Why hire a temporary compensation consultant?

Within any large business, managing the pay and benefits of key staff is a critical consideration. While many organisations handle this function in-house, there are times when bringing in an experienced compensation consultant on a temporary basis makes far more sense than trying to resource it internally.

One of the most common reasons is benchmarking, and one of the most common triggers is change.

Employment legislation rarely stands still, and every amendment tends to ripple through pay structures, benefit entitlements and wider reward strategy. The Employment Rights Act 2025 is a case in point: its reforms are being phased in over several years, and many of them touch reward directly. A temporary compensation consultant gives you the specialist capacity to respond, without the long-term commitment of a permanent hire.

What is compensation benchmarking, and why does it matter?

Compensation benchmarking is the process of comparing your organisation’s pay, benefits and reward structures against the wider market, typically by role, seniority, sector and location. Done properly, it tells you whether your offer is competitive, where you sit relative to direct competitors, and which parts of your reward strategy are quietly costing you talent.

The value goes well beyond a like-for-like salary comparison. Robust benchmarking underpins pay equity, supports fair and defensible reward decisions, and gives HR and leadership teams the evidence they need when budgets are being set or challenged. It also protects against risk. Without regular benchmarking, businesses can drift out of step with the market without realising it, until turnover or a difficult hire makes the gap obvious.

What the Employment Rights Act 2025 means for reward teams

The Employment Rights Act 2025 brings some of the most wide-ranging changes to UK employment law in years, phased in over 2026 and 2027. Several of them touch pay and benefits, from day-one sick pay and family leave rights to new rules on changing employees’ terms and conditions, and a stronger focus on pay equity and gender pay gap action plans.

For HR and reward professionals, that means more than keeping up with the headlines. Policies will need updating, pay and benefits structures reviewing, and managers briefing on what has changed. Many teams will also need to upskill in areas that were once a niche concern, such as pay equity analysis and managing changes to contracts.

Not every business has the in-house capacity to do all of this alongside the day job. A temporary compensation consultant can bring the specialist knowledge and extra resource needed to get policies and reward structures in shape, while your permanent team stays focused on business as usual.

Get ahead of legislative change: why timing matters

Employment law will keep evolving, and reward structures need to keep pace with it. Bringing in a compensation consultant ahead of the next phase of reform, rather than after it, gives your business a head start. Rather than reacting once new rules are already in force, a temporary specialist can review your current pay and benefits position, flag where forthcoming amendments to employment rights are likely to affect your structures, and help you build a benchmarking exercise around the market you will be operating in once the changes land. Getting ahead of this proactively is far more cost-effective, and far less disruptive, than a rushed correction after the event.

Why a temporary consultant, rather than a permanent hire

For benchmarking specifically, a temporary consultant often makes more sense than adding to permanent headcount. Impartiality is one of the biggest advantages. A consultant coming in from outside your organisation has no internal history, no loyalty to a particular department, and no stake in defending decisions that were made before they arrived. That distance makes their recommendations easier to trust, both internally and when reward decisions need to be signed off by the board.

They also bring something a permanent hire, however experienced, simply cannot: recent, first-hand exposure to how other organisations structure pay and benefits. Having worked across a range of businesses and sectors, a temporary compensation consultant can tell you not just what the published salary surveys say, but what is actually happening on the ground, where competitors are flexing on benefits, what candidates are pushing back on, and which perks have stopped moving the needle.

That outside perspective also means they can be deployed flexibly. A temporary consultant can benchmark pay and reward across the whole business, or focus narrowly on a single team or function where you suspect there is a problem, without the politics that can come from asking an existing employee to scrutinise their own department or a colleague’s role.

What the role could include

The scope of a temporary compensation consultant’s role is broad and can be shaped around what your business needs most. Typical projects include:

• A full compensation and benefits benchmarking exercise against sector and regional comparators
• Reviewing pay structures, sick pay and family leave provisions ahead of, or in response to, changes in employment legislation such as the Employment Rights Act 2025
• Auditing pay equity across a team, department or the wider business, including the analysis behind gender pay gap reporting and equality action plans
• Designing or refreshing a job grading and salary banding framework
• Assessing the cost and risk of harmonising or changing terms and conditions, so any proposals stand up to scrutiny
• Supporting a total reward strategy review, covering pension, bonus and benefits alongside base pay
• Advising on retention-focused pay interventions where turnover is a concern
• Providing interim cover during a permanent compensation and benefits hire, or a period of maternity or long-term leave
• Preparing data and recommendations ahead of a board or remuneration committee review

Other reasons to bring one in

Legislation and benchmarking aside, there are several other scenarios where a temporary compensation consultant earns their place on the team.

• A hiring crisis. If your business is struggling to attract the calibre of talent it needs, it may simply be that your pay and benefits offer is being outshone by competitors. A consultant will benchmark your packages and identify where you need to move to stand out.
• A turnover problem. When key people are leaving and you are not sure why, a consultant can look at how you reward long service, and whether pay keeps pace with growing seniority and responsibility.
• A motivation injection. An overhaul of compensation and benefits can reinvigorate a team, but only if it is the right overhaul. A consultant will establish which benefits employees actually value, and which the business can sustainably afford.

Why temping is tempting

Taking on a temporary specialist is an attractive option for many businesses. It gives you the chance to assess the value someone brings, and the quality of their work, without committing to a permanent employment contract.

It also opens the door to a wider pool of candidates. Temping is popular with ambitious professionals who want to diversify their experience and build their CV by working across different roles and organisations, which is precisely what makes them valuable for benchmarking work in the first place. A consultant with a strong temping track record brings genuinely varied, current experience to your vacancy, and can draw on it from day one.

Frequently asked questions

What does a compensation consultant do?

A compensation consultant reviews and benchmarks an organisation’s pay, benefits and reward structures against the market, and recommends changes to keep them competitive, fair and legally compliant.

How does the Employment Rights Act 2025 affect pay and reward?

The Act is being phased in through 2026 and 2027. Changes with a direct impact on reward include day-one Statutory Sick Pay, day-one paternity and parental leave, restrictions on fire and rehire where pay or other core terms are reduced, mandatory equality action plans for larger employers, and new rights around guaranteed hours. Employers will need to review pay structures, benefits and the overall cost of employment as each measure takes effect.

Why hire a temporary compensation consultant instead of a permanent one?

A temporary consultant offers impartial, up-to-date market insight from working across multiple organisations, without the cost or commitment of a permanent role. They are well suited to time-bound projects such as benchmarking, pay audits or legislative reviews.

When is the best time to bring in a compensation consultant?

Before a known trigger point, such as the next phase of the Employment Rights Act 2025 or other changes to employment legislation, is ideal. Reviewing your pay and benefits position ahead of new rules coming into force, rather than after, gives you time to plan rather than react.

Contact Portfolio HR & Reward for temporary recruitment

Portfolio HR & Reward specialises in executive-level temporary recruitment for the compensation, benefits and reward sector. Contact our team on 0207 650 3190 if you have a vacancy that needs filling, or sign up to join our compensation temps database if you are a skilled professional looking for a new challenge.