Head of Naval Architecture and Marine Operations

Location: Devonport, Plymouth, GB, PL1 4SG

Onsite or Hybrid: Hybrid

At Babcock we’re working to create a safe and secure world, together, and if you join us, you can play your part as a Head of Naval Architecture and Marine Operations at our Devonport Royal Dockyard site.

As a Head of Naval Architecture and Marine Operations, you’ll accelerate your leadership impact, deepen your engineering expertise, and contribute to projects that directly support national security and the Royal Navy fleet. It’s a role where your decisions genuinely matter, for your team, the organisation, and the country.

Day-to-day, you’ll take on a pivotal and high‑impact leadership role shaping the future of Babcock’s marine operations. You will guide the technical direction, integrity, and performance of our naval architecture and marine engineering capabilities, ensuring our marine assets remain safe, effective, and ready to support the UK’s defence mission.

Responsibilities

• Lead, develop and inspire a multidisciplinary team of engineers and technicians whilst providing technical oversight of marine operations at Devonport.
• Oversee technical support to existing marine operational assets, ensuring performance, availability, and asset integrity.
• Provide technical requirements and guidance for the design of new marine assets across major projects.
• Allocate resources strategically across operational and project portfolios to meet business priorities.
• Maintain and enhance engineering governance, standards, regulatory compliance and safety processes.

Essential experience

• Experience of maintaining marine assets.
• Demonstrable experience of leading technical outputs.
• Proven ability to manage resources and develop long‑term engineering capability.
• Experience of working in a highly regulated industry and producing effective engineering processes, along with an understanding of PUWER 1998, Lloyd’s Register Rules, and BS 6349 Maritime Works.
• Experience in defence, maritime operations or complex engineering environments - Desirable.

Qualifications

• Degree in Naval Architecture or Marine/Mechanical Engineering (or a closely related engineering field).
• Chartered Engineer status - Desirable.

Security Clearance

The successful candidate must be a sole UK National who is able to achieve and maintain Naval Nuclear Propulsion Information (NNPPI) security clearance for this role.

What we offer

• Matched contribution pension scheme, with life assurance.
• Access to a Digital GP, annual health check, and nutritional consultations through Aviva DigiCare+.
• Employee share scheme.
• Employee shopping savings portal.
• Payment of Professional Fees.
• Reservists in the armed forces receive 10-days special paid leave.
• Holiday Trading is a benefit that allows UK Babcock employees to buy additional leave or to sell up to one working week of annual leave from their annual entitlement.
• ‘Be Kind Day’ enables employees to take one working day’s paid leave a year (or equivalent hours) to undertake volunteering work with their chosen organisation or registered charity.
• Excellent development opportunities and benefits package including an employee assistance programme supporting physical, mental and financial wellbeing.

About Babcock

We’re Babcock — a global FTSE 100 organisation with over 26,000 people working together to make a difference. Here, you’ll be part of something bigger. From initial design to final decommissioning, your work will contribute to products and services that are essential to national security and public infrastructure. Together, we’re building a future that lasts — not just through the impact we make, but through meaningful careers that respect your work-life balance. We call that lifetime engineering. Join us and see how far we can go, together.

We are a disability confident committed employer. If you have a disability or need any reasonable adjustments during the application and selection stages, please email careers@babcockinternational.com with the subject header ‘Reasonable adjustments requirement’. We’re committed to building an inclusive culture where everyone’s free to thrive. We are happy to talk about flexible working – please ask about alternative patterns of work at interview.