Business Support Assistant - Legal, Assurance & Risk

NATS is the UK’s leading air navigation service provider, handling over 2.4 million flights each year. We provide air traffic control services from two control centres and at airports around the UK. We also provide a wide range of commercial products and solutions internationally. Our people are at the heart of our purpose to advance aviation and keep the skies safe.

We have an excellent opportunity for a Business Support Assistant to join NATS on a permanent basis. The role is an entry‑level position providing comprehensive administrative and organisational support to both the Director of Assurance & Risk and the Head of Legal and their wider teams. This is ideally suited to someone who enjoys being organised and pro‑active, enjoys variety, responsibility and being a trusted member of a team. You will provide day‑to‑day support to both teams, helping to ensure tasks run smoothly. Full support and guidance will be provided as you develop in the role, however you will be trusted to manage your own workload and priorities.

Other Duties

• Managing diary decisions, liaising with external stakeholders, including external legal advisers, audit bodies and training providers and, where appropriate, taking follow‑up action in the absence of the Director of Assurance & Risk and/or Head of Legal.
• Coordinating and facilitating departmental team meetings, including setting dates, and liaising with Facilities Management to ensure meeting rooms are booked and relevant equipment is set‑up.
• Attending meetings as required to record formal minutes and actions, and supporting follow‑up activities as required.
• Assisting with the preparation and coordination of reports for Executive and senior meetings, including sourcing and consolidating information from multiple stakeholders, tracking inputs, and ensuring final papers are completed and submitted within required deadlines.
• Managing the raising and release of purchase requisitions, receipting invoices, completing timesheets, and expenses as required.
• Managing message exchanges on behalf of the Head of Legal and Director of Assurance & Risk to agree meetings and arrange access for physical attendance to NATS premises.
• Supporting the Head of Legal in tracking and controlling spend on external UK and international legal advice, ensuring invoices are accurate and costs remain within budget.
• Monitoring the central Legal inbox, prioritising queries and coordinating timely responses across the team.
• Monitoring and maintaining the Legal document repository and Contracts Register and supporting the Legal Team in maintaining and updating the Legal precedents, ensuring changes are communicated to relevant stakeholders.
• Maintaining and updating corporate and departmental risk and resilience registers, including coordinating risk reporting cycles, supporting with assurance and internal audit activities to ensure requirements and legislation are met.
• Organising legal document execution from draft through to signature, including contract formatting, execution, storage and retrieval.
• Coordinating internal and external team training, maintaining training records to comply with Continuing Competence requirements, and supporting wider information and records management activities.

Essential Skills and Experience

• Excellent keyboard skills, with comprehensive knowledge of Microsoft Office, including experience of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and SharePoint packages.
• Demonstrates a strong interest in legal contract formatting and proactive attitude towards developing expertise in this area.
• Good knowledge of office-based management applications such as Ariba (E Procurement).
• A proactive approach to working in a continuous improvement culture and able to adapt style to suit different situations and people.
• Excellent organisational skills and able to work unsupervised and to tight deadlines.
• Excellent communication skills, able to articulate in a clear and concise style both verbally and in writing.
• The ability to work confidentially and with absolute discretion.
• A methodical approach to work, using judgement and initiative to solve problems.
• Ability to plan and co‑ordinate events with internal and external parties, using judgement to effectively manage senior stakeholders.

Additional Vacancy Information

You’ll be joining two small, friendly and approachable teams where people work closely, support one another and take a professional pride in what they do. We are proud to offer a fantastic total reward package to help you thrive both personally and professionally. We have adopted agile working to provide greater flexibility and increased choice over working arrangements, with the opportunity for this role to work in our modern office facilities as well as remotely. We also welcome discussions on flexible and part‑time working arrangements. If you share our passion to advance aviation and keep the skies safe – we would like to hear from you.