Health & Safety and Security Director

The Health, Safety and Security (HSS) Director is accountable for leading the end-to end HSS function across HS2 Ltd and its supply chain. The role sets the strategic direction, defines the technical safety standards to deliver a minimum performance safety standard, and drives delivery of health, safety, and security outcomes to achieve performance beyond industry best practice. Operating at Executive level, the role ensures the organisation delivers a safe, secure, and resilient railway, embeds a strong safety culture, and meets all regulatory and Development Agreement obligations. The role also establishes the frameworks, systems, and capabilities required to manage and assure health and safety risk, performance, and respond effectively to health and safety incidents.

HS2 Ltd endeavours to ensure everyone working for us and with us feels included, thrives and achieves their full potential. In practice, this means we are positive and inclusive about making adjustments, providing flexible working, encouraging our staff networks to flourish and providing personal and professional development opportunities.

About the role

Strategy & Leadership

• Lead HS2’s approach as an Intelligent Safety Client, setting and delivering Health, Safety and Security strategy (Safe at Heart) across HS2 Ltd and its supply chain, aligning to organisational priorities and legacy ambitions.
• Lead the HS2 approach to Health, Safety and Security, establishing clear direction, expectations, and governance and leaving a lasting legacy for health & safety across both HS2 and the industry.
• Work in partnership with Executive and Delivery Directors to achieve health and safety performance beyond industry best practice, actively intervening to correct performance.
• Champion a strong, visible safety culture (“Safe at Heart”) across all levels of the organisation.
• Champion best practice, innovation to set new standards in health and safety risk exposure, minimising long-term industry prevalent health and occupational impacts.

Performance & Assurance

• Establish and lead integrated frameworks for managing HSS risks across the programme.
• Accountable for overall health and safety performance across HS2 Ltd and its supply chain, defining health and safety technical standards, including Occupational Health, to drive a minimum safety performance level.
• Establish performance frameworks, tools, processes, metrics, and reporting to monitor and continuously improve outcomes.
• Deliver proactive risk assurance through data, intelligence, and insight to inform strategic priorities, assurance and auditing interventions early and mitigate safety risk exposure before it becomes a trend.

Policy, Standards & Compliance

• Define and maintain HSS policies, standards, and management systems.
• Ensure compliance with regulatory requirements, including ISO standards and Development Agreement obligations.
• Provide assurance to the Executive and Board on HSS performance and compliance.

Risk, Safety & Security Management

• Establish and lead integrated frameworks for managing HSS risks across the programme.
• Define and implement a robust framework for managing safety and security incidents, including response, escalation, and lessons learned.
• Lead organisational capability in incident response, crisis management, business continuity, and resilience.

Delivery Support & Integration

• Provide expert HSS advice to delivery teams and enable safe delivery through specialist support services.
• Ensure effective integration of HSS requirements across assets, projects, and supply chain partners.
• Embed safety, health, and security considerations throughout the full programme lifecycle.

People & Capability

• Lead and develop a high-performing, multi-disciplinary HSS function.
• Build capability across HS2 and its supply chain to deliver consistent HSS standards.
• Promote continuous improvement, learning, and professional development.

Governance & Stakeholder Engagement

• Support Executive governance and Board assurance, including relevant sub committees.
• Engage with regulators, government, JV partners, and external stakeholders to ensure alignment and compliance.

Culture & Inclusion

• Promote safety leadership, wellbeing, and inclusion across the organisation.
• Embed consistent behaviours, values, and expectations aligned to HS2 ways of working.

About you

Skills

• Strategic leadership of safety, health, and security in complex environments.
• Strong influencing and stakeholder management at Executive and system level.
• Risk-based decision-making and crisis leadership capability.
• Ability to drive cultural change and sustained performance improvement.
• Data-led thinking and performance insight application.
• Clear communication of complex regulatory and technical issues.

Knowledge

• Health, safety, and security management in major infrastructure programmes.
• Regulatory frameworks and standards (e.g., HSE, ISO).
• Risk, assurance, and incident management frameworks.
• Performance management and data-driven safety approaches.
• Information security and SIRO responsibilities.

Type of experience

• Significant senior leadership experience in HSS within large, complex infrastructure or engineering organisations.
• Proven track record of improving safety performance across organisations and supply chains.
• Experience working with regulators, government bodies, and delivery partners.
• Demonstrated leadership in incident management, resilience, and crisis response.
• Experience embedding safety culture and driving long-term organisational change.

The post-holder is expected to behave at all times in a manner consistent with the HS2 values of Safety, Leadership, Integrity and Respect. It is expected that you will actively promote and embed Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in all your work and support and comply with all organisational initiatives, policies and procedures on EDI.

We ask for a variety of detail in your online application, however we perform the first assessment of suitability for a role based solely on the information in your CV. In a further development of our efforts to create a more diverse workforce, your CV will be anonymised and personal information will be removed during the first stage of the application review. This removes bias from the process and makes it even more important that you attach an updated word version of your CV for each new application ensuring you include evidence directly related to the criteria in the job advert. Watch this video on how we remove bias in the recruitment process: Removing bias in the recruitment process - YouTube

Any applications received after the closing date will not be considered.