Head of Health & Safety for Estates & Facilities

About us:

Estates & Facilities (E&F) is the largest professional services directorate at King’s with the widest variety of roles servicing our campuses and community. We enable King’s world-leading research, excellent teaching, and vibrant student life through the stewardship of one of the UK’s most significant and complex university estates.  

Find out more here:  https://www.kcl.ac.uk/professional-services/estates

About the role:

We are seeking a senior health and safety leader to partner with the E&F Executive Director and Senior Leadership Team, providing independent oversight and assurance across a diverse, high-profile environment.

You will assure health and safety performance across more than 100 buildings ranging in age from the 1780’s to the current day, spanning five central London campuses, including facilities embedded within major NHS Trusts and a substantial student residences portfolio.

This is a senior individual contributor role with dual reporting to the Executive Director and Senior Director of Strategy & Performance. It is designed for a leader who operates credibly at executive level, able to influence direction, challenge constructively, and bring clarity and sound judgement to complex and often ambiguous risk landscapes.

This role does not hold operational responsibility for delivery. Your impact will come from setting expectations, testing performance, and ensuring that risks are understood, owned, and acted upon at the right level. Success will depend on your ability to maintain independence, hold senior stakeholders to account, and build confidence in the directorate’s assurance approach over time.

You will bring significant experience from a large, multi-site or similarly complex organisation, with a track record of operating beyond operational management into strategic oversight and governance.

This role will suit someone who is self-directed, comfortable with ambiguity, and confident in maintaining their position when influencing becomes challenging. A visible on-campus presence, typically 3-4 days per week, is essential to engage effectively with senior leaders and operational teams.

About you:

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

• Competence to act as a senior health and safety professional under Regulation 7 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations.
• A recognised health and safety qualification at Level 6 or above, or equivalent professional experience, with commitment to ongoing CPD.
• Experience providing health and safety leadership and oversight at enterprise level within a multi-site organisation, with evidence of improving risk management.
• Experience providing executive-level H&S advice to senior leaders and/or boards within multifaceted organisations.
• Experience establishing health and safety management systems, including risk registers, governance arrangements, audit programmes and performance reporting.
• Ability to operate effectively in ambiguity and confidently challenge senior leaders on health and safety matters while maintaining constructive working relationships.
• Experience leading health and safety audits and reviews, with the ability to interpret findings, identify systemic issues and drive improvement through influence.
• Strong written communication skills to produce clear, high-quality reports, with experience presenting confidently to senior stakeholders.

Desirable criteria

• Experience working within asset-intensive, safety-critical or highly regulated environments.
• Experience working with formal health and safety management systems or equivalent governance frameworks.

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

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