| Job description | Senior Risk & Resilience Specialist
Contract Type: Permanent
Location: London
Salary: London based-c.£82,000 (more may be available for exceptional candidates + Civil Service Pension
Are you ready to play a pivotal role at the heart of government accountability?
The National Audit Office (NAO) supports Parliament in holding government to account and improving public services. The NAO https://www.nao.org.uk/corporate-information/nao-strategy-2025-2030/ sets two strategic outcomes: improving the productivity and resilience of public services and strengthening financial management and reporting across government.
About the role
As the Senior Risk & Resilience Specialist within the NAO’s Financial & Risk Management Insights team, you will play a pivotal role in shaping and strengthening risk and resilience practices across public services. This high‑profile role provides significant exposure to senior civil servants and other strategic stakeholders, offering the opportunity to shape insights that inform Parliament’s scrutiny of government and support improvements in public service delivery. Acting as the organisation’s specialist adviser on risk and resilience, you will provide expert guidance to both the NAO and government departments across Whitehall and Parliament, and the wider public sector, to shape good practice and drive continuous improvement. You will also build and sustain strong external relationships across government and communities of practice, including academia, think tanks and recognised thought leaders, to ensure NAO insights are informed by leading and emerging practice. The breadth and complexity of this role mean you will be trusted to deliver authoritative insights and make a transformative impact on public sector resilience and risk management.
Working within Financial and Risk Management (FaRM) Insights, you will lead and develop the NAO’s risk and resilience capability, provide advisory support to client service delivery teams, design and shape audit methodologies, curate good practice, and strengthen risk management and resilience practices across government, drawing on insights, good practice and lessons learned, through engagement, influence, collaboration.
This is an exceptional opportunity to contribute to the NAO’s ambition to improve the productivity and resilience of public services by generating authoritative risk and resilience insight that strengthens Parliament’s scrutiny of government.
HOW TO APPLY
To apply, candidates should submit no more than two sides of A4, clearly outlining their suitability and providing concrete examples of how they meet each of the five key shortlist criteria listed above. In addition, applicants are required to submit their CV alongside their supporting statement.
Key Criteria
• Demonstrable subject matter expertise and technical leadership in risk management and resilience: to credibly lead, shape and strengthen the NAO’s risk and resilience expertise.
• Insight generation and knowledge: to leverage subject matter expertise to distil complex risk and resilience activity into actionable insights matter expertise
• Influence, judgement and communication: to exercise independent judgement and influence senior stakeholders and experts
• Collaboration, networks and engagement: to operate effectively across a complex and varied range of stakeholders to establish and build sustainable and effective relationships
• Capability building and inclusive leadership: to build and nurture sustainable specialist capability, leading and managing by example
Selection Process
1. Application
Candidates are required to submit their CV and covering letter on the essential criteria above by Thursday 12nd March 2026.
2. Shortlisting
Initial shortlisting will focus on five key criteria to determine which applicants move forward.
4. Interview
Shortlisted candidates will be invited to the 1st stage- telephone interview, where their experience will be verified and explored in greater detail. Successful candidates will then be invited to the final 2nd stage Interview. Finalists will attend a stakeholder panel process, where they will be asked to deliver a short presentation and lead a discussion on a relevant topic to showcase their influence and communication skills. This will be followed by a competency and values-based interview.
5. Decision
The final decision-making process will take place week commencing on 13th April 2026.
Equal opportunities and diversity
Disability and Reasonable Adjustments
Applicants with a disability who wish their application to be considered under the Disability Confident scheme should confirm this when submitting their application. Under this scheme we guarantee an interview to an applicant with a disability who meets the minimum requirements for the role. You should also let our HR team know if you wish us to consider any Reasonable Adjustments at any stage of the process (HR Service Desk (HRServiceDesk@nao.org.uk).
Applicants will not be discriminated against on the grounds of any protected characteristic or any other extraneous factor.
Nationality Requirement:
• UK Nationals
• Nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• Nationals from the EU, EEA or Switzerland with (or eligible for) status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
Please note, we are not able to sponsor work visas or accept temporary visas as we are looking to hire on a permanent basis. Please contact the HR Service desk (hrservicedesk@nao.org.uk) should you have any questions on your nationality eligibility. |
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| Responsibilities | Key criteria and role responsibilities
Demonstrable subject matter expertise and technical leadership in risk management and resilience: to credibly lead, shape and strengthen the NAO’s risk and resilience expertise.
• Lead the NAO’s risk management and resilience work, providing authoritative specialist insight expertise and credible advisory support to client service delivery teams and senior stakeholders.
• Provide expert advice on risk management and resilience, and the integration of these practices into Value For Money (VFM) audit planning and delivery.
• Ability to see the bigger picture and interactions across public services, and how the NAO’s risk and resilience insights support wider government priorities, Parliamentary scrutiny and long‑term public value.
• Bring a strong understanding of public sector challenges in financial and risk management, and their implications for organisational and system resilience, underpinned by a solid grounding in risk management best practice. Demonstrate experience developing, maintaining and applying risk management approaches – including risk frameworks, risk appetite, horizon scanning, stress testing, scenario analysis – with experience in resilience-related areas such as business continuity, crisis management, operational, cyber, financial, and organisational resilience.
Insight generation and knowledge: to leverage subject matter expertise to distil complex risk and resilience activity into actionable insights matter expertise matter expertise matter expertise matter expertise
• Shape, develop and maintain the NAO’s risk and resilience knowledge, good practice, tools, and audit methodologies.
• Curate, develop and maintain authoritative insight on risk and resilience practices across government, drawing on VfM, financial audit, specialist insight teams and wider external evidence.
• Produce and share high-impact knowledge products – including good practice guidance, lessons learned reports, thematic insight publications, tools, training materials and other relevant resources – leveraging new technologies to enhance quality, accessibility and uptake.
• Keep abreast of emerging trends in risk and resilience, including cross-government systemic challenges, such as climate risk, cyber resilience, supply chain vulnerabilities and national-level risks, chain vulnerabilities and national chain vulnerabilities and national chain vulnerabilities and national
• Work closely with knowledge management teams to ensure effective capture, organisation and dissemination of relevant content.
Influence, judgement and communication: to exercise independent judgement and influence senior stakeholders and experts
• Drive delivery at pace, prioritising effectively and managing competing demands to deliver high‑quality, timely insight and advice to senior stakeholders and Parliament, particularly in fast‑moving, high‑profile or time‑critical contexts.
• Communicate key findings and insights clearly and confidently across government, Parliament, and to key stakeholders, including communities of practice, academia, think tanks and recognised thought leaders.
• Represent the NAO at relevant external forums to shape public sector risk and resilience practice and influence cross government approaches to risk and resilience. Sector risk and resilience practice and influence cross government sector risk and resilience practice and influence cross government sector risk and resilience practice and influence cross government sector risk and resilience practice and influence cross government sector risk and resilience practice and influence cross government
• Provide clear, evidence‑based advice to senior leaders, exercising independent and authoritative judgement to influence for positive impact.
Collaboration, networks and engagement: to operate effectively across a complex and varied range of stakeholders to establish and build sustainable and effective relationships
• Build and maintain internal networks across VfM, specialist Insight teams and financial audit, to enhance the NAO’s collective capability.
• Build and sustain strong external relationships across government and communities of practice, including academia, think tanks and recognised thought leaders, to ensure NAO insights are informed by leading and emerging practice. Build strong, collaborative working relationships across corporate services, financial audit, VfM and specialist insight teams.
Capability building and inclusive leadership: to build and nurture sustainable specialist capability, leading and managing by example
• Shape and deliver the FaRM’s learning pathway, leading on risk management and resilience, including distilling complex insight into accessible products and leading seminars, blogs, knowledge notes, articles and other internal learning interventions.
• Support staff development through training, mentoring, coaching, and contributing to personal development planning.
• Lead, manage and motivate diverse teams and individuals, supporting others to reach their potential and creating an inclusive, psychologically safe and high performing environment.
• Demonstrate credibility, expertise and the ability to bring together and synthesise insights from teams across the NAO, working collaboratively and comfortably across all levels of the organisation.
• Promote and champion the NAO’s diversity and inclusion strategy through leadership behaviour and team culture. |
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