CISO

Location Specifics: London, Croydon or Manchester

With a budget of £20.3bn and over 45,000 employees, the Home Office is responsible for some of the most critical, demanding and life-saving work in society. Our mission is fundamentally important: to keep Britain’s streets safe and its borders secure. We lead on immigration and passports, drugs policy, crime policy, counter-extremism and counter-terrorism and work to ensure visible, responsive and accountable policing in the UK. The challenges the Department faces are significant and can change rapidly in the global environment in which we operate, making us one of the most exciting and stimulating Departments to work in.

At the heart of our service delivery is our Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) function. Home Office DDaT is delivering technology services and change programmes for the wider Home Office and is recognised as being one of the most complex public sector Digital, Data and Technology operations anywhere globally. At any one time, our DDaT function enables the delivery of more than 300 complex change programmes, including Government Major Projects Portfolio (GMPP) programmes, and maintains hundreds of mission critical systems including the “always on” national Border Force, Visas, Immigration and Law Enforcement IT platforms.

Central to all of this work is our ability to ensure that our systems are safe, secure and resistant to advanced and ever-changing threats. Occupying the role of the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and reporting to the Chief Digital Data and Technology Officer, you will develop and embed world class cyber security across our organisation and engage with a wide range of incredible stakeholders as a critical member of the DDaT senior leadership team.

Using your expertise as a security thought leader, you will:

• Implement the departmental cyber security strategy, ensuring it is aligned with the National Cyber Security Strategy and representative of the requirements of department stakeholders.
• Implement enterprise strategy, approach, and processes to reduce information security risks and enable services to the department to be delivered effectively.
• Establish, maintain, and implement appropriate strategy, standards, controls and policies to protect information assets and technologies across the Home Office family, and drive compliance with Government policy, standards, regulatory requirements and legislation.
• Be the department’s advisor for cyber risk within its own business operations and be responsible for bringing together the department’s approach to its own cyber and information security.
• Be responsible for cyber security operations in the department.
• Be Senior Reporting Officer for the Cyber Security Programme and any department-level cyber security activity, including shaping the strategy and the business case and being accountable for the execution and delivery of workstreams, including the delivery of those capabilities into live running.
• Drive beneficial security change into the business through the development or review of architectures and attendance/guidance to governance boards.
• Maintain the department’s security assurance strategy and deliver advice and guidance on the operation of the security assurance process.
• Work closely with a wide variety of stakeholders across the Home Office and wider Government, to design, deliver and run the central cyber security protective monitoring capability and standards.
• Lead, build and inspire a high performing cyber security team of over 150 people.

We are seeking someone with significant experience of successful cyber security delivery and management in a large, diverse, matrixed organisation. As a CISSP/CISM qualified professional or equivalent, you will have significant experience of the latest information security approaches and best practice. Your diverse stakeholder engagement skills and thought leadership will drive a culture change that brings risk and assurance awareness to the heart of our organisation.

Your work will play a crucial role in the security of one of the major bastions of our society and ensure that you are recognised as a leader in your field at the highest levels within both Government and the cyber and information security industry.