a career in law should be open to people from all walks of life, because not only does diversity of thought and experience make our firm a stronger and more sustainable business, but it also makes it a more rewarding place to work. When recruiting, we prioritise attracting talented people and we actively promote a flexible working environment which enables all our team members to thrive.

If you see a role you are interested in, but don’t feel you meet 100% of the criteria we encourage you to still consider making an application. We also welcome applications from those who may be looking to return to the workforce after a career break.

We are proud to say our leadership in creating an inclusive working culture has been celebrated and recognised externally, including being listed for a number of years in the Times Top 50 Employers for Women and the Social Mobility Index. We are a Level 2 Disability Confident Employer, and we actively encourage applications from people with disabilities, whether visible or invisible. We are committed to promoting equality of opportunity throughout our recruitment process and in every element of the employee life cycle.

If you require assistance, or if you would like to discuss any accessibility requirements or adjustments as part of the recruitment process, please contact a member of the Talent Acquisition team at TalentAcquisition@cms-cmno.com who will be happy to support you.

Ready to apply? Here are the next steps. We look forward to receiving your application online via the CMS careers site . Please contact our Talent Acquisition team if you have any questions. Please note that we have a preferred agency panel in place. Only applications submitted via the portal at the point of instruction will be accepted.