The UK workforce brief

Dan is a Chartered Accountant who has spent the last seven years working in and alongside private equity, identifying the commercial drivers behind businesses and finding ways to accelerate their growth. At PSSG, Cintra's parent company, he applies that same lens to analysing commercial opportunities across the group. His column does what he does best—taking data and turning it into a clear picture of what's actually happening, and what it means for the bottom line.

Sarah brings more than four decades of experience to her column, having led complex people strategies across talent acquisition, employment law, capability development and large-scale HR ops. She leads both the internal people function and the HR outsourcing division—which means she's dealing with the practical realities of workforce management every day, not just advising on them from a distance. Her writing reflects that: grounded in what's actually changing, and what employers need to do about it before it becomes a problem.

Eric has spent more than 15 years in the payroll sector and a further 17 in professional services before that, giving him a long view of how the industry has evolved and where it's heading. As CEO of Cintra, he has overseen multiple acquisitions, worked with private equity, and collaborated with a wide range of management teams to grow both businesses and the people running them. His column connects things that look remote—shifts in financial markets, economic policy, the broader business landscape—to the decisions that will land on payroll and HR leaders' desks six months from now.

Ed has spent 18 years in high-pressure sales and sales leadership roles, closing deals from £1,000 to £12 million and building the kind of commercial operations that consistently outperform. At PSSG he leads sales and marketing across the group. His column draws on that experience of being in the room—pitching to CEOs, rebuilding underperforming teams, taking new products to market—to explore what it really takes to upgrade a business for a faster, more competitive environment. Less framework, more what actually works.