Policy Adviser – Critical National Infrastructure and Cyber Resilience x 2

If you’re interested in making a difference to people’s lives, the Treasury can offer you an exciting opportunity to influence decision making that affects the whole of the UK. Working at the heart of government, we collaborate across government to promote responsible public spending and drive strong and sustainable economic growth!

About the Team

Finance Sector CNI & Cyber Resilience Unit

The CNI & Cyber Resilience Unit (CCRU) exists to prepare UK Finance Sector Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) for threats and hazards of all origins, to lead and advise the HMG response to those that are realised and drive international policy. This is an active, high-profile policy area, and the team responds to events in the financial system in real time.

The Unit is responsible for improving the security and operational resilience of the finance sector to risks, such as hostile state activity, cyber-attacks, technological failure and dependencies on other critical sectors. Our portfolio is broad, and includes areas spanning from disinformation, deep-space weather, AI and state-backed cyber-attacks against our most important financial institutions. Recently, the Unit has responded to the outage of the firm, Crowd-Strike. We also exercised the scenario of a National Power Outage (NPO) with firms in the finance sector and travelled internationally to work with partners on the G7 Cyber Experts Group (CEG).

We work closely with a range of external partners to understand threats, ensure a strong regulatory framework and respond to incidents. Key partners include the Bank of England and financial sector regulators, the National Cyber Security Centre, UK Intelligence Community (UKIC) and partners across Government. We also handle relationships with critical firms in the sector. The Unit also participates in international dialogues in the G20, G7 and EU on risks facing the global financial system to craft global policy making.

The Unit is a friendly and inclusive group of 10 people split across HM Treasury’s offices in London and Darlington. We operate a hybrid working model, but also regularly travel between the two offices, as well as meeting together with partners. This ensures a positive working culture regardless of your base office.

About the Job

Accountabilities:

1. Provide advice on finance sector security and resilience issues within HMT and across Whitehall to influence government policy development. Working across Government you will produce advice and recommendations as well as owning and developing your own policy.
2. Build strong working relationships with colleagues across the Bank of England, Prudential Regulation Authority, Financial Conduct Authority, National Cyber Security Centre (part of GCHQ), National Protective Security Agency (part of MI5), Cabinet Office and other government departments. You will need to demonstrate a wide range of relationships to deliver HMT objectives.
3. Effectively represent HMT views externally, such as at industry groups, cross-Whitehall meetings with other government departments and in our regular engagement with the financial regulators.
4. Play an active role in responding to operational incidents to minimise negative impacts on the finance sector and consumers.
5. Lead the Unit’s work to plan for risks on the National Risk Register (NRR) - the government’s register of the most serious risks facing the United Kingdom. This will be a high profile and complex piece of work with the opportunity to work across Whitehall departments and with industry.
6. Represent HM Treasury at G7 Cyber Experts’ Group (CEG) workstreams on areas such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), quantum cryptography and cloud computing. Leading our international engagement strategy with overseas partners, particularly Five Eyes (United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand).
7. Drive forward the Unit’s work to designate and map the finance sector’s Critical National Infrastructure (CNI). Identifying critical systems and their dependencies, meeting with key firms in the sector and using the National Cyber Security Centre’s Knowledge Base tool to build a picture of these. This will require you build positive relationships with firms in the sector, other government departments and intelligence agencies.

About You

These are varied and stretching roles, with an exciting set of policy issues and opportunities to build strong collaborator relationships. Your work will support UK national security through HMT’s role as the Lead Government Department for the finance sector – one of the UK’s critical sectors.

No specific qualifications or experience are required to apply for these roles, and we encourage applications from all backgrounds. The Unit’s work is dynamic – from designing policy, to running war-game exercises, to meeting with overseas partners – and is well suited to curious minds and driven personalities. Given the growing profile of security and resilience policy, and the finance sector’s leadership in this area, this will also involve opportunities to advise senior officials and ministers. If that sounds like work you would like to get involved in, where no two days are the same, we’d love to have you join us, and we will provide you the support to help you thrive!

HM Treasury is proud of a diverse and inclusive work environment, committed to fairness and the promotion of equality of opportunity for all. We know that having a range of experiences, ways of working and thinking makes us a stronger organisation, better at developing policy that is reflective of the communities we serve. We embrace different views and experiences and value the fresh perspective that people from a variety of circumstances bring to the work we do. We welcome applications from candidates who have not previously worked for the Civil Service, mid- and late-career changers with transferrable skills, people from all backgrounds and circumstances regardless of disability, ethnicity, LGBT+ identity and socio-economic status.

Some of the Benefits our people love!

• 25 days annual leave (rising to 30 days after 5 years), plus 8 public holidays and the King’s birthday (unless you have a legacy arrangement as an existing Civil Servant). Additionally, we operate flexitime systems, allowing you to take up to an additional 2 days off each month.
• Flexible working patterns (part-time, job-share, compressed hours).
• Generous parental leave and adoption leave packages.
• A Civil Service Pension which provides an attractive pension, benefits for dependants and average employer contributions of 28%. Access to a cycle-to-work salary sacrifice scheme and season ticket advances.
• A Rental Deposit Advance Scheme to help meet the total costs of deposits for privately rented homes.
• Access to HM Treasury’s benefits portal allowing you to access a range of discount codes for online shopping.
• A range of active staff networks, based around interests (e.g. analysts, music society, sports and social club) and diversity.