Head of Health and Safety
| Posting date: | 29 September 2025 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £54,857 per year |
| Additional salary information: | On-call allowance of £3000 |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 27 October 2025 |
| Location: | Southampton |
| Company: | Government Recruitment Service |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 430320/1 |
Summary
Do you have the passion to engage with various stakeholders for the embedding of a safety culture?
Have you developed and designed policies and procedures to improve health, safety and sustainable change?
If so, we’d love to hear from you!
You could join the Maritime and Coastguard Agency as our Head of Health and Safety. This influential position leads the Health, Safety, Environmental, and Sustainability (HSES) Team within the Directorate of Corporate Services is responsible for providing guidance, advice, oversight and ensure legal compliance on all aspects of Health, Safety, Environmental and Sustainability Management. Working with stakeholders across the MCA and wider Department for Transport to drive forwards safety improvements and to achieve the Greening Government Commitments and regulatory requirements.
Joining our department comes with many benefits, including:
- Employer pension contribution of 28.97% of your salary. Read more about Civil Service Pensions here
- 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.
Read more in the Benefits section below!
Find out more about what it's like working at: Maritime and Coastguard Agency - Department for Transport Careers
The purpose of the Head of Health and Safety is to lead and manage the organisations health and safety strategy, ensuring a safe working environment for all, and compliance with legal and regulatory requirements. Enabling the Behavioural, Environmental and Sustainability, and Occupational Health and Safety Leads to deliver by setting clear direction, operationally focussed solutions, and support where appropriate. Engaging with senior stakeholders across the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) to embed a Safety Culture.
Your responsibilities will include, but aren’t limited to:
Lead the delivery of a robust and proactive Health, Safety, Environmental and Sustainability function across the organisation.Ensure all Health and Safety systems and processes align with Statutory Requirements, MCA Safety Management System and best practice.Produce reports on performance, risk, and trends for Senior Leadership. Ensure accurate reporting of incidents, RIDDOR compliance, and appropriate escalation of risks and issues.Contribute to responses to internal audits, regulatory inspections, and parliamentary enquiries.Oversee development of Health, Safety, environmental and Sustainability Policies, Procedures and Guidance. Provide constructive challenge and expertise to identify opportunities for improvement, championing change to make MCA a safer and environmentally sustainable place to work.Complete complex and/or high-profile organisational stress risk assessment. Working with Senior Leaders, Employees, and Volunteers to implement outcomes.Act as an escalation point for health and safety matters within the team to provide guidance, direction and support as appropriate.Lead on investigations into serious incidents and near-misses, ensuring root cause analysis and corrective actions are identified and implemented.Oversee the MCAs compliance responsibilities with respect of Health, Safety, Environmental and Sustainability. Monitoring and providing oversight on inspections, audits, and assurance activities across the MCA.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.
For further information on the role, please read the attached role profile. Please note that the role profile is for information purposes only - whilst all elements are relevant to the role, they may not all be assessed during the recruitment process. This job advert will detail exactly what will be assessed during the recruitment process.
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