Head of Government Cyber Implementation - Government Digital Service - G6

Location: Bristol, London, Manchester

About the job

This role is available as a perm opportunity, but also as a 2 year loan/secondment. If you have a preference please make it clear in your application.

The Government Cyber Unit exists to protect public services from cyber threats and digital resilience failures. Through delivery of the Government Cyber Action Plan, and in close partnership with departments, the National Cyber Security Centre and other national technical authorities, we are working to make government more resilient in the face of fast-moving technology, threat and service risks.

The Head of Government Cyber Implementation leads the team that turns system-level cyber and digital resilience risk into practical, prioritised interventions across government. The role is not simply a delivery management post. It requires a senior cyber leader who can diagnose why departments struggle to meet expectations, decide where central intervention will genuinely change behaviour, and build solutions that work in the realities of departmental ownership, limited central authority and constrained capacity.

The postholder will lead through a team of specialist G7 implementation leads. Success depends on setting clear direction, creating coherence across the portfolio, developing the team, and enabling others to lead with confidence. The strongest candidate will combine cyber credibility, strategic judgement, delivery discipline and a practical instinct for how change really happens in government.

The Team

The Implementation team sits in the Cyber Solutions directorate alongside Partnering and Communications, Technical Advisory, Security Engineering, and Transformation Programmes. Cyber Solutions works with the wider GCU to convert strategy, assurance findings and departmental insight into interventions that improve cyber security and digital resilience outcomes across government. The Head of Government Cyber Implementation is a member of the Solutions senior management team and will deputise for the Deputy Director, Cyber Solutions, as required. The postholder may also support out-of-hours on-call arrangements for cyber and digital resilience incidents, with remuneration and/or flexible working arrangements available where applicable.

Job description

As the Head of Cyber Implementation, you can expect to:

• Lead implementation of priority cyber and digital resilience intervention - identify where government faces the most significant systemic cyber and digital resilience risks and develop interventions that improve outcomes
• Lead and develop the Government Cyber Implementation team - provide strategic direction, coaching and support to a multidisciplinary team of specialist leads, creating the conditions for them to succeed
• Prioritise and govern the implementation portfolio - maintain a focused portfolio of implementation activity aligned to the Government Cyber Action Plan, making clear decisions about what to start, stop and defer
• Coordinate cross-government and cross-GCU delivery - work with departments, NCSC and colleagues across GCU to bring together the relationships, expertise and resources needed to deliver change
• Build evidence of what works - ensure interventions have clear objectives, measurable outcomes and structured learning that informs future policy and investment decisions
• Represent Cyber Solutions and deputise for the Deputy Director - represent the directorate at senior forums and contribute to the leadership of GCU and the wider cyber community

Person specification

For this role, we want candidates to show:

• Cyber leadership - experience working closely with senior cyber, digital and risk leaders to create feasible security strategies, grounded in threat intelligence, that improve cyber resilience outcomes
• Strategic problem solving - experience diagnosing complex organisational or systemic problems, applying concepts drawn from protective security and from other specialisms/enablers
• Implementation and delivery leadership - experience translating strategic objectives into practical, deliverable plans and outcomes
• Leading high-performing teams - a track record of empowering and developing specialist teams through coaching, delegation and trust
• Influencing and stakeholder management - experience building relationships, securing commitment and delivering change across organisational boundaries
• Government cyber context - knowledge of the Government Cyber Security Strategy, Government Cyber Action Plan, or comparable public-sector cyber environments