Director, Future Workforce

Costa Crociere S.p.A.; Southampton; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual bonus

Medical insurance

Pension scheme

Leave allowance

Employee Shares Plan

Life Assurance

Wellbeing programmes

Discounts portal

Job summary

Carnival UK is seeking a Director, Future Workforce to define strategic workforce planning for our P&O Cruises and Cunard portfolios. This high-impact role requires turning insights into action, shaping capability across ship and shore, and partnering with senior leaders to forecast demand and investment in skills.

The role blends strategic thinking with hands-on governance, data-led decision making, and change leadership to embed a mature, skills-led workforce planning capability across the

Qualifications

• Deep strategic workforce planning and business foresight expertise.
• Ability to design and govern enterprise-wide workforce planning methodologies, frameworks, tools and policies, including scenario planning, workforce modelling, data inputs and risk identification.
• Strong analytical capability, with experience of combining workforce assumptions, financial data and business insight to create clear and actionable recommendations.
• Strong influencing and change leadership capability, with the credibility to build stakeholder confidence, coach the business in skills-based thinking and embed workforce planning into strategic decision making.
• Strategic and pragmatic thinking, translating high-level ambition into practical, commercially grounded solutions.
• Self-starting approach with drive, ownership and execution.
• Strong collaboration skills with the confidence to engage senior stakeholders through change.

Responsibilities

• Owning and continuously evolving Carnival UK's strategic workforce planning methodology, cycles, data standards and governance.
• Leading scenario planning and workforce risk identification for senior leaders with clear strategic options.
• Translating workforce insights into coordinated actions across learning design, employer brand, capability building, recruitment and location strategy.
• Shaping data, tooling and system requirements to support strategic workforce planning and ensure insights are embedded in decisions.

Skills

Strategic workforce planning

Stakeholder engagement

Scenario planning

Data analytics

Change leadership

Business partnering

Talent strategy

Job description

Join Carnival UK at a pivotal moment as we build a more strategic, skills-led view of our future workforce across P&O Cruises and Cunard. As Director, Future Workforce, you will have the opportunity to define what strategic workforce planning means for our organisation, creating the approach, insight, tools and business confidence needed to help us understand the skills and capabilities we will need for the years ahead. This is a genuinely early-stage, high-impact opportunity. We are moving beyond traditional headcount and role-based planning towards a more data-led understanding of skills, scarcity, capability and workforce investment across both ship and shore. Working closely with senior leaders, you will help the business think differently about future demand, identify where capability already exists, and determine where we need to grow, build or deploy skills in new ways. With learning design and employer brand closely connected to this agenda, you will be able to turn workforce insight into practical action - shaping how we develop future capability internally, attract scarce talent externally and build a workforce plan that supports Carnival UK's long-term ambitions.

• Owning and continuously evolving Carnival UK's strategic workforce planning methodology, cycles, data standards and governance, ensuring the approach is scalable, skills-led and integrated with wider business and financial planning.
• Leading scenario planning and workforce risk identification, providing senior leaders with clear strategic options and trade-offs relating to capability, cost and organisational resilience.
• Translating workforce insights into coordinated actions across learning design, employer brand, capability building, recruitment, retention, location strategy and outsourcing, tracking outcomes to ensure measurable business impact.
• Shaping the data, tooling and system requirements needed to support strategic workforce planning, ensuring insights are practical, credible and embedded into decision-making.

This role demands a blend of strategic workforce planning expertise, analytical judgement and business influence. We're looking for someone with:

• Deep strategic workforce planning and business foresight expertise, with experience of implementing, embedding or being closely involved in a strategic workforce planning capability within another organisation.
• The ability to design and govern enterprise-wide workforce planning methodologies, frameworks, tools and policies, including scenario planning, workforce modelling, data inputs and risk identification.
• Strong analytical capability, with experience of combining workforce assumptions, financial data and business insight to create clear and actionable recommendations.
• Strong influencing and change leadership capability, with the credibility to build stakeholder confidence, coach the business in skills-based thinking and embed workforce planning into strategic decision making. You may have built this capability directly, or played a leading role as a senior stakeholder, business partner, OD, people strategy, HR analytics or workforce transformation leader. What matters most is that you bring practical experience of helping an organisation move towards a more mature, skills-led approach to workforce planning.
• Strategic and pragmatic thinking, with the ability to translate high-level ambition into practical, commercially grounded business solutions.
• A self-starting approach, bringing drive, ownership and purposeful execution.
• Strong influencing and collaboration skills, with the confidence to engage senior stakeholders, challenge constructively and bring people with you through change.

Positioned within our internal structure from CUK15 (entry level) to CUK1 (Brand President), this role is classified as a CUK05, offered as a full-time position, on a permanent basis, with an offering of hybrid work including up to two days from home.

Why Join Us?

Read our employee experience guide to learn more about life as a Carnival UK colleague here. We're more than just a holiday company; we're a community that values work-life balance, personal growth, and wellbeing. As part of our team, you'll enjoy:

• Annual bonus
• Company paid private medical and dental insurance and health assessment
• Employee Discounted Cruising plus Friends and Family offers
• Contributory Defined Contribution Pension scheme
• Minimum 25 days leave, bank holiday allowance and holiday trading scheme
• Employee Shares Plan
• Life Assurance
• Employee Assistance and Wellbeing programmes
• In-house Occupational Health help and access to digital GP
• Recognition scheme with prizes and awards
• Employee-led networks
• Electric Car and Cycle to Work schemes
• Discounted retail and leisure via discounts portal