Operational Resilience Manager

Heathrow; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid working

Private health insurance

Generous pensions

Job summary

Heathrow Group is seeking a resilient and strategic professional to lead the development and maintenance of the airport's resilience framework. You will map critical processes, dependencies and recovery paths, owning the IT contingency plan portfolio and embedding data-driven approaches for decision-making and recovery.

You will analyse disruption scenarios, collaborate across functions, and drive improvements to anticipate disruption and minimise impact.

Qualifications

• Experience in operational resilience, business continuity, operational planning, risk management, or a related discipline within a complex operational environment.
• Experience analysing operational processes, systems, dependencies, and data to identify risks, vulnerabilities, and opportunities for improvement.
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills, with the ability to build effective relationships across functions.
• Experience delivering projects, operational improvement initiatives, or resilience-related programmes from concept through to implementation.
• Ability to facilitate discussions, challenge constructively, and drive accountability to achieve resilience and planning outcomes.
• Excellent written, verbal, and presentation skills, with the ability to communicate complex information clearly to a range of audiences.

Responsibilities

• Be part of the team that leads on the development and maintenance of Heathrow's operational resilience framework, mapping critical processes, systems, assets, dependencies, and recovery pathways across the airport.
• Take ownership of our operational IT contingency plan portfolio.
• Develop and embed data-driven resilience and contingency planning approaches, transforming traditional plans into dynamic tools that support operational decision-making and recovery.
• Analyse operational data, disruption scenarios, and business impacts to identify vulnerabilities, assess resilience risks, and support evidence-based planning and prioritisation.
• Collaborate with operational, engineering, technology, and business stakeholders to maintain an accurate understanding of critical dependencies and ensure resilience requirements are integrated into operational planning.
• Design, maintain, and improve resilience dashboards, digital workflows, and decision-support tools that enhance situational awareness, incident response, and operational recovery.
• Drive continuous improvement in resilience capability by using data insights, exercises, testing, and lessons learned to strengthen Heathrow's ability to anticipate disruption, minimise operational impact, and recover effectively.

Skills

Operational resilience

Business continuity

Operational planning

Risk management

Stakeholder management

Data visualisation

Process mapping

Decision-support tools

Job description

Introduction

It takes a special kind of team work to keep the world’s most iconic airport running smoothly. Over 65,000 people across hundreds of companies work at Heathrow and together they are Team Heathrow. The airport team includes colleagues from airlines, baggage handlers, control authorities, retailers, passenger services, emergency services, transport providers, security, engineering, airfield operations and more.

Introduction

It takes a special kind of team work to keep the world’s most iconic airport running smoothly. Over 65,000 people across hundreds of companies work at Heathrow and together they are Team Heathrow. The airport team includes colleagues from airlines, baggage handlers, control authorities, retailers, passenger services, emergency services, transport providers, security, engineering, airfield operations and more.

Our team are responsible for managing relationships with our partners, and coordinating day-to-day operational activities, including the Airport Operating Centre (APOC) operational plan.

Our purpose is to make every journey better and we work closely with our Team Heathrow Partners to achieve it. We do this by building trusted relationships with our partners, working to understand our shared goals and continually driving up standards across safety, operational and resilience performance. This demands close collaboration and communications, clear governance, working to quickly identify and to resolve shared issues that proactively deliver improvement across Heathrow and for our passengers.

It’s an inspiring, exciting place to work, with unlimited opportunities to make a difference. Be part of this city within a city and you’ll find a team that feels like family, and a place where you belong.

Job Description

Imagine being able to see exactly what Heathrow needs to keep operating: which processes depend on which systems and assets, what happens when something fails and what the exact recovery sequence is. Resilience at Heathrow has been evolving; technology has created new risks but also new opportunities to understand and manage disruption differently. Adapting to this change, we’ve shifted our focus from a traditional document-based contingency planning approach towards structured data, digital workflows and decision-supporting tools. The goal is resilience plans that react dynamically to the needs of the operation. Blending analogue ways of working (who doesn’t love a whiteboard) with a digital capability that enhances our understanding of critical decision points and paths. We want resilience plans to leverage available operational data, be integrated alongside existing operational systems and ultimately help Heathrow to anticipate disruption, make better decisions and recover faster.

Your role will involve

• Be part of the team that leads on the development and maintenance of Heathrow's operational resilience framework, mapping critical processes, systems, assets, dependencies, and recovery pathways across the airport.
• Take ownership of our operational IT contingency plan portfolio.
• Develop and embed data-driven resilience and contingency planning approaches, transforming traditional plans into dynamic tools that support operational decision-making and recovery.
• Analyse operational data, disruption scenarios, and business impacts to identify vulnerabilities, assess resilience risks, and support evidence-based planning and prioritisation.
• Collaborate with operational, engineering, technology, and business stakeholders to maintain an accurate understanding of critical dependencies and ensure resilience requirements are integrated into operational planning.
• Design, maintain, and improve resilience dashboards, digital workflows, and decision-support tools that enhance situational awareness, incident response, and operational recovery.
• Drive continuous improvement in resilience capability by using data insights, exercises, testing, and lessons learned to strengthen Heathrow's ability to anticipate disruption, minimise operational impact, and recover effectively.

These Skills Are Essential

• Experience in operational resilience, business continuity, operational planning, risk management, or a related discipline within a complex operational environment.
• Experience analysing operational processes, systems, dependencies, and data to identify risks, vulnerabilities, and opportunities for improvement.
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills, with the ability to build effective relationships and collaborate across multiple business functions.
• Experience delivering projects, operational improvement initiatives, or resilience-related programmes from concept through to implementation.
• Ability to facilitate discussions, challenge constructively, and drive accountability to achieve resilience and operational planning outcomes.
• Excellent written, verbal, and presentation skills, with the ability to communicate complex information clearly to a range of audiences.

Ideally you’ll also have:

• Experience within aviation, transport, infrastructure, utilities, emergency services, or other operationally critical and regulated environments.
• Knowledge of resilience frameworks, business continuity principles, incident management, or contingency planning methodologies.
• Experience using data visualisation, process mapping, workflow management, or decision-support tools to support operational planning and resilience activities.
• Experience conducting exercises, scenario testing, operational readiness reviews, or lessons-learned activities.
• Knowledge of Heathrow's operational environment, key dependencies, and stakeholders.
• Experience applying data and insights to support decision-making, operational recovery, or continuous improvement initiatives.

About Us

There’s something so special about working at the world’s most iconic airport. Its sights. Its sounds. Its constant air of excitement. Heathrow is an amazing backdrop to a career filled with unique opportunities.

Every day, you’ll discover a world full of fresh possibilities and end the day buzzing with stories to tell, as you encounter people from all cultures, nationalities and experiences. A world full of pride for what we do and no end of exciting career prospects to explore.

It brings out the best in all of us. And inspires everyone to deliver on our ambitious plans. Together, we’re working to welcome millions more passengers while ensuring aviation can continue to be a force for good by leading global efforts in sustainability.

Join us on that journey and we'll help you achieve your ambitions too. Supporting you to learn, encouraging you to be yourself, backing you to achieve more than you might ever have imagined. Because there’s no place like Heathrow.

Our rewards

We offer competitive salaries and excellent benefits that will support you now and in the future. As well as performance-based annual bonuses and our longer-term Share in Success Bonus plans, we also offer generous annual leave allowances and market-leading pensions. With family friendly policies, access to private health insurance and a wide range of wellbeing tools, we’ll support you to be at your best inside and outside work. And of course, we’ll provide varied learning and development opportunities too. Here you’ll find everything you need for a fulfilling career journey that can take you in exciting directions.

Working Location

Our Hybrid working approach offers the opportunity for colleagues in some roles to work from home for an average of two days a week, providing the flexibility to work in an agile way whilst ensuring we deliver for the operational needs of Heathrow . Working arrangements vary from team to team and will be confirmed during the recruitment process. You’ll need to be based in the UK and within a commutable distance to Heathrow.

Sustainable Travel to work

Heathrow’s Sustainable Travel Guide sets out easy and sustainable travel options that everyone can access.

Equal Opportunities

As an equal opportunities employer, we encourage applications from all. We believe that diverse talent makes us stronger – not least because we welcome passengers from all corners of the globe, every single day. Heathrow is an accessible place to work. With five diversity networks, we champion inclusivity and celebrate individuality.