Head of Resilience in Southampton

We are Ordnance Survey, Great Britain’s national mapping service and a pioneer in geospatial technology. With over 230 years of trusted data, we empower better decisions, deeper understanding, and meaningful connections to the places we live, move through, and care for.

At Ordnance Survey, resilience is not simply about responding to disruption. It's about ensuring we can continue to deliver nationally important services, protect our customers and partners, and adapt successfully in an increasingly complex operating environment. We are seeking a strategic and forward-thinking Head of Resilience to lead the development and delivery of our enterprise-wide resilience capability. Reporting to the Chief Information Security Officer, you will continue to develop resilience as a core organisational capability, ensuring Ordnance Survey can anticipate, withstand, respond to and recover from a wide range of threats and disruptive events.

This includes everything from operational disruption and technology failure to supply chain challenges, national emergencies and evolving external risks. As a member of the Security & Resilience Leadership Team, you will shape the strategic direction of resilience across the organisation, ensuring business continuity, crisis management and organisational preparedness are embedded within our operating model and culture. You will work closely with senior leaders, technology teams, security specialists and external partners to strengthen our ability to deliver critical services under all conditions.

What you'll be doing

• You will provide leadership for organisational resilience across OS, developing a clear resilience roadmap aligned to enterprise risk, organisational priorities and government expectations.
• You will establish and mature our business continuity and crisis management capabilities, ensuring plans are practical, tested and continually improved.
• The role will include:
• Leading the evolution of OS's organisational resilience capability and maturity journey.
• Designing and embedding effective business continuity, crisis management and incident response frameworks.
• Preparing the organisation through exercising, scenario planning and resilience testing.
• Supporting Executive and Senior Leaders during incidents, helping drive structured and informed decision-making under pressure.
• Building trusted relationships with government bodies, emergency services, suppliers and critical partners.
• Creating a culture where resilience is understood as everyone's responsibility.
• Developing resilience knowledge, awareness and capability across the organisation through training, coaching and exercises.

What we're looking for

• You will be an experienced resilience professional with a proven track record of leading organisational resilience, business continuity or crisis management capabilities within a complex environment.
• You will combine strategic thinking with practical delivery, bringing both credibility and calm leadership when it matters most.
• You'll likely bring:
• Significant experience of organisational resilience, business continuity and crisis management.
• An understanding of government resilience expectations, national infrastructure, or similarly complex operating environments.
• Experience improving organisational capability through structured maturity approaches and continuous improvement.
• The ability to influence senior leaders and translate complex risks into practical action.
• Experience designing and leading exercises, training and preparedness activities.
• A collaborative leadership style that builds confidence, capability and accountability across diverse teams.

Why join us?

This is an opportunity to help develop and shape a critical strategic capability within one of the UK's most trusted organisations. You will play a key role in helping Ordnance Survey navigate uncertainty while continuing to deliver the services that organisations, businesses and citizens rely on every day.

As an OS Leader Operating at the Leading Other Leaders level within the OS Leadership Framework, you will lead through Engage, Grow and Deliver, creating the environment, capability and alignment needed for teams and leaders to succeed.

• Engage – Build trust, alignment and shared purpose across teams, functions and stakeholders.
• Grow – Develop leaders, strengthen capability and prepare the organisation for future challenges and opportunities.
• Deliver – Drive joined-up outcomes through effective decision-making, collaboration, accountability and continuous improvement.

Through your leadership, you'll help create a culture where security is understood as a shared responsibility, enabling informed decision-making, innovation and trust across Ordnance Survey.

The Rewards

We want you to love what you do and feel supported to do your best work. Our benefits include:

• Competitive salary and pension (OS contribute up to 12.07%)
• Performance‑related bonus (where applicable)
• 28 days annual leave plus bank holidays (increasing with service)
• Enhanced family leave, including paid partner leave
• Hybrid and flexible working options
• Learning and development support, coaching and mentoring
• Free subscription to OS Maps and access to wellbeing support
• Volunteering leave and matched fundraising

Location & working pattern

We embrace a hybrid working model at OS, because we believe in flexibility and balance. You’ll be based at our fantastic HQ in Southampton, where you'll be expected to spend a minimum of 4 days per week leading and collaborating face-to-face with colleagues.

Security

A key requirement of this role is the ability to obtain Security Clearance. OS conducts pre-employment checks for anyone made an offer of employment, including identity, right to work, employment history and criminal record checks via the Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS).

Closing Date - Sunday 4th October 2026 at 23:59pm.

How to Apply

Please submit your CV and Covering letter to support the above criteria.

Inclusion

We are happy to consider any reasonable adjustments that people may need during the recruitment process, and you will be asked whether you require any during the application process. Research indicates that women, individuals with disabilities, LGBTQ+ community members, neurodiverse individuals, and people from ethnic minority backgrounds often hesitate to apply for jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At Ordnance Survey, we are dedicated to fostering a diverse, inclusive and genuine workplace where everyone can thrive. If you're enthusiastic about this role but your experience doesn't perfectly match every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You might be the ideal candidate for this or other roles within Ordnance Survey.

Skills required for this role:

• Business Continuity Management System (BCMS)
• Business Continuity Plan (BCP) Testing
• Business Continuity Planning (BCP)
• Business Resilience
• Enterprise Crisis Management
• Managing Partner Relationships
• Operational Resilience
• Relationship Building
• Resilience Planning
• Scenario Planning
• Stakeholder Influence