Portfolio Governance and Assurance Officer

Full time / Part time

Salary: £44,297 - £49,813, with potential for further progression to £56,082 with our pay progression scheme.

Location: Hybrid. Contracted to our Wilmslow office, we will be relocating to Manchester city centre from 28 September 2026. Once the move takes place your contracted office will be Circle Square, Manchester. Through hybrid working we offer flexible home and office-based working opportunities and there will be times when you will be expected to attend the office to collaborate with colleagues or travel due to business need.

Why work for the ICO?

• Pay progression scheme.
• Hybrid and flexible working options.
• 25 days paid holiday per year, plus privilege and public holidays.
• Flexi leave (up to 26 additional days leave per year).
• Pension (employer contribution around 28.9%).
• Online discount scheme to save money at major supermarkets, retailers, gyms, restaurants, insurance providers and many more.
• Health Cash Plan.
• Fantastic development opportunities to learn and progress.

Job summary

The Portfolio Governance and Assurance Officer (PGAO) ensures the effective, compliant, and strategically aligned delivery of the ICO's transformation portfolio. They provide clear oversight and assurance across programmes and projects, champion consistent use of PMO systems, and enable accurate data-driven insight for organisational decision-making.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is the independent regulator of information rights. In a data-driven world, we provide advice, guidance, and support to organisations enabling compliance with their obligations, as well as protecting individuals and their personal data.

As an employer, we are passionate about making a positive difference to the lives and careers of our people, and we empower you to be curious, impactful, collaborative and respectful.

Job description

You will provide oversight, assurance, and continuous improvement across the portfolio lifecycle, supporting organisational investment decision-making and risk mitigation. You will be an advocate for consistent and effective use of PMO systems to support the accurate collection of data to enable insights across the portfolio.

As an ICO leader, you will be responsible for leading and developing the team of Lead Portfolio Coordinators. Through them they ensure governance and assurance controls directly into the transformation programmes, and oversee directorate level governance and assurance such as business continuity planning, records management.

You will maintain and update the project and programme delivery frameworks and templates. They stay abreast of government guidance and advances in P3 delivery via research and networks, to ensure the ICO follows best practice delivery.

Key responsibilities

• Ensure adherence to P3 governance frameworks and standards.
• Conduct regular reviews and audits of project documentation, processes, and outcomes.
• Monitor compliance with internal policies and government frameworks.
• Identify and assess risks across the portfolio.
• Escalate critical issues and support resolution strategies.
• Track performance indicators against the key constraints to provide assurance against benefits, time, resources, risk, budget, scope across projects and programs.
• Analyse trends and provide insights to senior leadership.
• Collaborate with project managers, PMO team, executive sponsors and key stakeholders such as the risk and governance team.
• Facilitate assurance reviews and checkpoint meetings.
• Provide guidance and training on assurance best practices.
• Recommend improvements to portfolio management processes.
• Support the implementation of lessons learned and best practices.
• Contribute to the development and use of tools, templates, and methodologies.
• Engage with overarching resource management processes to ensure the development of an achievable portfolio pipeline that is cognisant of wider organisational plans.

Person specification

Essential criteria assessed at application stage:

• Experience of large-scale transformation programmes (also measured at interview).
• Ability to work under pressure and deal with a demanding workload which may include conflicting demands on time (also measured at interview).
• Experience of financial and resource planning, using skills such as forecasting, modelling or monitoring (also measured at interview).
• Experience of communicating complex information in a clear and targeted way to senior stakeholders both verbally and in dashboards or board packs (also measured at interview).
• Excellent knowledge and demonstrable ability of Microsoft applications, notably MS Project and Power BI (also measured at interview).

Essential criteria assessed during interview:

• Ability to engage and influence stakeholders through excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management abilities.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, including the ability to analyse, interpret and quality check complex information.

Equality, diversity, and inclusion

The ICO is committed to promoting and enhancing equality, diversity, and inclusion. We are focused on developing a workforce that is representative of the communities we serve and together we are building an inclusive workplace where all of our colleagues have the opportunity to make a real difference. We are championing this through our Equality Diversity and Inclusion Board together with a number of staff networks.

Candidates with a disability who meet the minimum criteria for this vacancy will be invited to interview as part of the ICO's commitment to the Disability Confident Scheme.

As part of the ICO's commitment to our EDI objectives and creating a workplace that represents the communities and societies we serve, we guarantee an interview to candidates who declare they identify as belonging from an ethnic minority background and who meet the minimum criteria for this vacancy.

If you are disabled or have an impairment and require an alternative application method, please email the HR team at recruitment@ico.org.uk

Closing Date

Please submit your CV and cover letter by 23:59, 04 May 2026. Your cover letter should be no more than 1,000 words and should clearly demonstrate how you meet the essential criteria for the role.

We may close this vacancy early if we receive a high volume of applications. To ensure your application is considered, we encourage you to apply as soon as possible. If you require any reasonable adjustments to support your application, please contact us at recruitment@ico.org.uk.

In the event of a high volume of applications, we may not be able to invite all candidates who meet the minimum criteria to interview. However, we encourage you stay in touch and apply for future roles that match your interests.

All candidates who meet the minimum criteria and apply in-line with our guaranteed interview scheme for disabled and ethnic minority applicants will be interviewed.

Clearance Required for this role: