Head of Cyber Security Advisory and Assurance Services

Ministry of Defence

Apply before 11:55 pm on Sunday 10th November 2024

 
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Details

Reference number

375351

Salary

£76,000 - £107,000
A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

Job grade

SCS Pay Band 1

Contract type

Permanent

Business area

MOD - Strategic Command - Defence Digital

Type of role

Digital
Security
Senior leadership

Working pattern

Flexible working, Full-time

Number of jobs available

1

Contents

MOD Main Building, Whitehall, London or MOD Corsham.

Job summary

The Head of Cyber Security Advisory & Assurance (CYSAAS) leads a team that operates across the Ministry of Defence to provide strategic cyber security consultancy and assurance services for high-risk programmes and capabilities. 

You will also lead MOD’s adoption of Secure by Design and will liaise with teams across MOD and with industry partners to ensure that appropriate security controls are implemented in accordance with threat and risk profile. 

You will be a key member of the Cyber Defence & Risk leadership team, working together to move the MOD’s cyber resilience strategy forward.

Strategic Command is going through a significant transformation programme which aims to improve the way the Command conducts its business and delivers for Defence and the nation. As a consequence of this, all posts within Strategic Command Headquarters and in time the wider organisation, are/will be subject to review and potential changes as we continuously improve across the period of the transformation programme. These changes may be minor or could be more substantive and will generate new opportunities. Throughout, the Command’s transformation programme is committed to following the MOD’s framework on managing and supporting people through the change process and places an emphasis on early and open consultation and engagement with the Command’s personnel and Trade Unions.

Job description

Key Responsibilities

The current responsibilities of the role include:

  • Leading and managing a team of 50 Full Time Equivalent (Civilian Crown Servants and Military staff) to deliver cyber security consultancy and assurance services into Ministry Of Defence’s most critical programmes.
  • Lead the pan-defence cyber security assurance service through which high risk existing and new defence equipment capabilities will be scrutinised against Defence’s baseline Cyber Security standards using National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
  • Engage with programme stakeholders and Senior Responsible Owners to resolve complex cyber security challenges, discuss assurance and consultancy findings and to drive implementation of actions to improve cyber security.
  • Drive adoption of Secure by Design across Defence including engagement with industry.
  • Establish, lead and run an in-house Defence wide information security consultancy service including front door process, resource management and metrics production.
  • Work collaboratively with the Security Architecture team to ensure equipment and IT programmes are adopting the latest security design patterns and are driving standardisation.
  • Lead review and sign off Risk Balance Cases where Defence levels risks are out of appetite including up to Ministerial level.
  • Lead provision of a technical security evaluation and testing service for Defence including operation of a technical testing lab.

Person specification

The successful candidate must be able to demonstrate their experience and skills against the following essential criteria:

  • Deep technical Board level experience in cyber security on large complex programmes across all cyber security domains.
  • Demonstratable experience of being able to set a clear vision or direction that drives forward cyber security strategy.
  • Excellent communication skills with credibility of being able to instil confidence and engage effectively across a broad spectrum of stakeholders, especially at Board and senior executive level, which demonstrates your ability to build trust quickly.
  • A proven confident leader with demonstratable evidence of how you have motivated, empowered and got consistently good results from a diverse, multi-disciplinary team, often under pressure.
  • Extensive experience of working across multiple teams, including outside of your immediate team, with evidence and examples of being able to deal with complexity, identifying practical options and actions that meet the strategic need.
Alongside your salary of £76,000, Ministry of Defence contributes £22,017 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.
  • Learning and development tailored to your role
  • An environment with flexible working options
  • A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
  • A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

Selection process details

To apply for this post, you will need to complete the online application process by no later than 23:55 Sunday 10th November 2024 and will involve providing the two documents outlined below via the Civil Service Jobs portal:

  • A CV (no more than 2 pages) setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure you have provided reasons for any gaps within the last two years.
  • A Personal Statement (no more than 2 pages) explaining how your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role in reference to the essential criteria found on page six of the candidate pack. 

Both documents are weighted equally in their scoring, so it's important to consider this when uploading your application. Failure to submit both documents will mean the panel only have limited information on which to assess your application against the criteria in the person specification.

For further information about the role and full application process, please refer to the candidate pack attached below. If you wish to receive any material in a different format for accessibility, then please contact People-CivHR-SCSCandidateSupport@mod.gov.uk.



Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise.

As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.

Security

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is developed vetting (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

Open to UK nationals only.

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).
This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.
Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

  • Name : SCS Recruitment Team
  • Email : People-CivHR-SCSCandidateSupport@mod.gov.uk

Recruitment team

  • Email : People-CivHR-SCSCandidateSupport@mod.gov.uk

Attachments

SCS1 Head of Cyber Security Advisory and Assurance Services Candidate Pack Opens in new window (pdf, 2285kB)

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