Business Continuity Planning Manager

Job description

About the Role

This role offers a unique opportunity to shape and lead Oxford University Press's global Business Continuity Planning (BCP) programme, ensuring resilience across a diverse and international organisation. As Business Continuity Planning Manager (Global Operations), you will be responsible for developing, maintaining, and testing enterprise-wide continuity and crisis management frameworks that support approximately 5,000 colleagues across 180 locations worldwide. Working within the Global Real Estate & Workplace Centre of Excellence, you will play a critical role in helping OUP prepare for, respond to, and recover from disruptive events while ensuring compliance with international standards and regulatory requirements.

Partnering closely with leaders across all business divisions, you will drive the continual improvement of business continuity and crisis management practices across the organisation. You will work with Business Continuity Coordinators, Technology and Cybersecurity teams, and key stakeholders to identify critical business functions, assess recovery requirements, establish recovery strategies, and address gaps in existing plans. You will also lead the development and delivery of policy, training, testing, and awareness initiatives that embed resilience into day-to-day operations and support a consistent global approach.

The successful candidate will take ownership of enterprise-wide continuity planning processes, including the design and execution of scenario-based exercises, disaster recovery testing, emergency response procedures, and crisis management frameworks. You will manage the organisation's mass notification platform, coordinate response activities during incidents, and ensure business continuity plans remain accurate, accessible, and aligned to evolving organisational needs. This is a highly visible role, working closely with senior leadership, including the Executive Committee, to support informed decision-making and organisational preparedness during times of disruption.

We operate a hybrid working policy that requires a minimum of 2 days per week in the Oxford office.

About You

We are looking for an experienced business continuity professional with strong stakeholder management, project management, and communication skills. You will have a proven track record of developing and implementing business continuity programmes within complex, global organisations, together with a sound understanding of crisis management, operational resilience, and disaster recovery principles.

Essential:

• Certified Business Continuity Planner Preferred Qualifications: CBCI, MBCI, CBCB or similar.
• Experience business continuity within an organization within multiple locations/regions.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills.
• Self-starter with the ability to work with a great degree of autonomy.
• Ability to work nights and weekends during a crisis event.
• Willing and ability to travel to support the business as and when applicable.

Benefits

We care about work/life balance here at OUP. With this in mind we offer 25 days' holiday that rises with service, plus bank holidays and Christmas closure (3-days) and a 35-hour working week. We are open to discussing flexibility in respect to working patterns, dependent on role. We also have a great variety of active employee networks and societies.

We help make your money go further by contributing to your pension up to 12%, offering loans and savings schemes through our partnership with Salary Finance, in addition to travel to work schemes and access to a wide range of local discounts.

This role comes with the added benefit of a discretionary annual payment.

Please see our Rewards and Recognition page for more information.

Queries

Please contact [email protected] with any queries relating to this role.

We are committed to supporting diversity in our workforce, and ensuring an inclusive environment where all individuals can thrive. We seek to employ a workforce representative of the markets that we serve and encourage applications from all.