Head of Business Continuity and Cyber Resilience - SC Cleared

Key Notes:

• Location: either London, Scotland or Wales - 4 days per week remote, 1 day per week in the office
• Rate: £800 per day inside IR35
• Contract Duration: 6 months with potential to extend

About the Role

Are you a strategic leader capable of steering an organisation through its most challenging moments?

As the Head of Business Continuity and Cyber Resilience, you will lead our capability across the entire Business Continuity Management and Cyber Incident Lifecycles. This is a high-profile role where you will design, implement, and embed robust policies, strategies, and readiness programmes to safeguard our critical regulatory services.

From shaping strategic response mechanisms to navigating complex cyber threats, you will provide the "helicopter view" and senior leadership necessary to strengthen our preparedness, response, and recovery arrangements across DDSS and wider business teams.

Key Responsibilities

In this role, you will lead a dedicated team of specialists to champion resilience across government security. Your core responsibilities will include:

• Strategic Leadership: Champion business continuity and cyber resilience across the organisation and wider government, driving a culture of continuous improvement and lessons learned.
• Team & Standards Management: Lead a team of resilience specialists to ensure full compliance and delivery against CAF, DHSC, ISO22301, and ISO27031 standards.
• Exercise & Training Delivery: Design and execute major/minor cyber exercise programmes, crisis simulations, and technical recovery walkthroughs alongside training and awareness campaigns.
• Incident & Threat Analysis: Lead the delivery of incident management policies, investigate the source and nature of breaches to support threat intelligence, and manage the rapid, accurate sharing of critical information.
• Stakeholder Coordination: Act as an "intelligent customer" for business units, keeping senior stakeholders and Executive Directors informed with strategic risk insights.

Key Outputs and Deliverables

• Deliver and maintain the organisational Business Impact Analysis (BIA), dependency map, and criticality register.
• Maintain all business continuity, recovery, and cyber incident response plans in alignment with NCSC and ISO frameworks (ensuring compliance with RPO/RTO/MTPD thresholds).
• Produce regular, data-driven Board dashboards providing insight into our resilience posture, risk, and maturity.
• Provide expert assurance and resilience input into major corporate programmes, system changes, and supplier engagements.
• Lead the function through CAF submissions, remediation activities, and the roadmap to formal ISO22301/27031 compliance.

Key Stakeholder Relationships

• Internal: Executive and Deputy Directors; DDSS leadership, Cyber Security, and DPO teams; Tech Operations, Engineering, and Service Management; Corporate Service Owners.
• External: NCSC CIR providers and cyber incident partners; third-party technology suppliers; cross-government resilience and BCM communities; sector regulators.

Role Criteria

Essential Experience & Qualifications

• Resilience Expertise: Proven experience delivering robust business continuity, organizational resilience, or cyber incident management at scale. (
• Senior Stakeholder Engagement: Demonstrated experience influencing senior leaders and driving complex organizational planning.
• Cyber Security & Risk: Strong background in Cyber Security and Risk Management with a distinct focus on organizational resilience.
• Command Structure Experience: Practical experience designing or participating in exercises at Bronze, Silver, and Gold command levels.
• Professional Certifications: Must hold a CISM certification alongside AMBCI/MBCI/DBCI accreditation.

Desirable

• Experience working within highly regulated or central government environments.
• Experience designing and delivering cross-organisational training and awareness campaigns.

How to Apply

If you are ready to bring your expert threat understanding and crisis management leadership to a vital public function, please submit your CV and a supporting statement outlining how you meet the criteria above.