Defence Nuclear Enterprise Resilience, Response and CNI

Job summary

The Defence Nuclear Organisation (DNO) is responsible for the provision of the nuclear deterrent, encompassing our submarines and nuclear warheads, while also advising on UK nuclear planning and fostering international co-operation on nuclear matters. With a multidisciplinary team of over 700 professionals, the DNO brings together expertise in science, engineering, finance, policy, programme delivery, and more. We work in partnership with the Royal Navy, the Submarine Delivery Agency and the Atomic Weapons Establishment as the Defence Nuclear Enterprise (DNE).

Here at DNO we strongly believe that diversity and inclusion is not only the right thing to do but is also essential for a thriving and successful organisation. We have a culture where differences are celebrated, and our people feel supported, included and empowered. Join us and be part of an organisation that truly values diversity and inclusion and makes a positive impact on the world.

The mission of the DNO’s Security and Intelligence Division is to enable the DNE to be secure and assured now and into the future.

You will be responsible for leading a cross-DNE programme to lead and deliver a comprehensive approach to the identification and resilience of our critical systems and infrastructure, our approach to homeland defence, defence readiness, and leading a risk, threat and hazard agnostic approach to emergency and incident preparedness, planning, response and recovery.

This position is advertised at 37 hours per week.

Hybrid and flexible working can be considered for this post but will need regular workplace attendance due to security constraints. Candidates are encouraged to discuss options with the recruiting line manager before submitting an application.

Job description

Leading a team to:

Refresh and maintain our understanding of critical infrastructure and systems across the Defence Nuclear Enterprise (DNE), including but not limited to:

• Refreshing and renewing and overseeing our existing understanding of critical infrastructure and systems across Defence Nuclear.
• Refreshing, renewing and overseeing our understanding of our wider critical infrastructure and system dependencies (including wider defence and civil critical national infrastructure (CNI)).

Deliver a cross-DNE approach to identifying, assessing and managing our resilience risks. including but not be limited to:

• Leading and overseeing cross-enterprise policy, guidance and support to support and enable programmes to assess and identify resilience risks with due regard to the full range of potential threats, risks and hazards.
• Ensure this fully considers potential risks and challenges that would result from the full range of potential National Security Risk Assessment (NSRA) risks.
• Leading and maintaining mechanisms for aggregating this into a cross-enterprise understanding of our resilience risks and mitigations, as part of wider risk management and governance.
• Lead and support work to manage, mitigate and plan for these risks, working closely with programme teams.
• Lead DNE input into cross-MOD and HMG defence readiness and homeland defence planning and legislation.

Review and then take leadership and management of our cross-DNE incident and emergency planning, preparedness, response and recovery mechanisms, including but not be limited to:

• Review and refresh our existing planning and arrangements to manage the full range of potential incidents, working closely with relevant specialists across safety, security and beyond.
• Oversee the delivery, testing and maintenance an appropriate set of emergency and incident plans, mechanisms, ways of working and operational structures that can be stood up in the event of an incident.
• Taking a leadership role should incidents occur, acting as a focal point for standing up relevant structures and mobilising relevant specialists and subject matter experts.

Undertake and lead wider resilience, risk and security projects and programmes as required.

As the post holder will have access to very sensitive information, there are limitations on travelling to a small number of countries and we will undertake additional security checks as part of the recruitment process. Applications from candidates with close connections to certain countries may take considerably longer to process, or in some cases result in a withdrawal of an offer of employment. Further details will be provided at the conditional offer stage.

Person specification

Essential Skills:

Whilst we appreciate that applicants may have a differing levels of experience and expertise across these different essential criteria we would expect all applicants to have a clear expertise and high level of experience in some areas, and at least some experience, exposure and/or understanding of all of them and a willingness to develop this further as required.

• Demonstrable experience and expertise of resilience planning and/or policy
• Demonstrable experience and expertise in critical asset, critical infrastructure and/or critical system risk mapping or management
• Demonstrable experience and expertise in emergency and contingency planning, response and/or recovery
• Demonstrable experience of strong team leadership and management, including in high-pace and high-pressure situations, given the incident planning and response elements of this role
• Demonstrable experience of policy design, development and implementation; and
• Demonstrable experience of cross-Government and cross-sector stakeholder management, leadership and engagement.

Desirable Skills:

• Experience of risk, resilience and/or emergency preparedness, response or recovery in a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear environment, in either the civil, defence or wider public sector

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Leadership
• Delivering at Pace
• Making Effective Decisions
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £72,840, Ministry of Defence contributes £21,101 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

• 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%

Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and working from home as part of a non-contractual hybrid working arrangement. All office-based employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in office, subject to site capacity and any required workplace adjustments. Requirements to attend other locations for official business, or work in another MOD workplace, will also count towards this level of office attendance. Applicants can request further information regarding how this and other flexible working arrangements may work in their team from the Vacancy Holder (see advert for contact details). Defence Business Services cannot respond to any questions about working arrang