When Ordnance Survey (OS) began mapping Great Britain in 1791, much of its work was carried out by gentlemen surveyors using the latest gadgets. The times and the gadgets have changed, but the organisation is still in the vanguard of technical innovation – and that translates into opportunities for IT professionals.

While an obvious choice for people seeking a career in cartography, OS is a less obvious destination for info-techies. In fact, about half the 1,450 staff use advanced IT skills in their jobs. The information systems department employs 190 people as analysts, architects, consultants, designers, software engineers, infrastructure engineers and testers. Some of these roles are purely technical while others are more business or people-focused.

A further 100 jobs require advanced IT skills – including sales support, research, data collection technology and geospatial strategy.

Ian James joined as a draughtsman, took an opportunity to retrain in IT and now works as a principal consultant. “My role is to get involved at the early stages of a new development, scoping out what a project means from a business perspective and working with the information systems department on how to deliver a technical solution,” he says. “It’s about bridging the [business/IT] divide and bringing people together – that’s one of the real buzzes for me.”

IT professionals can follow a number of career paths. James says: “My role is still primarily technical, but colleagues have gone into management or customer-facing roles. One of the things that makes working here interesting is that we deal with maps and digital data. It’s not your average IT job – it’s different in terms of the products we create and the information we sell.”

Based in Southampton, OS is part of the Civil Service but generates its income through licensing information and selling maps. “We do have a commercial emphasis, but a lot of people still have the public-service ethos that we provide information that underpins a lot of what the rest of the country does,” James says.

Until the 1970s, data was held on 250,000 paper maps; digitising them took the best part of 20 years. With the growth of geographic information systems, this digital mapping is becoming more and more important.

Bob Goodrich, the director of information systems, says that OS is improving its geographic database to ensure that it can capture, store and generate the right information for customers and partners. The database contains half a billion identifiable features on the British landscape and is updated with 5,000 changes a day – data gathered by surveyors and processed by IT staff.

“Ordnance Survey is underpinned by IT and we recognise that our future is based on its successful management,” Goodrich says.

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