Lead Security Risk Assurance Manager
| Posting date: | 08 October 2025 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £57,946 to £68,205 per year |
| Additional salary information: | This post currently attracts a Recruitment and Retention Allowance of £7,000 per annum. |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 20 October 2025 |
| Location: | Manchester |
| Company: | Government Recruitment Service |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 387403/6 |
Summary
DWP is seeking a Lead Security Risk Assurance Manager to drive supply chain security excellence across one the UK’s largest public service departments.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is responsible for welfare, pensions, and child maintenance policy. We deliver a range of critical services to approximately 20 million customers. In this influential role, you’ll deliver impartial, expert insight to senior leaders and stakeholders, ensuring that strategic security risks are identified, understood, and effectively managed. This is your opportunity to make a real impact, embed data-driven assurance, and strengthen resilience across vital public services.
You will join the Supply Chain Security function in DWP’s Security & Data Protection (S&DP) directorate, one of the largest security teams in government. We are responsible for delivering a wide range of specialist security services, solutions and capability to DWP’s 80,000 staff, Arms’ Length and Public Bodies, and industry partners to ensure the secure and resilient delivery of welfare services.
We’re a huge organisation. That means a real variety of work, challenge and opportunity. And we strongly believe that diversity and inclusion is not only the right thing to do but is also essential for a thriving and successful organisation. We know that diverse teams bring a wide range of perspectives, experiences and ideas, which lead to better decision-making, creativity and innovation. We have a culture where differences are celebrated and our people feel supported, included and empowered.
Join us and be part of an organisation at the leading edge of government security that truly values diversity and inclusion and makes a real-world positive impact.
As a supply chain security specialist, you’ll play a critical role in safeguarding DWP’s services by assuring the security posture of contracts and suppliers. You’ll lead the identification and analysis of supply chain risks, translating complex data and threat intelligence into clear, actionable insights for decision-makers. Working closely with commercial, delivery, and security teams, you’ll drive targeted risk management interventions that strengthen resilience, ensure compliance, and protect sensitive assets across a diverse supplier landscape. Your work will directly support strategic assurance efforts and help shape a proactive, risk-aware culture across DWP and its partners.
Responsibilities will include:
Strategic and team leadership
- Lead by example, visibly and confidently engaging colleagues and stakeholders to support and deliver effective security risk and assurance capabilities
- Clearly define priorities, ensuring all risk analysis and assurance activities align with departmental and HMG strategic risk. Reflect priorities in measurable team objectives
- Identify opportunities for enhanced assurance of DWP’s supplier and known supply chain risks
- Continue to iterate the service to ensure we continue to meet end user needs, stakeholder requirements, and align to wider departmental risk and control assessment practices
- Inspire and develop team members, ensuring they are equipped with the skills and support needed to deliver high-quality outputs.
Pre-contract security assurance
- Oversee the delivery of timely pre-contract security assurance reviews of suppliers to DWP to inform contract award, risk mitigation and in-contract security risk management requirements.
Data-driven security risk analysis
- Lead and deliver a data-driven analysis to improve both contract- and enterprise-level decision-making, providing holistic and robust opinion on the security posture of people, processes, and technology
- Oversee the delivery of activities ranging from targeted contract or supplier-focused risk assessments to inform the management of specific risks, through to enterprise-level assessments of DWP exposure to security risk from its vast and complex supply chain
- Deliver quarterly strategic updates to DG-level customers on supply chain security and timely responses to any urgent and ad-hoc requests, balancing the need for accuracy with the necessity of quick decision-making.
Stakeholder engagement
- Establish and maintain relationships with key stakeholders in Commercial, Digital and other enabling functions to collectively identify and address supply chain security risks
- Provide input at senior governance levels, ensuring security outcomes are fully understood and considered
- Clearly communicate analytical results and complex concepts to non-expert audiences, including senior stakeholders, to secure buy-in and support for recommendations
- Champion supply chain security and risk management services across DWP, particularly within Commercial Directorate
- Contribute to the development of a cross-government supply chain security and resilience community of practice.
We have a supportive and collaborative team culture in ESRM. With a fantastic induction programme and year-round learning opportunities, we’ll provide you with the skills and experience you need to be confident in your role. We welcome applications from skilled and knowledgeable security professionals and can support you in gaining relevant qualifications and certifications (such as ISO27005 Risk Manager, ISO27001 Lead Auditor or CompTIA+) if you don’t already hold them.
Given the geographic spread of our team, DWP customers, cross-government stakeholders and industry suppliers, you'll need to be willing to travel to other DWP locations, with periodic overnight stays required.
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