UKHO Chief Executive Officer Full Time

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.

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.

Essential Criteria
• Proven experience of leading delivery of time-critical digital, operational, and cultural transformation in a fast-paced environment.

Operational delivery and accountability:
• Proven experience of providing strategic leadership to large complex organisations. The CEO must have commercial/customer focused expertise and experience of successfully delivering sustainable financial performance against a strategy and objectives in a complex customer
focused digital environment.
• Extensive experience of delivering effective and efficient resource management, business performance, value for money, corporate plans and business cases.
• Experience of owning and managing significant budgets with a focus on transparency, accountability and value-creation.

Leadership and people management:
• A proven track record of taking responsibility at the executive level for building and leading a diverse and inclusive culture, with experience of creating a culture of empowerment and trust throughout an organisation.
• The ability to inspire and guide teams towards achieving strategic goals through effective performance management, accountable decision-making and consistent delivery of results.

Stakeholder Management:
• Must have highly developed interpersonal and influencing skills; able to influence, and build trust with, a wide range of internal and external stakeholders across the public and private sector in the UK and internationally.

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%