Head of Legal

Head of Legal 📍Manchester | 💰 £120,000 - £150,000 Street Group is a fast moving B2B SaaS business - grown in Manchester but on a UK wide mission to make moving house as easy as buying a car. We’ve recently raised strategic growth investment, and are scaling fast toward an ambitious growth plan. To support this growth, we're moving from fractional legal support to our first full-time in-house lawyer. As we grow and our product and client base expand, we need someone who can own the legal function day to day. As this is our first full-time legal hire, we're looking for a self-starter who is passionate about the role and who will build, own and manage our internal legal function, creating value and protecting the business from risk. You’ll work autonomously and efficiently, leading on legal matters and bringing in external counsel where required, and you’ll report directly to our CFO. How you'll make a difference Take ownership of the legal function, including a smooth handover from the current fractional counsel. Lead on B2B SaaS contracting: draft, negotiate and manage customer, partner and supplier agreements, and maintain contract templates and playbooks. Update terms and conditions as new product features are released, working closely with product, sales and commercial colleagues. Act as product counsel on AI-enabled features: advise product and engineering on the legal and regulatory implications of AI in Street Group’s products (including data use and training, IP and output ownership, accuracy and liability, and transparency), and ensure customer terms, data terms and product documentation reflect them. Advise on data protection, privacy and information security, including customer-facing data terms and requirements. Work with compliance and governance colleagues to establish and maintain corporate governance, AI governance and policy, and compliance frameworks. Identify and adopt AI tools and legal technology within the function to improve speed, consistency and capacity. Manage relationships with external law firms, including specialist advisers retained for equity and other matters, to ensure cost-effective use of external spend. Support M&A and other strategic transactions, including legal due diligence and post-acquisition integration. Identify and manage legal risks ahead of any future diligence or exit process. Advise the executive team and, as required, the Board on legal, regulatory and risk matters. Keep up to date with legislative and regulatory change affecting the business. Who we're looking for You’re qualified to practise in England and Wales, with 8+ years’ PQE gained in a law firm, in-house, or both. You have strong experience drafting and negotiating B2B SaaS agreements, ideally with institutional or regulated customers. You’re commercially focused: you act as a partner to sales, product and senior leadership and balance legal risk with commercial objectives. You have a sound understanding of data protection law and practical exposure to information security and technology risk. You have up-to-date knowledge of AI regulation and market practice as it affects SaaS products, with experience of advising on, or contracting around, AI features and of how customers and regulators are approaching them. You take a forward-thinking approach to AI and legal technology, with a track record of applying it to legal work. You’ve built or scaled a legal function, including templates, processes and external counsel management. You’re able to work autonomously as the sole in-house lawyer, with the judgement to know when to escalate or bring in specialists. You have excellent negotiation, communication and problem-solving skills, and you turn complex legal issues into practical, business-oriented advice. You manage multiple workstreams in a fast-paced environment. Bonus points if… You’ve worked in an FCA-regulated business. You’ve worked in a private eq