Cyber Operations purpose is to support safe care and build public trust by building NHS England’s cyber resilience and enabling the wider health system to be cyber resilient, supporting Transformation Directorate’s purpose of delivering the best care and outcomes for the NHS.
The Cyber Operations Sub-directorate Consists Of 4 Operational Areas
- Cyber Security Operations Unit (CSOU) - SIO
- Cyber Delivery Unit (CDU).
- Cyber Improvement Programme.
- Chief Information Security Office Function (CISO)
The CISO Function consists of four teams, these are CISO Portfolio Office, Secure (by Design), Security Assurance, and Security Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC).
The post of Cyber Security Lead – Security Assurance has been awarded a Recruitment and Retention Premia (RRP) in response to current labour market conditions. In recognition of this, the role attracts an additional monthly RRP payment equal to 30% per annum.
Please be aware that RRP is non-contractual and subject to review.
Role
This role is part of the Security Assurance team, which acts as a second line of defence and provides evidence-based confidence in the effectiveness of NHS England’s cyber security controls, processes, and systems. It supports informed assurance by:
- Evaluating control effectiveness through testing, validation, and review against defined security frameworks (e.g., NCSC CAF, ISO 27001, NIST).
- Conducting assurance reviews across systems, suppliers, and internal functions to identify risks, control gaps, and areas for improvement.
- Driving remediation by working with control owners and delivery teams to ensure findings are addressed and closed effectively.
- Providing assurance ratings based on the maturity and implementation of controls, feeding into governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) reporting.
- Supporting decision-making by presenting findings in a structured, prioritised manner aligned to business risk and impact.
- Ensuring compliance with regulatory and organisational standards, including DSPT, NIS Regulations, GovAssure, and internal security policies.
- Enabling continuous improvement by identifying systemic issues, trends, and opportunities to uplift security posture across the organisation.
The NHS England Board Have Set Out The Top-level Purpose For The New Organisation To Lead The NHS In England To Deliver High-quality Services For All, Which Will Inform The Detailed Design Work And We Will Achieve This Purpose By
- Enabling local systems and providers to improve the health of their people and patients and reduce health inequalities.
- Making the NHS a great place to work, where our people can make a difference and achieve their potential.
- Working collaboratively to ensure our healthcare workforce has the right knowledge, skills, values and behaviours to deliver accessible, compassionate care
- Optimising the use of digital technology, research, and innovation
- Delivering value for money.
If you would like to know more or require further information, please visit https://www.england.nhs.uk/.
Colleagues with a contractual office base are expected to spend, on average, at least 40% of their time working in-person.
Staff recruited from outside the NHS will usually be appointed at the bottom of the pay band.
If you are successful at interview, we will run an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) in the Electronic Staff Record system (ESR). This transfer gathers valuable information from a previous or current NHS employer to support the onboarding process, including; statutory and mandatory competency status, Continuous Service Dates (CSD), and annual leave entitlement. You will have the opportunity throughout the recruitment process to inform us if you do not consent.
For further details / informal visits contact: Name: Nick Cooney Job title: Security Principal Email address:
[email protected]
