Careers in Corporate Services

Corporate Governance

Here in Corporate Services, we look at the bigger picture. We’re a truly cross-office function with an overarching business awareness and a clear understanding of what’s happening within the organisation. We work closely with different areas and senior leaders, such as the Chief Financial Officer, to report on progress and risks each month and make clear suggestions for any actions or changes that can be implemented to help us achieve our objectives and be as successful as we possibly can be.

We’re not just concerned about what’s happening inside the Met Office today – far from it. Commercially astute, we’re very aware of what’s going on in the wider world and we use this to help us minimise risks and stay ahead of the market. Our varied projects range from refreshing the corporate plan to help areas establish clear plans for the following five years, to horizon scanning: looking at external environments for any significant changes that could potentially have an impact on us over the next five to ten years. By looking forward, we can plan for the might-happens and adapt our way of working accordingly.

Learning and development

We’re a small team who have a big impact on the organisation. Corporate Governance is fundamental to the achievement of our business aims and objectives. Joining this area, we’ll support you with relevant business qualifications to extend your knowledge and commercial acumen. We’ve devised a framework of professional skills to equip you with the necessary best-practice, business management standards. These include: strategic management, leadership, business performance management and improvement, risk management, planning and forecasting, governance and stakeholder management.

The size of the team also means that all roles within this area are vital and you’ll be exposed to a variety of responsibilities as you gain a broad and deep understanding of the organisation. Whatever stage you are at in your career, we’ll support you to go further whether this is supporting you with a secondment in another department or management qualifications.

What we look for

The qualifications and experience that you need will vary from role to role. However, impressive business acumen and a working knowledge of how organisations are structured will be important for all roles. This could come from previous planning, project management, finance, risks or benefits management roles. What’s most important to us is that you’ve the right aptitude to shine in a demanding and business-critical area of a large, world-class organisation.

Location and opportunities

Working in Corporate Governance, you’ll be primarily based at our innovative, modern Exeter Operational Centre. Here, you’re quite literally at the heart of the business – the perfect place for such an integral department. This site is an impressive location with a wealth of facilities for both business and pleasure; the opportunities and challenges are stimulating and the work/life balance is first class.

Legal

From advising the public on whether they’ll need an umbrella to advising governments on potentially life-changing climate issues, the Met Office has a number of duties to fulfil which makes for an eclectic mix of legal work. While many people will be aware of our public services, they may not know that we’ve been a trading fund since 1996, enabling us to operate commercially. This has established new, exciting areas of work for our commercially astute legal teams.

As trusted advisors to the organisation, we’re relied upon by all areas for support and legal expertise. It’s a collaborative approach and we’re keen to add value to the business by effectively managing risks and providing a dedicated legal service to help the organisation meet its objectives. From assisting legal sales and managing contractual relationships, to looking after freedom of information and intellectual property rights, from litigation to employment related law, whatever your area of expertise, you’ll find stimulating challenges and a wide-ranging scope of work here.

Learning and development

The law is ever-evolving and it is of high importance to us that individuals in our legal team are constantly learning and developing their careers. Our Legal Professional Skills Framework is based on skills recognized within the legal profession.  From regulation compliance to external contractual management and contractual negotiations, we look for and develop a number of key skills in all of our legal professionals. Progression opportunities are achievable and our commitment to your continued learning is genuine. Wherever you come from or want to go, we’ll invest in your development and support you with relevant courses, degrees and qualifications. We also offer useful professional training sessions in house.

What we look for

The skills we look for will differ from role to role and will be specified in individual role adverts and profiles. We recruit at different levels for our legal team – from graduate entry level roles to fully qualified lawyers. While we’d like you to have a law qualification, it’s just as important that you’ve a good commercial awareness and impressive communication, presentation and relationship skills as advice and liaison are likely to be key parts of your role.

Location and opportunities

You’ll be primarily based in our innovative, modern Exeter Operational Centre but there’s likely to be travel involved if you need to visit customers. We’ve had trips within the UK and Europe. We’re also renowned for supporting you to have a healthy work/life balance.

Procurement

Effective, efficient procurement underpins the Met Office’s aim to be recognised as the best weather and climate service in the world. And profitability and performance underpin good procurement. It’s the task of our procurement area to increase profitable revenue streams, control costs, mitigate risks, manage relevant contracts and ensure that we’re delivering good value for money across the organisation. The breadth, depth and niche nature of the Met Office’s work provides unique challenges and compelling responsibilities for our procurement team.

Our procurement work is divided into key categories. So, one category could be working with international suppliers to source our world-leading observations equipment and another, managing the procurement for our portfolio of properties or our one-of-a-kind supercomputer. And it’s not just the scope of what we do but the scale too. Procurement at the Met Office is collaborative: one day, you could be liaising with stakeholders and internal customers to understand their needs and then next, negotiating with suppliers across the world.

Being a government organisation adds another layer of complexity, intrigue and challenge to the role of our procurement function. It’s vital that we can demonstrate that we’re securing value for money and obtaining return on our investments. We’ve procedures, frameworks and European Union regulations that we work to and we’re committed to delivering fair, accurate, high quality tenders. While best practice and legislation are of utmost important to us, we’re still highly innovative in our approach to procurement. We work for the Met Office, after all.

Learning and development

Working in procurement at the Met Office is a unique experience. You’ve the structure and challenge of a government organisation, combined with the opportunities of a world-leading organisation with a global commercial reach. For our procurement professionals, there’s plenty to learn, a variety of work to get involved in and real opportunities to progress. No matter where you start with us, we’ll support you as much as we can. As well as the chance to experience different categories and areas of procurement work, you’ll also be supported should you want to do a secondment in a different area of the organisation.

The Met Office is accredited by the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supplying (CIPS) and we encourage and support our people to become fully CIPS qualified. Our Professional Skills Framework derives from CIPS, and includes regulation compliance, contractual negotiation and other procurement techniques.

What we look for

While the qualifications and experience that we look for will vary dependant on the role, some of the behaviours and competencies we look for will be the same regardless. Firstly, we’d like you to be (at least) working towards your full CIPS qualification with a real desire and interest in developing your procurement skills and learning new techniques. With this, you’re also likely to have a broad understanding of category management, e-procurement and e-tendering. Your non-technical skills are just as important: you’ll have strong commercial acumen, impressive negotiation skills and the ability to credibly influence others and build great working relationships. As you’ll appreciate, procurement is a busy and vital area of an internationally recognised organisation, so it goes without saying that you’re organised, methodical and proactive.

Location and opportunities

Our friendly yet fast-paced procurement team are based in our modern Exeter Operational Centre. We’re hard-working and professional yet modern and in many ways, relaxed. Our people are trusted to work hard, manage their time and get their work done efficiently and to the highest standard.

There are opportunities for travel too, as we get involved in many fascinating projects. Whatever category of procurement that you work in, it’s likely that you’ll need to go and visit suppliers or customers at some point. As well as UK travel, some of our procurement professionals have travelled across the world – from Finland to Salt Lake City.

Finance

Finance and Internal Audit are highly important areas of the Met Office. They drive our performance and play an integral part in the achievement of key goals and business objectives. It is through carefully reviewing organisational processes and carefully managing our finances that we will reach our vision to be recognised as the best weather and climate service in the world.

Our dedicated Finance and Internal Audit teams help us to remain professional, successful and ahead of the market. How do they do this? Through the provision of timely, relevant financial expertise, auditing, advice and services to all areas of the business. Put simply, they ensure that our finances and projects are well-managed and articulated effectively.

The work of our Finance team is vital and varied - from ensuring our customers’ accounts are managed effectively to executing the financial control and reports for all Met Office programmes, to offering the financial expertise and analysis that support senior managers’ decision making. This department comprises three key areas: Treasury, Financial Reporting and Business Support. Treasury encompasses the transactional processing including accounts payable and receivable together with cash management. Financial reporting takes responsibility for the delivery of the timely, reliable and highly accurate financial information, analysis and statutory reporting. Business support forms the key financial link with other areas of the organisation, working closely with all departments to ensure that the whole organisation understands its finances and can make informed decisions.

Learning and development

Our Professional Skills Frameworks are in place to develop skills, gain professional qualifications and provide clear opportunities for continued professional development. Progression and responsibility can be realised with the assistance of management programmes and training. There is also scope to move around within Finance and experience different career paths. We want our finance professionals to keep learning and developing their knowledge, so we offer a structured development package focussed on gaining professional qualifications (for example, AAT through to CCAB – CIMA, ICAEW, ACCA), and we will support you with coursework and study leave. Alternatively, if you’d like to explore opportunities in other areas of the Met Office, you will be supported.

What we look for

We recruit for a wide range of roles at all levels across this department. The qualifications and experience needed will vary from role to role. Whatever stage you are at in your career, we’ll support you to go further. For instance, if you come to us at AAT/ATT level, we’ll help you with your CIMA to become a Chartered Management Accountant. In our wide range of financial opportunities, we also recruit qualified accountants.

Location and benefits

Working in Finance, you’ll be based primarily at our state of the art Exeter base. This places you in the centre of Met Office operations in a diverse, large, global organisation and presents ever-evolving opportunities and challenges. The facilities in Exeter include coffee shops, restaurants and a subsidised gym which, coupled with the Devon lifestyle, provides an unrivalled work/life balance.

Internal Audit

Finance and Internal Audit are highly important areas of the Met Office. They drive our performance and play an integral part in the achievement of key goals and business objectives. It is through carefully reviewing organisational processes and carefully managing our finances that we will reach our vision to be recognised as the best weather and climate service in the world.

Our dedicated Finance and Internal Audit teams help us to remain professional, successful and ahead of the market. How do they do this? Through the provision of timely, relevant financial expertise, auditing, advice and services to all areas of the business. Put simply, they ensure that our finances and projects are well-managed and articulated effectively.

The Internal Audit team take a risk based approach that covers the whole of the Met Office. Our internal audit professionals do not just check, review and challenge the underlying processes of the Finance team; their work is wide-ranging and far-reaching across the organisation. They add value to all departments by evaluating and challenging how things are done and considering how they can be done better. Their interesting portfolio of work is unique to the Met Office. Working closely with the Risk Management team; they provide assurance that risks that threaten the achievement of our corporate objectives are being managed effectively and efficiently.

Learning and development

Our Internal Audit teams are well-supported with professional qualifications, typically through the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors. Secondments and moving around the organisation are options for people in this department. However many of our auditors work so closely with other business areas, and have such practical exposure across the organisation, that they choose to progress their career and seize the breadth of opportunities available within the internal audit department.

What we look for

Joining our Internal Audit department, we’d ideally like you to have a diploma in internal auditing CIIA (Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors) or equivalent to come on board as an Audit Practitioner. Senior Auditors will need to be a Chartered Internal Auditor or have a role specific qualification, for example CISA (Certified Information Systems Auditor). All necessities will be outlined on each role description. Whatever your background, whatever skills you bring to us, we’re committed to helping you with continued professional development throughout your career.

Location and benefits

Internal Audit shares the brilliant opportunities and facilities available in Exeter. Unlike many audit roles which involve around 40% travel, our internal audit team only needs to travel around 5% of the time. The scope of work is also fascinating for audit professionals; our diverse portfolio means that one audit could be based around people management and another on observations and forecasting or even working with the RAF. Many of the opportunities and challenges you’ll face will be unique to the Met Office.  

Property and Facilities Management

Did you know that we have over 500 sites across the UK? From weather radar stations and observations sites, to satellite offices and, of course, our purpose-built Operations Centre in Exeter. If we’re to maintain and improve our operational capacity, it’s highly important that our property assets are managed effectively: a huge and vital task for our dedicated Property and Facilities Management team. We’re not just talking about keeping properties tidy and ticking over, with such a diverse, ever-expanding portfolio of properties all over the UK, their work is wide-ranging and invaluable to the Met Office. This multi-disciplinary team is divided into three key areas who work closely together.

Project management team

From multi-million pound new site builds to electrical infrastructure upgrades and many projects in between, the project management team oversee it all. With a finger firmly on the pulse, an eye on the clock and a sharp objective focus, they deliver all property-related projects on time, on budget and to the highest standards. To say that two days are never the same would be an understatement for this team: managing a diverse range of projects, their ever-evolving work is both varied and compelling.

Estates team

Put simply, our Estates team makes sure that our diverse portfolio of properties are well looked after and continue to support the requirements of the Met Office. This includes coordinating all (planned and reactive) maintenance tasks, effectively responding to emergency issues coming through the helpdesk and managing leases, contracts and rates of the properties we own. As the guardians of our properties, they ensure that all properties meet our world class standards.

Engineering team

When one of our properties requires mechanical, electrical, plumbing or surveying assistance, we need to ensure that all work is carried out effectively. At times, we need contractors and experts to come in and work on our properties. And in order for us to know exactly what needs doing and the best way to get it done, we need experts on our Property team. That’s where our Engineering sub-team comes in. They inspect properties, advise on issues and oversee any work that is carried out to ensure that it’s compliant, safe, to the highest standard and delivering the best return on our investment.

Learning and development

Whether you join us as a project manager, a building surveyor, a security specialist or anything in between, one thing’s for certain: we’ll support and invest in your development and progression. We use a Professional Skills Framework, derived from nationally recognised standards, to ensure that you’re continuously learning throughout your career.

Professional qualifications – from RICS chartered status to PRINCE2 project management – are encouraged whatever your field. All teams in this area work collaboratively with each other and within the organisation as a whole which gives you a great oversight of the bigger picture of the Met Office and our objectives. Not only will you have opportunities to move around in this area, but you’ll also be supported to experience different areas of the Met Office’s work.
What we look for

Because we recruit for a variety of roles in this area, the levels and types of experience and qualifications that we look for vary. For instance, coming to us as surveyor, project manager, estates manager or engineer, you’re likely to need relevant qualifications. We do also recruit for entry level opportunities in this area. Whether you’re coming to us with no experience or 20 years in your field, if you show us enthusiasm, hard work and help us to achieve our objectives, we’ll show you incredible career opportunities, continuous development and unique challenges.
Location and opportunities

While you’ll probably be based in our Exeter Operations Centre, your work will have a wide reach. Whether this is as a project manager liaising with colleagues in our other offices or as a member of our Estates team looking after our properties across the UK. From high-tech scientific radar stations to international offices, the Met Office provides a scope and scale of property management work that you’d be unlikely to find elsewhere. With most roles in this area, you’ll find plenty of opportunities to travel and experience our range of properties hands-on.

Library and Archive

From its beginnings in the 1850s as the library of the Meteorological Department of the Board of Trade, the National Meteorological Library & Archive manages and provides access to a national collection of published and unpublished material covering all aspects of the weather and climate. In 1914, we were granted custodianship of the UK’s public weather records and to this day, the nation’s official archive of meteorological records lives with us. Open to everyone, the National Meteorological Library and Archive is a meteorological information source like no other in the UK and one of the country’s most comprehensive collections on meteorology. We’re a major resource for scientific and historical research.

Valued by employees and the public alike, it’s many things to many people: an aid to learning, a treasure chest of meteorological records, a collection of intriguing and often unique materials, and a place that offers a rich visitor experience. Our library customers range from Met Office scientists and forecasters, to post-graduates studying meteorology, to historians and journalists wanting to know what the weather was like on a certain date, to members of the public who are simply interested in the weather and its causes. Working in this area of the organisation, you’ll be a guardian and guide of our world-leading collection of meteorological information.

Right now, we’re also busy making sure that more of our archive treasures and Met Office publications are available as online resources for whoever may want to access them. As you might expect, we have a vast amount of content and information to make available online, so joining us, you may also help with this important area of our work.

Learning and development

We’re a small, specialist team which includes an archivist, a number of library & information professionals and two library assistants – all with one thing in common: we’re passionate about what we do and we want to share that passion with others. You’ll look after our customers and collections and we’ll look after your career. We believe in continued professional development and we invest in people’s learning. Our Professional Skills Framework derives from the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILP) and the Society of Archivists. Skills include, user education, resource management, information needs analysis and specialist IT management and development. And if you’re interested in spending a secondment in another area, we’ll support that too. (NB this would not be high on the list for a new recruit).

What we look for

The qualifications and experience that we look for will depend on the level of role you’re applying for. Joining this area of the organisation, you’re likely to have or be working towards a CILP qualification with experience in and a passion for library and archive environments. Whatever your background or level of skill, you’ll be courteous, organised, keen to learn and someone who goes out of their way to provide outstanding customer service. Coming from a library and information background, you’ll appreciate that this is more than a job but an opportunity to exercise your passion on a daily basis.

Location and opportunities

The National Meteorological Library is based in our Exeter Operational Centre and the Archive is just ten minutes away at Great Moor House. Just like the organisation as a whole, the library and archive is a stimulating, intellectual and ever-evolving place to work. Never boring, your days will be varied as customers look to your expertise to help them find answers to their questions. From Met Office employees and world leaders in the meteorological field, to reporters and interested members of the public, from requests for specific information to queries about the weather on historic dates,e questions you’ll face will be diverse, interesting and often, intriguing. While helping other people to learn, you’re extending your own knowledge in our treasure chest of niche information.

Communications

How do we communicate our vital weather and climate services in a way that reaches millions of people worldwide? That task falls into the safe hands of our Communications team. The weather. Everyone’s talking about it. And no one more so than this team. They spread the word; promoting the Met Office’s far-reaching work and services, establishing trust in our forecasts and protecting our reputation. The sheer variety of our customers and the expanse of our work provides an incredible range of projects for our Communications people. Not only is the weather constantly on the general public’s lips but it’s also crucial to the operations of businesses and countries all over the world.

Their projects are varied and ever-evolving. From social media and communications campaigns to planning, editing and delivering our Barometer magazine, their internal work alone is on a wide scale. They also ensure that the Met Office’s voice is being heard loud and clear outside of the organisation. In 2012, our Communications team played a key part in promoting our services at the Olympics. They work closely with the media to convey our services, inform the public and help to deal with any weather crises that may arise. For our Communications team, it’s not just about what they say but how it’s said. One hour, they could be talking to the general public and the next, highly technical scientists, so messages and tones have to be pitched perfectly to engage the audience.

Learning and development

Designers, writers, web communications specialists, press officers and communications managers: just some of the roles within our Communications team. The team is made up of around 25 people and each and every person’s role is integral. They collaborate on projects and work very closely together, which provides great scope for individuals to experience different areas of Communications work. Joining the team, you’ll gain hands-on exposure to a wide variety of projects and an incredible opportunity to learn and develop different skills.

We also encourage professional qualifications. If you’re interested in gaining your Chartered Institute of Marketing or Public Relations qualification, we’re right behind you and we’ll do all that we can to support your development. We have a Professional Skills Framework based on the Core Skills for Government Communicators Professional Practice. We’ll help you to enhance your core skills if there are any others you’d like to learn, you tell us. There are also opportunities to move into different areas of the business and see how we do things across the board.

What we look for

The qualities and experiences that you need vary from role to role; they’ll be clearly outlined on each job advertisement. Whether you’re a designer or a press officer, we’re looking for passion, enthusiasm and creativity. People with huge ideas and the impact to back them up and make things happen. Because Communications is a very collaborative team, it’s important that you’re not afraid to get stuck in with different projects. We’re always looking for fresh, engaging ways to communicate our services and messages so our team stay up-to-the-minute with the latest channels and methods. Bring us brilliant thinking, talent and commercial awareness and we’ll show you an incredible range of work and career opportunity.

Location and opportunities

Joining this exciting team, you’ll be at the forefront of the action in our innovative Exeter headquarters, birthplace to some our most creative ideas. Opportunities to travel may also pop up; you could find yourself spending some time in London or even further afield. One of our colleagues recently drew on her valuable skills learnt in communications to take on a completely different challenge in another part of the organisation, working with the National Met Service in Rwanda. Great opportunities are yours for the taking.  

HR

To provide the world class service we’re renowned for, we need world class people. Across the organisation, we strive to attract, recruit and develop the very best talents in their field. But it’s about a lot more than just bringing people into the business: during their time with us, we want to ensure that they’re highly engaged, satisfied and constantly intrigued. While HR is right at the heart of any business, it’s especially crucial to an organisation as diverse as the Met Office. Our HR team support, shape and champion all aspects of individuals’ time with us. They constantly challenge ways of working and give employees a voice to shape their own development and have a say in the organisation as a whole.

Our HR team understands the bigger picture to ensure that the needs of around 2,000 staff are taken into consideration while helping us to achieve our business strategies. They’re proactive not reactive, helping to inform strategy; actively encouraging learning and development and resolving issues before they happen. Their work is varied: from carefully defining our target talent pools and applying effective selection methods to equipping our people with the right skills and rewarding and recognising their work. They innovate and invest in the best tools and methods to ensure that people are able to deliver their best. We believe that’s the reason so many people build long and very successful careers with us.

Human Resources at the Met Office offers an interesting, ever-evolving scope of work for HR professionals. With an impressively varied workforce across a range of departments, some of which are unique to the organisation, there’s always something new, exciting and challenging for our HR people.

HR work hand in hand with every area of the Met Office. Our HR People are aligned to each organisation area or service type (payroll, reward, benefits, and relocation, diversity) to provide vital insight and support line managers in getting the best out of their people. The entire HR team meets regularly to discuss what’s happening in the organisation as a whole. This oversight helps them to make the Met Office as successful as possible.

Learning and Development

While you’re focusing on developing our workforce, we’ll focus on developing you. Our Human Resources Professional Skills Framework derives from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). It outlines the specialist technical skills needed for each HR role and helps us to develop yours accordingly. These skills include: business awareness, employee resourcing, reward and recognition, learning and development, employee relations and engagement. As an organisation, we strongly believe in continued professional development – we’ll support you with qualifications or further learning. For example, we encourage you to work towards your CIPD or reward related qualifications (e.g. AAT Payroll), we’ll do what we can to help you.

Within our HR team, there are a wide range of opportunities at all levels – we have specialisms in reward, resourcing and Organisational Development, as well as in generalist HR, such as employee relations and Business Partnering, to Heads of HR, in Operations, Reward and Organisational Development. People can develop their skills and experience in different areas. We also really encourage cross departmental development, there are no barriers when it comes to where you can go. The skills that you develop in HR are often transferable to being a good manager in any business area.

What we look for

The qualities and experiences that you will need vary from role to role; these will be clearly outlined on each job advertisement. For all our roles you will need a drive to make a difference, the ability to work as part of a team and a commitment to adding value to the business. For roles at HR Advisor level and above, you’ll need some experience and/or professional HR skills. Good business acumen and commercial awareness are key to all positions, as it’s important that you can fully understand your business area and appreciate the challenges they face, in order to tailor your people management solutions and initiatives accordingly. Across the business, we like people who are eager to keep learning and develop their skills.

Location and opportunities

Working in HR, you’ll be primarily based at our innovative, modern Exeter Operational Centre which is great as you’re located with the majority of our people. We also encourage travel to our other locations to meet and understand the needs of the people working for our customers around the country.