Role Purpose
The Security Manager is responsible for the strategic leadership, governance, and continuous development of the regional shopping centre’s security operation. You will ensure a safe, secure, and welcoming environment for millions of annual visitors, major retail tenants, employees, contractors, and stakeholders across our extensive estate.
This role leads the centre’s approach to protective security, counter-terrorism preparedness, and crisis management, ensuring that safety, emergency, and business resilience arrangements remain proportionate to the threat profile of a massive, high-footfall regional destination.
A critical requirement of this position is extensive knowledge of Martyn’s Law / the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025. You will hold direct responsibility for ensuring the entire regional estate develops, implements, tests, and maintains robust compliance, emergency response, and operational recovery procedures.
As a visible and credible leader, you will direct the onsite security team, fulfil crucial Duty Management rotations , and collaborate strategically with asset management, national retailers, emergency services, local authorities, and counter-terrorism partners.
Key Responsibilities
Security Strategy & Governance
• Strategic Evolution: Develop, own, and review the centre’s overarching security strategy to reflect changing threat environments and large-scale regional operations.
• Executive Liaison: Provide professional security advice to the Centre Director, Contracts manager, and the broader senior management team.
• Capital & Improvement Planning: Author an annual security improvement plan identifying investment requirements for security infrastructure, emerging risks, and technological opportunities.
• Oversight & Compliance: Establish robust security governance, assurance audits, and performance KPIs across the security provision.
• Reporting: Deliver comprehensive security, risk, and trend reporting to senior stakeholders.
• Threat Horizons: Maintain deep awareness of hostile reconnaissance, crime trends, and vulnerabilities relevant to high-footfall regional hubs and crowded places.
• Commercial Balance: Ensure security measures seamlessly blend protective safety with a welcoming, premier retail and leisure experience.
Martyn’s Law, Counterterrorism & Crisis Preparedness
• Legislative Lead: Act as the subject-matter expert for Martyn’s Law / Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act requirements, embedding duties across the entire asset.
• Gap Analysis: Undertake regular, rigorous gap analyses against legislative mandates, protective security standards, and crisis resilience frameworks.
• Public Protection & Crisis Strategy: Ensure comprehensive public-protection and incident response procedures are developed, documented, communicated, and regularly reviewed.
• Organisational Readiness: Work alongside senior management to formally demonstrate compliance, crisis capabilities, and strategic readiness to regulatory bodies.
• Education & Culture: Ensure all internal employees, service partners, and retail tenants thoroughly understand their responsibilities regarding suspected hostile activity, immediate response protocols, and emergency procedures.
• Testing & Exercising: Develop, coordinate, and execute realistic table-top and live-scale crisis and counter-terrorism simulation exercises across the estate.
• Audit Trails: Maintain meticulous records and evidence demonstrating compliance, operational readiness, and crisis preparedness.
Duty Management & Centre Oversight
• Duty Management Rotations: Participate in the centre’s Duty Manager roster, acting as the primary point of contact and ultimate authority for the entire estate during assigned shifts, including weekends and evenings.
• Estate Compliance: Conduct regular Duty Manager estate inspections to monitor and maintain standards across customer service, housekeeping, maintenance, and health and safety.
• Incident Escalation & Leadership: Act as the senior representative on the ground to manage and resolve real-time operational issues, customer complaints, and landlord/tenant escalations.
• Statutory Compliance: Monitor compliance with the centre’s public health and safety protocols during the shift, ensuring all public areas remain safe, clear, and fully accessible.
Joint Counter-Terrorism Risk & Incident Management
• Scenario Modelling: Lead the centre’s approach to risk mitigation and incident response planning for a diverse range of security threats and emergency scenarios.
• Proportionate Mitigation: Evaluate likelihood, vulnerabilities, and consequences to implement proportionate preventative physical controls, procedural barriers, and immediate crisis management actions.
• Estate Protection: Maintain expert knowledge of Hostile Vehicle Mitigation (HVM), perimeter access control, advanced CCTV systems, search regimes, dynamic lockdown, invacuation protocols, and emergency communications.
• External Networks: Partner closely with Counter Terrorism Policing, regional police forces, emergency services, and regional intelligence networks to align incident planning with current guidance.
Security & Resilience Risk Assessments
• Risk Ownership: Own and maintain the centre’s overarching Security Risk Assessment.
• Targeted Assessments: Develop and update specific risk assessments for counterterrorism, major incidents, high-profile events, and large-scale estate developments.
• Operational Integration: Translate complex risk assessments into practical, clear operational controls and emergency checklists for frontline teams.
• Vulnerability Management: Identify physical, technological, or procedural vulnerabilities and build formal business cases for infrastructure and resilience improvements.
• Change Management: Ensure significant estate alterations, seasonal events, and landlord construction projects receive appropriate security-risk and business-continuity consideration.
SOPs, Policies & Crisis Procedures
• Procedural Governance: Lead the development and governance of security Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and Emergency Response Plans.
• Scope of Procedures: Ensure clear, legally compliant, and regularly exercised SOPs are in place for:
o Emergency response, critical incident command, and escalation
o Dynamic lockdown, Evacuation, and Invacuation
o Threat verification, suspicious items, and hostile reconnaissance
o Mass notification, emergency communications, and alert systems
o Protest, public disorder, and anti-social behaviour
o Mass casualty management and emergency-service collaboration
Crisis Command & Business Resilience
• Crisis Command: Take a critical, senior command role within the centre’s incident and crisis-management structure during any major security event.
• Operational Control: Ensure effective infrastructure exists for command and control, incident containment, mass emergency communications, and emergency-service integration.
• Resilience: Lead business continuity, asset preservation, and operational recovery frameworks following any major incident.
• Lessons Learned: Oversee the annual major incident exercise programme, ensuring all identified lessons are formally recorded, assigned, and closed out to continuously improve centre resilience.
Leadership & People Management
• Visible Leadership: Provide inspiring, professional leadership across the entire security function, establishing high behavioural standards.
• Talent Development: Coach, mentor, and build succession plans for supervisors and future security and crisis leaders.
• Accountability: Drive a culture of continuous improvement, challenging poor performance while celebrating excellence.
• Purpose-Driven Culture: Ensure all personnel understand not just what emergency procedures require, but the critical why behind them.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Promote seamless communication between security, customer service, housekeeping, maintenance, and the wider centre management team during daily operations and crisis events.
Stakeholder & Partnership Management
• Strategic Alliances: Cultivate deep operational relationships with Counter Terrorism Policing, blue-light emergency services, local authorities, and regional Business Crime Reduction Partnerships (BCRP).
• Community Engagement: Represent the centre at regional security forums, landlord meetings, and cross-border crisis resilience partnership initiatives.
Essential Experience
• Scale & Complexity: Significant senior security and crisis-management experience within a high-footfall, complex environment, specifically a regional shopping centre, major transport hub, stadium, or similar sprawling publicly accessible location.
• Duty Management: Proven experience working in a Duty Manager / Centre Management capacity with broad operational oversight beyond security (e.g., managing customer service, facilities escalation, or commercial real estate ops).
• Legislation: Deep, demonstrable working knowledge of Martyn’s Law / the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act and its practical execution within large estates.
• Protective Security & Crisis Management: Comprehensive understanding of modern counterterrorism, protective-security, and emergency management principles.
• Risk & Policy Management: Proven experience authoring high-quality security risk assessments, emergency plans, scalable SOPs, and crisis protocols.
• Exercise Delivery: Track record of designing and delivering major-incident exercises, crisis simulations, and table-top scenarios.
• Partnership Working: Extensive experience collaborating with police, Counter Terrorism Policing, and blue-light services.
• Technology Proficiency: Strong command of security technologies, including enterprise CCTV networks, access control, mass notification systems, and incident-management software.
• Team Leadership: Experience managing large security teams, whether directly employed or via an outsourced specialist security provider.
Leadership Requirements
• Presence: A highly confident, credible, and influential senior leader.
• Perspective: Strategically minded while maintaining an acute understanding of frontline operational realities and emergency response limits.
• Composure: Exceptionally calm, analytical, and decisive under pressure during major critical incidents and broad operational crises.
• Constructive Challenge: Comfortable challenging existing practices and senior stakeholders to elevate security, compliance, and crisis readiness standards.
• Communication: An exceptional communicator who translates complex security risks and crisis commands into clear, practical operational actions across all levels.
Qualifications & Professional Development
• Education: Recognised security or Operations qualification (e.g. NVQ level 5 or 6) or equivalent senior professional experience.
• CT Training: Advanced counterterrorism/protective-security and incident command training relevant to publicly accessible locations.
• Core Modules: Valid ACT Awareness and ACT Security certifications.
• Licensing: Valid SIA Licence appropriate to the senior responsibilities of the role.
• Collaboration: Jessip Gold commander course
• A willingness to further develop managerial skills and knowledge.