Risk and Resilience Officer

Salary: £35,608 to £37,694 with progression to £46,049 per annum.

Newcastle University is a great place to work, with excellent benefits. We have a generous holiday package; plus the opportunity to buy more, great pension schemes and a number of health and wellbeing initiatives to support you.

Closing Date: 10 March 2026.

The Role:

Newcastle University is looking to appoint an experienced Risk & Resilience Officer to join the Legal Services team and strengthen the University's approach to risk, resilience and business continuity. Reporting to the Head of Risk & Compliance you will play a key role in ensuring that the University has effective mechanisms in place to identify and respond to emerging risks or interruptions to its operations. Working with a wide range of stakeholders you will strengthen the University's risk and business continuity arrangements and frameworks.

The ideal candidate will have worked in a risk or resilience role previously, preferably in the Higher Education Sector or another large complex organisation. You will be approachable and efficient, remaining calm under pressure, prioritising your own workload and at times working to tight deadlines. Excellent verbal and written communication skills are essential in order to successfully build relationships across the institution with a strategic and analytical approach you will be capable of driving continuous improvement, change and operational excellence.

This is an exciting role that cuts across the whole University, you will have the opportunity to work closely with senior leaders, ensuring that risk and resilience arrangements are robust and aligned with best practice across the Higher Education sector. There will be a requirement to be on site in Newcastle for part of the week and there may be occasional work required outside of normal office hours.

To apply, please upload an up-to-date CV and letter of application outlining specific examples around how you meet the requirements set out in the Job Description. The post is full time, permanent.

Key Accountabilities:

• Support the Head of Risk and Compliance with the facilitation and coordination of risk management across the organisation providing professional advice when required.
• Champion a positive risk culture by ensuring that risk registers and key aspects of the risk management framework (risk policy and risk appetite statement) are regularly reviewed and maintained.
• Ensure that the University has effective mechanisms to identify emerging risks to its strategy and operations.
• Take responsibility for the coordination of activity to review, develop and maintain top level risk registers and risk reporting to support the delivery of the University Strategic Plan.
• Contribute to the facilitation and coordination of business continuity activity across the University.
• Ensure key aspects of our business continuity management framework (business continuity policy, resilience plans, and incident management plans) are regularly reviewed and maintained.
• Lead continuous improvement of the University's risk, resilience and business continuity activities, ensuring that systems and processes are fit for purpose.
• Liaise with colleagues across the University to ensure risk and resilience arrangements are effectively aligned and embedded within key processes.
• Take the lead in ensuring that business continuity and local incident plans are up to date, tested, and exercised.
• Work closely with colleagues to ensure critical activities are identified, business impact is understood, risk/threat assessments are undertaken and recovery plans are developed and implemented which align with the needs of the University.
• Ensure that the University Emergency Management Plan resources are maintained and that the responding teams and Incident Officers have suitable training.
• Support senior teams in coordinating the response to a major emergency or incident.
• Lead continuous improvement of the University's risk management framework, ensuring that systems, processes and actions are fit for purpose.
• Research best practice and maintain an up to date knowledge of risk management and compliance issues and a network of contacts.
• Establish and manage effective working relationships with internal and external stakeholders communicating relevant information within the University and externally when appropriate.
• Represent the University externally including on regional and national risk and resilience networks and similar groups as required.
• Where appropriate, report to the University Executive on areas of responsibility, including identifying and reporting on emerging issues and proposing solutions.
• Maintain memberships of relevant professional bodies and undertake CPD to ensure remain current with developments in the profession.

The Person:

Knowledge, Skills and Experience:

• Experience of working in a risk and resilience role.
• In-depth knowledge of risk and resilience issues and emerging threats relevant to the higher education sector.
• Experience of developing and implementing risk and resilience management systems and frameworks.
• Experience of training colleagues and delivering effective presentations.
• Experience of developing and implementing policy and guidance.
• The ability to deal with and communicate with a wide range of stakeholders.

Attributes and Behaviour:

• An ability to effectively persuade and influence.
• Excellent communication skills, ability to deliver advice in an appropriate and professional manner.
• The ability to build effective working relationships internally & externally.
• The ability to work alone or as part of a team.
• The ability to think strategically and critically.
• Horizon-scanning and working proactively to support the development of University policy and emergency preparedness.
• A knowledge of change management techniques and experience of delivery.
• An ability to prioritise workload, deliver on time and to tight deadlines.
• A high level of tact and discretion.
• Willing to occasionally work outside normal hours when the need arises.

Qualifications:

• Educated to degree level or equivalent.
• Desirable: Membership of the Institute Risk Management/Business Continuity Institute or equivalent.

Newcastle University is a global University where everyone is treated with dignity and respect. As a University of Sanctuary, we aim to provide a welcoming place of safety for all, offering opportunities to people fleeing violence and persecution. We are committed to being a fully inclusive university which actively recruits, supports and retains colleagues from all sectors of society. We value diversity as well as celebrate, support and thrive on the contributions of all of our employees and the communities they represent. We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from individuals who can complement our existing teams, we believe that success is built on having teams whose backgrounds and experiences reflect the diversity of our university and student population.

At Newcastle University we hold a Gold Athena Swan award in recognition of our good employment practices for the advancement of gender equality. We also hold a Race Equality Charter Bronze award in recognition of our work towards tackling race inequality in higher education REC. We are a Disability Confident employer and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role as part of the offer and interview scheme. In addition, we are a member of the Euraxess initiative supporting researchers in Europe.