Business Operations Manager in Southampton

Can you manage complex business operations - including budgets, governance, KPI reporting, and recruitment - while delivering high‑quality work to tight deadlines? Have you provided confident judgement and support when working with senior leaders on high‑profile or critical matters across an organisation? Do you excel at building strong relationships and supporting senior stakeholders to drive strategic priorities and ensure alignment across a directorate? If so, we’d love to hear from you!

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) implements the government’s maritime safety policy in the United Kingdom and works to prevent the loss of life and occurrence of pollution on the coast and at sea. Safer lives. Safer Ships. Cleaner Seas. Our vision is to be a world‑leading organisation, accelerating the transition to sustainable shipping with non‑negotiable safety standards. We put our people, our customers and our planet at the heart of everything we do.

Benefits

• Employer pension contribution of 28.97% of your salary.
• 25 days annual leave, increasing by 1 day each year of service (up to a maximum of 30 days annual leave), plus 8 bank holidays and a privilege day for the King’s birthday.
• Flexible working options where we encourage a great work‑life balance.

Responsibilities

• Manage the Directorate Business Support team with responsibility for business operations including budgets, corporate governance, business activity reporting and recruitment.
• Oversee and assist with the preparation, scrutiny and quality assurance of daily and all other reports, papers and briefings that are for the attention of the Director to enable the Director to fulfil their core functions.
• Act as MGRC’s principal liaison with the office of the Chief Executive for ministerial correspondence, liaising where appropriate with DfT officials.
• Review and clear submissions ahead of Director sign‑off.
• Manage the research and preparation of reports, memoranda, briefing papers and presentations as required by the Director to ensure relevance, accuracy and coherency.
• Coordinate and ensure that key stakeholders deliver within timeframes to comply with governance frameworks and MGRC/MCA priorities.
• Commission work on behalf of the Director to internal colleagues and external stakeholders that supports MGRC organisational strategy and the wider MCA Business Plan.
• Coordinate UK and international travel arrangements and update relevant Business Continuity Plans (BCP) to ensure the team is represented.
• Organise annual desktop exercises; ensure consistency of approach to Business Continuity across MGRC to align with Business Continuity plans.
• Oversee secretariat responsibilities for internal team meetings, and external meetings if required; represent the MGRC at internal/external meetings as appropriate and/or as directed.
• Contribute to MCA‑wide initiatives and manage the completion of parliamentary correspondence including Parliamentary Questions (PQ’s) and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) queries as requested.
• Line‑manage the Business Support staff within the Directorate, ensuring timely completion of PMRs, identifying training/development needs, and setting challenging, relevant objectives aligned to the MCA business plan.
• Ensure accurate completion of approvals and reporting in ABW within agreed timescales, and, if required, complete weekly timesheets in ABW within agreed timescales.

Great line management is important to us as an organisation, and we will equip and support line managers to develop the skills they need. We aim to empower line managers to create teams where people can flourish and deliver excellent outcomes for the public.