Deputy Director Business Resources and Policy: National Cyber Force

The role is based in Samlesbury with regular travel required between Cheltenham, London and other national locations, and occasionally overseas.

Job Summary
Would you relish the challenge of helping support the UK's National Security objectives, and being at the cutting edge of technology?

Could you help bring together inclusive, talented and diverse teams? Do you want to help lead a community that thinks creatively, acts boldly and delivers and learns together?

If so, then we have a unique opportunity for you to join the National Cyber Force and be part of the UK's cybercommunity.

The National Cyber Force (NCF) is a partnership between defence and intelligence. It is responsible for operating in and through cyberspace to counter threats, disrupting and contesting those who would do harm to the UK and its allies, to keep the country safe and to protect and promote the UK's interests at home and abroad. In addition to GCHQ and the Ministry of Defence, the Secret Intelligence Service and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory are core partners bringing cutting edge intelligence and research techniques. Led at Director level, the NCF delivers across the range of national security and defence priorities.

As Deputy Director Business Resources and Policy, you will play a critical role in shaping and delivering the NCF's strategic priorities. Your leadership of operational policy, legal, compliance, and risk management teams will be instrumental in enabling the NCF to deliver secure and innovative cyber operations. You will oversee in-year and future business planning, delivering a balanced and achievable portfolio and providing assurance that budgets are managed effectively, performance is measured, and value for money is consistently demonstrated. In addition to overseeing governance, portfolio, and finance, you will manage the provision of professional security, cutting-edge digital infrastructure and systems engineering, ensuring the partnership is equipped with the essential enablers to foster collaborative, virtual, and agile working.

Job Description
The current responsibilities of this role include:

• Ownership of portfolio governance, including chairing the Portfolio Progress Group, co-chairing the Strategy Delivery Group, and lead for risk management within the Partnership. Plugging in as appropriate, and without duplication, to regular Defence and GCHQ governance.
• Managing the partnership's portfolio, ensuring overall delivery against the NCF outcomes, covering accommodation and infrastructure; people and salary costs; operational technology and other costs.
• Accountability at portfolio level for delivery of critical business enablers. Ensuring the appropriate arrangements for portfolio management, assurance, performance metrics and delivery methodology are in place. You will align the portfolio build with strategic vision, ensure appropriate audit and governance.
• Overseeing the Finance and Resource function to track, scrutinise and deliver investment plans, allocate budgets, manage in-year funding and engagement with various funding sources for example: HM Treasury and the Ministry of Defence.
• Delivery of vital business enablers including finance, security, IT, Information Assurance, industrial engagement and commercial interfaces, systems engineering in addition to maximising innovation opportunities. You will liaise and partner with various organisations to ensure the relevant policy and delivery is in place.
• Providing senior leadership of the NCF's Operational Policy, Legal, Compliance, and Operational Risk teams, providing Board level representation and deputising for the Commander as required. Ensuring compliance obligations and mandatory training are understood by all NCF staff.
• Shaping Offensive Cyber and compliance policy at the strategic level internally, with senior Whitehall counterparts and with International Partners, to influence the development of the UK's mission in a lawful and policy compliant way and to inform the development of Partnership policy and operational approaches.
• Providing advice on complex or contentious operational policy matters to Commander NCF and use strong stakeholder management skills to resolve issues of contention between the NCF's parent departments and Whitehall.

The Current Responsibilities Of This Role Include

• Ownership of portfolio governance, including chairing the Portfolio Progress Group, co-chairing the Strategy Delivery Group, and lead for risk management within the Partnership. Plugging in as appropriate, and without duplication, to regular Defence and GCHQ governance.
• Managing the partnership's portfolio, ensuring overall delivery against the NCF outcomes, covering accommodation and infrastructure; people and salary costs; operational technology and other costs.
• Accountability at portfolio level for delivery of critical business enablers. Ensuring the appropriate arrangements for portfolio management, assurance, performance metrics and delivery methodology are in place. You will align the portfolio build with strategic vision, ensure appropriate audit and governance.
• Overseeing the Finance and Resource function to track, scrutinise and deliver investment plans, allocate budgets, manage in-year funding and engagement with various funding sources for example: HM Treasury and the Ministry of Defence.
• Delivery of vital business enablers including finance, security, IT, Information Assurance, industrial engagement and commercial interfaces, systems engineering in addition to maximising innovation opportunities. You will liaise and partner with various organisations to ensure the relevant policy and delivery is in place.
• Providing senior leadership of the NCF's Operational Policy, Legal, Compliance, and Operational Risk teams, providing Board level representation and deputising for the Commander as required. Ensuring compliance obligations and mandatory training are understood by all NCF staff.
• Shaping Offensive Cyber and compliance policy at the strategic level internally, with senior Whitehall counterparts and with International Partners, to influence the development of the UK's mission in a lawful and policy compliant way and to inform the development of Partnership policy and operational approaches.
• Providing advice on complex or contentious operational policy matters to Commander NCF and use strong stakeholder management skills to resolve issues of contention between the NCF's parent departments and Whitehall.

Person specification

• Have Strong Interpersonal Skills. A proven record of skills to influence and engage across multiple organisations at senior levels. In particular, the ability to operate effectively through influencing across organisational and cultural boundaries to collaborate in support of a common purpose.
• A track record of delivering Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) impact at scale . The mix of minds is essential to our success, and the ideal candidate will be able to continuously learn and support everyone to be the best they can, navigating multiple cultures and shaping inclusive ways-of-working is critical.
• Have Proven Leadership Skills. Practical experience of managing ambiguity in large and complex organisational transformation is key. The candidate will be able to lead on navigating through the ambiguity to instil confidence with stakeholders, whilst concurrently providing strong, clear direction to the organisation's teams.
• Have Experience of Project Delivery. Relevant experience of developing and delivering major projects, programmes or portfolios with demonstrable scale and complexity.
• Have Experience of Shaping Policy and acting as an advisor on policy matters to senior officials, military personnel and other Board level stakeholders in a fast-paced national security or defence context.
• Have Experience in Stakeholder Management. In a complex environment, spanning multiple organisations, including industry, strong and effective stakeholder management with tactful Emotional Intelligence.
• Understand the Operating Environment. Prior experience of working with defence and/or security organisations. NCF is a partnership, embracing a number of national security organisations with distinct cultural approaches, so the ability to work together effectively is critical.

Alongside your salary of £81,000, Ministry of Defence contributes £23,465 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 no later than
23:55 Sunday 9th November
2025
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.

For candidates who have worked on sensitive material and cannot submit their full application via the usual process, please contact
. You are still required to submit an application via CS jobs with basic details. Please advise in your CS Jobs application you have submitted your full application directly to the contact address above.

Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

External candidates who join the MOD and are new to the Civil Service will be subject to a six-month probation period.

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-

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.

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.

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.

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Contact point for applicants

Job Contact

• Name : SCS Recruitment Team
• Email : People-CivHR-

Recruitment team

• Email : People-CivHR-