Chief People Officer

Met Office; United Kingdom; Hybrid; GBP 149,000 - 156,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading weather and climate organization in the UK is seeking a Chief People Officer to drive strategic people initiatives and lead organizational transformation. The role requires significant HR expertise and a proven track record in managing large teams and budgets. The ideal candidate will play a crucial role in shaping the organizational culture and ensuring the highest standards of employee engagement and well-being.

Benefits

Executive level base pay

Civil Service pension

Performance-related bonus

Annual Leave starting at 27.5 days

Relocation package available

Qualifications

• Demonstrable experience in multi-disciplinary teams.
• Track record of managing significant budgets.

Responsibilities

• Advise executive board on people-related issues.
• Lead transformation and change management programs.
• Develop and implement People strategy and engagement plans.

Skills

Leadership

Strategic thinking

Change management

Negotiation

HR disciplines expertise

Education

Chartered Fellow of CIPD or equivalent

Job description

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About the Job

We are pleased to bring to the market the role of Chief People Officer at the Met Office.

As our Chief People Officer, you will act as the trusted adviser to the Chief Executive and the Board on people, providing strategic direction and leadership on corporate reputation, and brand issues and to develop high quality people and communication structures to deliver the strategic long term aims of the Met Office.

Based in Exeter or Reading, with regular attendance at our Exeter Headquarters, you will be an integral member of our executive committee, directing on a broad range of people related workstreams to ensure the organisation has an engaged, skilled flexible workforce and the organisational capability to deliver its strategic objectives.

World changing work

As one of the world's leading weather and climate organisations, the Met Office provides the most accurate weather forecasts, severe weather warnings and climate projections which are built on our deep scientific expertise. Our work supports everything from daily life and travel, to defence, agriculture, energy and emergency response.

Your world of expertise

As a member of the Met Office Executive Committee, reporting to Managing Director of Enabling Capabilities, you will be key in realising our new 2025-2030 strategic plan and helping the Met Office to deliver the most trusted weather and climate intelligence in a radically changing world. You will be accountable for developing the organisational capabilities we need to realise our ambitions and enable the organisation to be an inclusive and great place to work.

Your key duties

• Act as a trusted adviser to Chief Executive and wider executive board on all people related issues, leading the People Strategy, Corporate Value Proposition and Engagement strategy.
• Leading transformation and change - successfully managing the delivery of people focused transformational change management programmes.
• Managing significant and successful cultural change through the use of organisational development, behavioural insight techniques and change management, in a complex and diverse multi-stakeholder environment.
• Leading a team of 130FTE with a £7.2m budget - who span a wide range of responsibilities across the employee lifecycle on resourcing, employee experience, strategic workforce planning, talent management, reward, designing and delivery of meteorological training and design and delivery of corporate learning, staff engagement, social media and content, culture, internal and external communications, the press office, health and safety professionals and change management.
• Responsible for delivering the People strategy, ED&I strategy, Employee Value Proposition, Health & Safety improvement plans, Wellbeing and engagement strategy.
• Act as chief negotiator on pay bargaining with trade union side, ensuring accuracy and compliance of pay remits and pay and reward policies.
• Continually improve staff engagement, measured through increasing engagement scores from the People survey, including through effective deployment of skilled and professional change management resources.
• Leadership of employer brand and values to attract, retain and develop our employees to build on the Employee annual survey (EAS) to implement change initiatives to ensure the MO is seen as a great place to work.
• Expected to play an effective role in Civil Service working with HR Directors across government.

Why join us

Our work is life-changing, often life-saving and always life-enhancing. The Met Office is accredited as a 'Great Place to Work UK' and in addition has achieved a place on both the UK's 'Best Workplaces in Tech' and 'Best Workplaces for Women' lists.

As our Chief People Officer your total reward package is potentially worth in the range of £149,000 to £156,000 annually, which includes:

• Executive level base pay
• An outstanding Civil Service pension
• A discretionary performance related bonus
• Annual Leave starting at 27.5 days (plus Bank Holidays) rising to 32.5 days (plus Bank Holidays) after 5 years and option to buy or sell up to 5 days per year of annual leave
• A relocation package is available.

Essential Criteria, skills and experience

We are seeking a permanent appointment for an exceptional leader whose experience aligns with our criteria:

• Chartered Fellow/ of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) or equivalent.
• Experience in depth across the full range of HR disciplines (Organisational Development, workforce planning and resourcing, people systems and technology, pay and reward, conduct and capability, learning, leadership and management, talent management, employee and industrial relations) in a senior leadership capacity.
• Experience of delivering in a high performing executive team with track record of using professional expertise in team development and in a coaching capacity successfully advise board members. Leading and delivering executive level relationships and stakeholder activity in a complex and constantly changing environment. Evidence of balancing both strategic thinking and horizon scanning with pragmatism, to deliver and embed people transformation and culture change.
• Proven track record of managing significant budget (£7.2 million) within agreed limits and extensive knowledge of corporate budgeting and financial processes.
• Demonstrable experience of leading large, multi-disciplinary People, Communications and Wellbeing teams, with a record of using innovation and creativity to solve people-related issues.
• Highly developed strategic thinking ability with proven track record in change management and capable of balancing both strategic, tactical and operational priorities; able to deliver strategy at pace, resilience to sustain the strategy, often through high levels of ambiguity and organisational change.

We would love to hear from you if you believe you meet the above criteria, but your skills and experience will be even better if you also possess any of the following qualities:

• Portfolio of commitment to professional development.
• Realising people benefits from use of data, analytics and AI.
• Experience of pay negotiations and successful, innovative approaches to pay flexibility in complex organisations.
• Experience of advising or sitting on Remuneration Committees.
• Establishing executive reward retention, recruitment and incentivisation schemes in a wide a variety of organisations.
• Working with a wide a variety of Trade unions.
• BPS qualified.
• Coaching qualifications.

Our selection process

To apply, follow the steps below which will include a Cover Letter/Supporting Statement for you to evidence your experience and skills against each of the essential criteria.

How to apply

If you share our values, we'd love to hear from you. Apply below using your CV and a Cover Letter/Supporting Statement with evidence against each of the essential criteria by Sunday 12th October 2025 at 23:59. Shortlisted candidates will be invited to a first stage interview taking place around 6th November, which will also comprise a presentation and stakeholder panel. Successful candidates will then proceed to a final stage with our Chief Executive and Chair.

How we can help

If you are considering applying and need support to do so, please contact us via. You can request adjustments either within your application or by contacting us. Should you be offered an interview, please be aware there may be a selection exercise which could include a presentation, written test or a scenario-based activity.

You can select in your application to be considered under the Disability Confident Scheme. To be invited to interview/assessment under this scheme, your application must meet the essential criteria for the role. We understand that great minds don't always think alike and as an equal opportunities employer we welcome applications from those with all protected characteristics. We recruit on merit, fairness, and open competition in line with the Civil Service Code.We can only accept applications from those eligible to live and work in the UK - please refer to GOV.UK for information. We require Security clearance, for which you need to have resided in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years to be eligible, 2 of these years must be immediately preceding the point of your application. You will need to achieve full security clearance within your first 6 months with us.

Location

United Kingdom (Hybrid)