Job Title: Executive Hiring Lead
Location: Hybrid, UK
Compensation: Competitive Salary + Benefits
Role Type: Full time / Permanent
Role ID: SF75207
Shape The Future Leadership of a Business That Helps Keep the World Safe
At Babcock, we’re working to create a safe and secure world, together. If you join us, you can play your part as an Executive Hiring Lead at locations near our London office including Surrey, Kent, Essex, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Sussex, Hampshire, Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire.
The role
As Executive Hiring Lead, you'll take on a highly visible and strategic role at the heart of our business. This is not a traditional recruitment position. You'll lead executive search activity across Babcock, identifying, engaging and securing exceptional senior leaders who will influence the future direction of our organisation.
Working across defence, aerospace, engineering, corporate services and specialist functions, you'll combine executive search expertise, talent mapping and market intelligence to build leadership pipelines that support our long-term ambitions. You'll partner with senior stakeholders, shape hiring strategies and create outstanding experiences for executive candidates. In return, you'll have the opportunity to influence critical business decisions, expand your professional network and further develop your career within a purpose-driven FTSE 100 organisation.
Day-to-day you'll be responsible for:
- Proactively identifying, headhunting and engaging senior leadership and executive-level talent across multiple business areas.
- Conducting market mapping, competitor research and talent intelligence activities to build future leadership pipelines.
- Partnering with Executive and Director-level stakeholders to develop search strategies and provide market insight.
- Managing executive candidates throughout the recruitment lifecycle while delivering a highly personalised candidate experience.
- Building and nurturing long-term talent networks and external leadership communities to support future hiring needs.
This role is full time, 37.5 hours per week and provides hybrid working arrangements with one/two days in the office and the remaining days working from home. Regular travels to London and other key Babcock sites will be required.
Essential experience of the Executive Hiring Lead:
- Proven experience delivering executive search and senior leadership hiring, either in-house or within an executive search firm.
- Demonstrable success in direct sourcing, headhunting and engaging hard-to-reach executive talent across multiple functions and sectors.
- Agility and adaptability to work across diverse business areas and talent markets, including engineering, defence, legal, finance, corporate functions and other specialist disciplines.
- Strong capability in market mapping, talent intelligence and building strategic talent pipelines for future hiring needs.
- Experience partnering with senior stakeholders, with the credibility, influencing skills and relationship-building capability to operate effectively at Executive and Director level while delivering an exceptional candidate experience.
Security Clearance
The successful candidate must be able to achieve and maintain Standard (BPSS) and Security Check (SC) security clearance for this role.
Many of the positions within our company are subject to national security clearance and Trade Control restrictions. This means that your eligibility for certain roles may be affected by your place of birth, nationality, current or former citizenship, and any residency you hold or have held. Further details are available at United Kingdom Security Vetting: clearance levels - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
What we offer
- Generous holiday allowance
- Matched contribution pension scheme, with life assurance
- Access to a Digital GP, annual health check, and nutritional consultations through Aviva DigiCare+
- Employee shopping savings portal
- Payment of Professional Fees
- Reservists in the armed forces receive 10-days special paid leave
- Holiday Trading is a benefit that allows UK Babcock employees to buy additional leave or to sell up to one working week of annual leave from their annual entitlement. This Window opens February through to March annually.
- ‘Be Kind Day’ enables employees to take one working day's paid leave a year (or equivalent hours) to undertake volunteering work with their chosen organisation or registered charity
We’re Babcock — a global FTSE 100 organisation with over 26,000 people working together to make a difference.
Here, you’ll be part of something bigger. From initial design to final decommissioning, your work will contribute to products and services that are essential to national security and public infrastructure. Together, we’re building a future that lasts — not just through the impact we make, but through meaningful careers that respect your work-life balance.
We call that lifetime engineering.
Join us and see how far we can go, together.
We are a disability confident committed employer. If you have a disability or need any reasonable adjustments during the application and selection stages, please email careers@babcockinternational.com with the subject header ‘Reasonable adjustments requirement’. We’re committed to building an inclusive culture where everyone’s free to thrive. We are happy to talk about flexible working – please ask about alternative patterns of work at interview.
Closing date: 31/07/2026
Thank you for your interest in this opportunity. We encourage early applications, as we may close the advert before the stated deadline if we receive a high volume of strong candidates.
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