Risk & Compliance Senior Analyst

Sword is a leading provider of business technology solutions within the Energy, Public and Finance Sectors, driving transformational change within our clients. We use proven technology, specialist teams and domain expertise to build solid technical foundations across platforms, data, and business applications. We have a passion for using technology to solve business problems, working in partnership with our clients to help in achieving their goals.

About the role

The Risk, Compliance & Resilience Advisor shall help to manage compliance and assurance for supporting the Senior Manager - Risk & Compliance and Risk & Resilience Lead by ensuring that:

• Risk Assessment: Assist in identifying, assessing, and prioritising risks across the organisation. Conduct risk assessments to evaluate the likelihood and potential impact of risks on business operations and objectives.
• Compliance Monitoring: Monitor regulatory developments and changes in laws, regulations, and industry standards. Assess the organisation's compliance with applicable regulations, standards, and internal policies.
• Resilience Planning: Support the Global Risk & Resilience Lead in the development and maintenance of IT resilience and business continuity plans to ensure the organisation's ability to respond to and recover from IT disruptions.
• Incident Response and Management: Provide support in DR related incident response activities, including investigating IT security incidents, breaches, and disruptions.
• Issue Identification: Identify and document risk deficiencies, compliance gaps, and areas for improvement. Collaborate with stakeholders to develop actionable recommendations and corrective action plans to address identified issues.
• Documentation and Reporting: Maintain accurate documentation of risk assessments, compliance reviews, control testing activities, and remediation efforts. Prepare regular reports for management and stakeholders on the status of risk, compliance, and control activities.
• Policy and Procedure Development: Assist in the development and maintenance of risk management, compliance, and control-related policies, procedures, and guidelines. Ensure alignment with regulatory requirements and industry best practices in alignment with the Global IS Governance Lead.
• Vendor Risk Management Support: Assist in assessing and managing risks associated with third-party vendors and service providers. Evaluate vendor controls and adherence to contractual obligations.
• Continuous Improvement: Identify opportunities for enhancing risk management, compliance, and control processes. Recommend and implement improvements to strengthen the organisation's risk and control environment.
• Project Work: Contribute to project activities as required to ensure GRC requirements are understood and addressed.

Areas of Accountability, Responsibility and Competence Level

• Works with the Global Risk & Compliance Senior Manager to support IS in the delivery of governance, compliance, and risk activities, whilst supporting the integration projects.
• Supports the execution of the security, audit, and compliance activities.
• Supports the Global Risk & Compliance Senior Manager by ensuring the successful delivery of initiatives and projects within the Risk and Compliance environment.
• Supports the Risk & Compliance Senior Manager, and Risk & Resilience Lead in any required activities which support improvements in assurance, compliance, and audit activities.
• Addresses findings from identified risks or audits.
• Ensures the ISMS contains an accurate record of risks, events, and issues.
• Supports the internal and external audit investigations.
• Ensures that the audit tests, self-certifications, and audit reviews are relevant, consistent, and conducted in accordance with professionally accepted auditing standards.
• Works with minimal supervision, using clearly defined processes and procedures.
• Facilitates the use of performance metrics to improve output.
• May be required to provide out of hours support via an on-call rota.

Excellent written and verbal communication skills, interpersonal and collaborative skills, and the ability to communicate compliance and risk related concepts to technical and non-technical audiences.

Substantial relevant experience in control management for governance, compliance, IT audits, IS assurance and risk management programmes. CISA, CISM or equivalent preferred. BSc or equivalent qualification in IT based degree preferred. 3+ years relevant IT work experience. Proven ability to communicate with technical teams to elicit information and requirements. Understanding of regulatory requirements, including cross-industry regulations (e.g., GDPR, Data Protection Act) and industry-specific regulations. Skilled in implementing compliance and control frameworks. Proficient in IT governance and quality standards. Knowledge of common information security management frameworks, such as ISO/IEC 27001, ITIL, COBIT as well as those from NIST, including 800-53 and Cybersecurity Framework. Excellent stakeholder management skills. High level of personal integrity, as well as the ability to professionally handle confidential matters and show an appropriate level of judgement and maturity. Knowledge of OneTrust risk management toolset or similar preferred.

At Sword, our core values and culture are based on caring about our people, investing in training and career development, and building inclusive teams where we are all encouraged to contribute to achieve success. We offer comprehensive benefits designed to support your professional development and enhance your overall quality of life. In addition to a competitive salary, here's what you can expect as part of our benefits package:

• Personalised Career Development: We create a development plan customised to your goals and aspirations, with a range of learning and development opportunities within a culture that encourages growth.
• Flexible working: Flexible work arrangements to support your work-life balance. We can’t promise to always be able to meet every request, however, are keen to discuss your individual preferences to make it work where we can.
• A Fantastic Benefits Package: This includes generous annual leave allowance, enhanced family friendly benefits, pension scheme, access to private health, well-being, and insurance schemes.

At Sword we are dedicated to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace and are proud to be an equal opportunities employer, ensuring that all applicants receive fair and equal consideration for employment, regardless of whether they meet every requirement. If you don’t tick all the boxes but feel you have some of the relevant skills and experience we’re looking for, please do consider applying and highlight your transferable skills and experience. We embrace diversity in all its forms, valuing individuals regardless of age, disability, gender identity or reassignment, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity status, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation. Your perspective and potential are important to us.