Senior Director Maritime Fleet Workforce

We recognise the value in having people with a variety of backgrounds, experience, and skills in our business. That means the role requirements here should be seen as a guide, not a checklist. If you have more, less, or different experiences, but relevant skills, we’d love to hear from you.

We work flexibly and will help you to find a healthy balance of remote working and time in our fantastic Southampton office, collaborating, taking part in events, and getting to know people that makes working with us so rewarding. We welcome the opportunity to discuss reduced hours and job share arrangements.

The Role

Carnival UK is excited to bring to market the role of Senior Director, Maritime Fleet Workforce. This exciting role is now available due to an internal secondent or external fixed term contract..

We are looking for a forward thinking, dynamic individual who can shape and deliver the strategy for our Maritime Fleet workforce, consisting of world class brands P&O Cruises and Cunard Line.

An extremely important part of our business is our people, and for us to run a safe, reliable, efficient, and compliant operation we need someone to lead our dedicated Fleet Workforce team. To ultimately deliver a fit for the future Maritime fleet team with the right level of complement, capabilities and most importantly competence.

The ideal candidate will be able to shape and deliver against the strategy, leveraging your maritime business knowledge to co-create the long-term strategy with the wider team. This strategy should include an innovate and forward-thinking approach to sourcing, deployment, development and retention of sufficiently competent and experienced Maritime crew and delivery of Maritime Training as required to meet the business’s evolving needs and statutory regulations.

This role holds accountability for various areas within the business including our award winning and longstanding Cadetship programme, the maritime wide training programs and competency framework and line management for our Career Management team- a first for most cruise lines showcasing our commitment to supporting our crew reach their potential and progress..  

Accountabilities include:

  • Maritime SME for Strategic Workforce Planning (SWFP) (excluding medical), accountable for agreeing the numbers required to meet demand including promotion & recruitment pools and turnover in partnership with the Senior Manager, SWFP:
    • Shape the requirements to feed into and deliver against the SWFP for Maritime
    • Accountable for setting the Maritime Complement for all CUK ships and set the Maritime acceptable requirement for Team Strength.
    • Accountable for setting the Maritime Establishment to deliver this complement within tolerable Team Strength. 
    • Create and manage delivery of plan to meet Establishment demand, including sustainable balance between recruitment and promotion.
  • Lead the Maritime Workforce Future Readiness review and implement the recommendations ensuring a transition to an optimally utilised and engaged Officer team
  • Manage the Maritime Fleet workforce plan in close liaison with key stakeholders including the Maritime Leadership Team, the People Team and Fleet People Operations.
  • Feed Maritime Fleet workforce requirements into the 3-year People Plan led by Senior Director, Maritime People and in close liaison with key stakeholders including the Maritime Leadership Team, the People Team, Fleet People Operations and Finance.
  • To review and develop a coherent Maritime rating structure & capability across the specialisations
  • Accountable for the Maritime Crew Budget (c £57m) – forecasting, achievement of budget and variance analysis
  • Set and evolve Career Management strategy for all Maritime ranks in collaboration with the People Team and Fleet People Operations. Establish Maritime Career Management for officer ranks.
  • Set up and lead team to deliver effective career management and line management responsibilities for Cadets, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st Engine Officer, ETOs, LNG and 3rd, 2nd and 1st Officer.
  • Along with the Manager Maritime Career & Development, define the requirement for and maintain oversight of the Maritime cadet and Personal Development Record (PDR) programme.
  •  Identify and compile the Maritime training curriculum to ensure these competencies are delivered via training portfolio, considering regulatory and compliance changes.
  • Owner for CSMART plan requirements; CUK curriculum and comms. Own the CUK relationship with CSMART.
  • Lead Partnership at Work (PAW) forum and ensure progress is achieve across areas of focus
  • In partnership with the People team, set strategy and lead Maritime Collective Bargaining discussions and pay negotiations
  • Monitor and propose people metrics and insight from Corporate and CUK reporting ensuring they enable effective decisions across the key drivers 
  • Lead Monthly Maritime People Meeting and oversight of the Maritime Fleet workforce plans
  • As a member of the Fleet Leadership team, work with Senior Management teams onboard and Fleet Leadership Teams ashore to support Fleet performance.
  • In partnership with the People team, lead and build the Maritime Fleet Workforce team, introducing and embedding new positions to deliver to the Maritime fleet workforce priorities.
  • Support the ongoing development and maintenance of a positive, engaging, and diverse work environment ship and shore
  • Promote a strong commitment to safeguarding our people (shoreside, crew and guests) and the environment, via strong and transparent HESS culture; ensure HESS is considered in all strategic decisions and promoting a strong commitment to safeguard our people (shoreside, crew and guests) and the environment we operate in
  • Shape and be a custodian of the CUK culture and values, and engagement and deployment of our employees

Our role categories range from CUK15 (entry level) to CUK1 (Brand President) so you can clearly see internal development opportunities. This role is a CUK05 and is offered for upto 24 months  with at least two days based in our Southampton office.

About You

Fresh ideas and different perspectives are what excite us most and help us to succeed. Alongside bringing these to the role, you’ll also need:

  • Experience of working in Technical/ Maritime industry
  • Experience in the creation and delivery of workforce related strategy in Marine or Technical environments
  • Experience in deriving strategy in a multi-stakeholder environment
  • Seagoing experience
  • Experience of developing and embedding new policies and procedures
  • Experience of managing multiple priorities simultaneously
  • Experience of leading and developing people that are both direct and indirect team members


Being part of our team has its advantages…

We’re a holiday company so we know there’s more to life than work. Our comprehensive range of benefits are designed to help your personal and financial health and wellbeing.

  • Annual bonus
  • Minimum 25 days leave, bank holiday allowance and holiday trading scheme
  • Employee Discounted Cruising plus Friends and Family offers
  • Contributory Defined Contribution Pension scheme
  • Company paid private medical and dental insurance and health assessment
  • In-house Occupational Health help and access to digital GP
  • Life Assurance
  • Parental and adoption leave
  • Employee Shares Plan
  • Electric Car and Cycle to Work schemes