Salary: Circa £140,000. This role also offers an Performance Award of a maximum of 20% of your salary per annum.
Existing Civil Servants on level transfer will retain their existing base salary. Candidates on promotion will have their substantive base salary increased by 10% or start on the minimum of the SCS PB2 scale of £98,000 per annum; whichever is higher.
Location: Taunton, Somerset
Job summary
As Chief Executive Officer (CEO), you will be responsible for leading the UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO), including delivery of a major transformation to digitise its operations and services.
UKHO is an executive agency trading fund of the Ministry of Defence (MOD). It is a global entity supplying maritime navigational services and products to Defence, the UK Government and commercial trade. UKHO has a commercial turnover of c.£200m and has rendered a £300m dividend to the MOD over the last 10 years. It is based in Taunton, Somerset, and employs around 1000 civil service, contractor and uniformed colleagues.
UKHO is the world’s pre-eminent hydrographic office and has international data sharing relationships with 140 countries, over 600 ports worldwide, and multi-national bodies, including the International Maritime Organisation, the International Hydrographic Organisation, and the Asian and World Banks. UKHO’s work is fundamental to all Allied and UK Defence joint operations, merchant marine trading, and the safety of life at sea. Its assured ADMIRALTY products are used by 93% of the world’s shipping that trades internationally.
The CEO is responsible for leading a transformational digital overhaul—modernising UKHO’s value chain, from supplier support and data management to service delivery—to ensure operational agility and customer relevance. This transformation is critical to maintaining UKHO’s position as a commercially viable trading fund and a trusted global authority.
Job Description
The CEO will be leading UKHO as it is goes through a period of significant change, balancing the needs of providing operational support to a broad range of customers such as Defence, UK Government, helping to ensure the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) as well as being commercially focussed providing charts, publications and digital services to the global shipping fleet.
The UKHO CEO is directly accountable for ensuring the effective management of the UKHO’s financial resources by overseeing annual business plans and budgets, as well as ensuring compliance with regulations to establish robust arrangements for governance, risk management, and internal control. The CEO holds the autonomy and responsibility to make decisions and adapt policies as necessary to align UKHO operations with business needs, operating effectively within the wider civil service and delegation frameworks. In addition, the CEO is tasked with making decisions that have a substantial impact on the long-term commercial success of the UKHO. This includes ensuring the effective delivery of services not only to commercial shipping, which contributes to the prosperity of the UK, but also to Defence, where enhancing service delivery is critical. Strategic decisions must reflect the importance of both the commercial and defence-oriented tasks to ensure the UKHO meets its diverse objectives effectively. The CEO will need to ensure that UKHO transforms how it delivers its services to customers within new and challenging market conditions, whilst taking the UKHO’s dedicated people and disparate stakeholder community with them. They have to navigate a complex set of stakeholder relationships ranging from Defence as Owner and Customer, global maritime community, internal hydrographic community, the civil service and the local community as one of the largest employers in the area.
They will need to be visionary, resilient and able to drive significant change where there is complexity and uncertainty. Given this, existing experience at Board / CEO level and delivering transformational digital change in a complex organisation and challenging environment would be expected.
The CEO leads an executive team consisting of: the National Hydrographer, Chief Customer Officer, Chief Digital and Technology Officer, Chief Data Officer, Chief Finance and Corporate Services Officer, and Chief People Officer. In total, the organisation comprises of approximately 1,000 professionals, including experts, technical specialists, and support teams from diverse backgrounds.
Key responsibilities include:
- Provide empowering and inspiring leadership for UKHO, creating a culture of trust as a platform for promoting innovation, creativity and diversity of thought which combines public sector values with those of an ambitious and innovative commercial enterprise.
- Set, communicate and implement a vision and strategy for the organisation which delivers existing and new products and value-added services to meet customer needs – Defence, wider government and the merchant marine market – while ensuring the long-term sustainability of the organisation.
- Drive forward and implement a major digital transformation impacting operationally, commercially and culturally – ensuring UKHO develops an inherent and flexible capability to meet the demands placed upon it by digital, data and technological advances.
- Build, develop and motivate a high-performing senior team, listening to and valuing opinions and contributions.
- Quickly earn the confidence of the government shareholder (MOD) and other public sector stakeholders as a disciplined operator and as an effective strategist to ensure that UKHO delivers against the substantial public policy goals for which it has responsibility.
- Effective financial and business oversight, including implementation of robust governance, risk management and assurance, as well as operational and financial budgeting controls to understand risks, operating costs and profit.
- Be the visible public face of UKHO in the national and local media. Undertaking media/PR relations activity to enhance and maintain the reputation and public face of UKHO. Represent UKHO internationally in the hydrographic community and in commercial circles.