Head of Controls Transformation

London, England, United Kingdom

6/28/2025

Job Description

Costain's Group Risk and Assurance team has a unique opportunity for an interim Head of Controls Transformation to Lead transformation efforts targeting the development of the Costain internal control framework, including:

• Selection of material controls (in accordance with UK corporate governance code provision 29) informed by (a) existing processes, governance and controls being used to manage group risks, and (b) assurance outputs including from Internal Audit
• Work with material control owners to plan, coordinate and implement activities to improve control design and/or operation, and to establish methods of evaluating control effectiveness
• Coordinate, monitor and report on controls transformation programme progress via Architecture Review Board
• Agree interface / alignment with digital transformation programme, ensuring controls requirements are captured and dependencies identified and managed
• Ensure all material controls (financial, commercial, SHE, cyber / IT and governance) are communicated and clearly understood
• Educate and improve understanding of controls across the business, including key control types, their role in managing risk etc.
• Develop a framework for the coordination of cross-functional assurance activities, ensuring these are focused on risk priorities, including compliance (CAVs), Internal Audit and functional (2LoD) assurance activities
• Develop and setup method for reporting on overall control effectiveness, ensuring this meets UK corporate governance requirements and supports the board’s annual declaration on material controls
• Set up the process for planning and delivering multi-disciplinary assurance reviews where required to evaluate specific contracts / teams or processes / controls
  
  

Responsibilities

• Builds strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders, using influence and negotiation skills to ensure outcomes relying on other functions / teams are delivered
• Autonomy: able to plan and execute complex tasks with minimal supervision, whilst ensuring alignment with overall strategy is maintained
• Strong team player, actively supports others with their deliverables to ensure the team delivers its objectives.
• Leadership: ability to forge and lead multi-disciplinary, temporary teams comprising representatives from disparate functions / business units to deliver discrete activities, for example assurance reviews
• Discrete: aware of sensitivities of information and how to manage and communicate for different audiences
• Confident in organising and delivering large facilitated workshops (virtually or in person) and adept at engaging senior stakeholders
• Excellent communication skills with ability to present and explain complex information to a diverse audience including senior managers, directors, and executive board members.
  
  

Qualifications

Skills & experience

Essential

• Experience of defining and maintaining an organisational control framework
• Experience of developing and implementing measures to monitor and provide evidence of the effectiveness of controls
• Experience of leading business improvement / transformational change initiatives
• Good understanding of UK corporate governance and regulation applicable to PLCs, with related requirements for controls, assurance, reporting and disclosure
• Established project management skills: ability to plan, budget for and manage projects to agreed cost and time targets
• Experience of business planning, budgeting / target setting, finance processes
  
  

Preferred

• Experience of controls framework development within a comparable business (infrastructure, construction, energy, manufacturing, etc)
• Experience of planning, coordinating and leading 2 LoD assurance activities at operational level
  
  

About Us

Costain helps to improve people’s lives with integrated, leading edge, smart infrastructure solutions across the UK’s energy, water, transportation and defence markets. We help our clients improve their business performance by increasing capacity, improving customer service, safeguarding security, enhancing resilience, decarbonising and delivering increased efficiency. Our vision is to be the UK’s leading smart infrastructure solutions company. We will achieve this by focusing on blue chip clients whose major spending plans are underpinned by strategic national needs, regulatory commitments, legislation or essential performance requirements. We offer our clients leading edge solutions that are digitally optimised through the following five services which cover the whole lifecycle of their assets: future-shaping strategic consultancy; consultancy and advisory; digital technology solutions; asset optimisation and complex programme delivery. Our culture and values underpin everything we do.

Costain appreciate the time and effort taken when applying for one of our positions but, due to the high volume of responses, we are unable to provide individual feedback on candidates at application phase.

We do share individual feedback following an interview .

A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that disclose they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer.

It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people.

For more details please go to the Disability Confident website:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/disability-confident-campaign