Director of System Resilience c£115,000

Are you ready to lead the FSA’s work to strengthen the resilience of the UK food system at a time of significant change? We are recruiting our first Director of System Resilience, a pivotal member of the Executive Management Team reporting directly to the Chief Executive. This is a rare opportunity to shape and lead a newly configured directorate that will play a central role in how the FSA anticipates, assesses and responds to risks across the food safety and authenticity landscape.

You will oversee the FSA’s work as a central competent authority, ensuring we manage risk across the food system with increasing agility and intelligence. Bringing together regulatory assurance, local authority delivery, business engagement, incident prevention and response, organisational resilience and our new Risk and Intelligence Hub, your directorate will strengthen our capability to detect, prevent and respond to emerging threats in a fast‑moving environment.

You will lead improvements in our engagement with local authorities and food businesses, deepening our understanding of operating conditions across the system and driving better, more transparent performance. You will also strengthen our incident response and resilience functions, ensuring the FSA is well prepared for future shocks and able to coordinate calm, decisive leadership during major events.

You will represent the FSA in UK‑wide resilience planning and hold lead responsibility for key food-related risks on the National Risk Register. We are seeking an outstanding system leader, someone who can draw insight from complex data, inspire coordinated action across organisational and sector boundaries, and provide confident judgement under pressure.

You will set the tone for a directorate of around 175 people, bringing together existing and new teams and ensuring they operate collaboratively, intelligently and with a clear sense of purpose. If you are motivated by the opportunity to shape a nationally significant agenda and strengthen the resilience of the UK’s food system for the future, we would be delighted to hear from you.

Working pattern guidance: If applying as a job share partnership, you should both complete separate application forms on Civil Service Jobs but should make it clear that you are applying as job sharers. Further details on job sharing can be found here JSF – What is the recruitment process for job sharers? | Civil Service Careers (civil-service-careers.gov.uk). Applicants who wish to work compressed hours are welcome to apply - however your preferred working pattern may not be available and you should discuss this with the vacancy holder before applying. This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. 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.