Head of Business Continuity and Resilience

This job is with Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, an inclusive employer and a member of myGwork – the largest global platform for the LGBTQ+ business community.

Are you an expert in business continuity and incident/crisis management, with the flexibility to respond effectively to incidents and provide out-of-hours support when required? Have you led or significantly contributed to resilience planning, embedding organisational resilience and ensuring it is effectively implemented across an organisation? Can you investigate complex issues, assess risks, and develop clear, evidence-based recommendations for senior leaders, Boards, and Committees? If so, we'd love to hear from you!

The Business Continuity and Resilience Team ensures the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) remains resilient and able to anticipate, respond to, and recover from incidents, issues, and threats.

As Head of Business Continuity & Resilience, you will provide strategic leadership for DVSA's business continuity and resilience management frameworks, safeguarding the Accounting Officer and Executive. You will ensure the Agency's approach aligns with Civil Service, Departmental, and wider Government standards and best practice.

You will maintain strategic oversight of DVSA's business continuity and resilience risk profile, ensuring frameworks, reviews, and exercising regimes are effective and continuously improved. You will offer expert advice and guidance to senior leaders, supporting organisational insight and strengthening DVSA's resilience culture.

Your responsibilities will include, but aren't limited to:

• As process owner, lead the development and implementation of a Business Continuity framework, ensuring robust continuity planning, testing, and incident management capability to safeguard critical business functions.
• Lead emergency response and crisis management. As the subject matter expert, act as a trusted advisor during major incidents and ensuring effective facilitation and coordination at Gold and Silver command levels.
• Lead Horizon scan exercises for emerging business continuity and resilience threats and risks, ensuring timely mitigation and escalation.
• Deliver high-quality business continuity and resilience reporting to inform strategic decisions and compliance obligations.
• Lead periodic maturity assessments for business continuity and resilience, producing actionable improvement plans.
• Set the strategic direction for business continuity and resilience service offering, ensuring frameworks, policies, and tools remain fit for purpose.
• Demonstrate leadership by providing influence, direction and guidance to staff to support the delivery of objectives.
• Develop and implement effective communication strategies and training tools to build organisational understanding and capability in business continuity and resilience frameworks.
• Collaborate with Cabinet Office, Treasury, and other Government Departments to interpret and apply best practice, ensuring compliance and consistency in resilience and reporting.

To be successful in this role you will need to have the following experience:

• Advanced expertise in business continuity management and incident/crisis management, including the ability to respond flexibly and support incident management out of hours.
• Advanced expertise in resilience planning, with experience of implementing and embedding organisational resilience.
• Strong strategic, analytical and problem solving capability, with experience investigating complex issues, assessing risks, and presenting clear, evidence based recommendations to senior leaders, Boards, and Committees.
• Deep understanding of regulation, governance, assurance and policy, with experience drafting standards, processes and mechanisms that enable effective monitoring, quality oversight and well judged decision making.
• Highly developed influencing, negotiation, and communication skills, with the ability to engage and manage upwards, motivate others, and communicate effectively across all levels, internally and externally.
• Exceptional relationship building and interpersonal skills, establishing trusted networks and partnerships within and beyond the organisation.
• Strong judgement, adaptability, and continuous improvement mindset, providing authoritative advice at executive level and identifying opportunities to enhance efficiency and ways of working.

Working hours, office attendance and travel requirements: Full time roles consist of 37 hours per week. Whilst we welcome applications from those looking to work with us on a part time basis, there is a business requirement for the successful candidate to be able to work at least 35 hours per week. Due to the nature of this role, you will be required to be on call and available outside of normal working hours. This role is suitable for hybrid working, which is a non-contractual arrangement where a combination of workplace and home-based working can be accommodated subject to business requirements.

Qualifications: Business Continuity Management (CBCI) qualification. You will be required to provide evidence that you hold any essential qualifications/licenses at some point during the recruitment process. If you cannot provide evidence, your application will be withdrawn.

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process: Seeing the Big Picture, Leadership, Communicating and Influencing.

Alongside your salary of £57,515, Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency contributes £16,662 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme.

Being part of our brilliant Civil Service means you will have access to a wide range of fantastic benefits, including a generous annual leave entitlement, attractive pension options with an employer contribution of 28.97%, flexible working, good career development opportunities, and a variety of career paths.