Head of Department AI & Technology Security Operations

About the FCA

At the FCA were creating a fair and more resilient financial system. Were establishing more transparent relationships between financial services and customers building trust in financial markets and protecting vulnerable consumers.

Were currently on an exciting journey as we drive forward significant organisational people process and AI and technology transformation to become a more forward-thinking proactive regulator. We will use data more effectively to drive better regulatory decisions and build greater cohesion across our broad financial services remit.

Significant improvements in digital enablement business intelligence market data and information management maturity are all being pursued to maintain our position as a world leader in financial services regulation.
In March 2025 the FCA launched a new 5-year strategy to deepen trust rebalance risk support growth and improve lives. The FCA will focus on four priorities:

• Be a smarter regulator; predictable purposeful and proportionate. The FCA will improve its processes and embrace technology to become more efficient and effective.

• Support sustained economic growth by enabling investment innovation and ensuring the continued competitiveness of the UKs world-leading financial services.

• Help consumers navigate their financial lives by working with industry to boost trust product innovation and ensuring the right information and support is available for people to take financial decisions.

• Fight financial crime focusing on those who seek to use the fact they are regulated to do harm. It will go further to disrupt criminals and support firms to be an effective line of defence.

The Role
We have an exciting opportunity for a permanent Head of AI & Technology Security Operations. This role is designed for an experienced manager senior technical specialist or existing Head of Department with proven experience of leading teams and operating at scale in a rapidly evolving digital and AI-driven operating environment. The successful candidate will strengthen their strategic and operational leadership while overseeing high-tempo service-critical digital and AI operations.

The Head of AI & Technology Security Operations is accountable for ensuring that the FCAs technology estate including rapidly expanding AI capabilities is robust secure and able to withstand detect and recover from disruption failure or exploitation.

The role brings together operational resilience infrastructure governance supplier oversight and enterprise technology and AI-specific vulnerability management ensuring that both traditional infrastructure and AI-enabled systems are designed operated and governed to remain safe dependable and trustworthy under stress.

Working in close collaboration with C&IR (Cyber and Information Resilience) this HoD plays a critical leadership role in implementing and managing the technology controls needed to anticipate and mitigate AI-driven risks including model vulnerabilities upstream dependency risks data poisoning adversarial attacks and control failures arising from increased autonomy and scale.

This role will be responsible for leading motivating and directing the department (70FTE) across London Leeds & Edinburgh; and managing the FCAs critical Digital and AI systems including AI live service Service Desk Incident Management Cyber Security Operations and Supplier Management.

This is a fantastic development opportunity which will help to build expertise experience and career skills in a senior challenging and highly visible role.

The role will be reporting to the Chief Information Officer and sit in the wider Data Technology and Innovation Division.

What will the candidate get from the role
As Head of AI & Technology Security Operations you will join the DTI senior leadership team at a pivotal moment in the FCAs evolution supporting its ambition to become a forward-thinking AI-enabled and data-driven regulator. You will lead a skilled multidisciplinary department working across high-impact digital and AI initiatives to strengthen technology and AI risk management improve resilience and enable the safe adoption of emerging technologies. Collaborating closely with Cyber & Information Resilience DTI leadership product teams and front-line divisions you will play a key role in driving meaningful change and reinforcing the FCAs reputation as a trusted innovative regulator.

Key responsibilities will include:

• Leading the development and operation of the FCAs AI vulnerability and threat management capability identifying and mitigating risks linked to AI model weaknesses adversarial threats automation and agentic AI systems.

• Establishing clear frameworks and controls for the safe deployment of AI including human oversight monitoring explainability version control containment and safe shutdown mechanisms.

• Maintaining effective AI governance including ownership inventory management risk classification and oversight of AI-enabled services across the organisation.

• Acting as accountable owner for technology and AI risk including control design testing assurance activity and risk acceptance decisions.

• Providing clear metrics-led reporting to senior committees and Board-level forums on risk posture emerging threats control effectiveness and material gaps.

• Overseeing critical third-party and AI supply chain dependencies including cloud platforms AI model providers managed services and data sources.

• Ensuring supplier concentration and substitution risks are understood monitored and managed effectively.

• Owning technology continuity strategies across data digital and AI services ensuring critical services can withstand disruption degrade safely and recover effectively.

• Overseeing scenario testing failover design recovery validation and core service operations including incident problem and change management.

• Leading and developing multidisciplinary teams across technology risk AI operations supplier management continuity and live service operations.

• Building strong capability clear accountability and a culture where secure resilient and dependable systems are a shared responsibility.

• Representing the FCA externally with government regulators industry bodies and standards organisations on technology AI and operational resilience.

• Managing team budget headcount resources and IT supplier spend of approximately 80m.

• Championing innovation continuous improvement and the safe adoption of emerging technologies to strengthen resilience efficiency and value for money.

This is a high-profile leadership role with enterprise-scale accountability operating at the intersection of AI cyber technology supplier and operational risk with a direct contribution to the FCAs regulatory credibility and public trust.

Skills/Experience Required
Were proud to be a Disability Confident Employer and therefore people or individuals with disabilities and long-term conditions who best meet the minimum criteria for a role will go through to the next stage of the recruitment cases of high application volumes we may progress applicants whose experience most closely matches the roles key requirements. (To learn more about the Disability Confident Scheme Click Here)

Minimum

• Hands on experience however recent with AI or agentic AI technologies.

• Familiarity with UK regulatory frameworks relating to operational resilience critical third parties cyber resilience and AI governance.

• Experience within financial services government regulatory or other highly regulated environments

Essential

• Strong stakeholder management capable of engaging with and developing strong trusting relationships with stakeholders from across a business organisation and at senior levels as well as third parties.

• Evidence of managing supplier relationships across a complex supplier and contract environment

• Knowledge of NIST AI RMF ISO 42001 ISO 27001 DORA or similar frameworks.

• An ability to manage and control risk embed good practice and drive change where necessary.

• In-depth working knowledge of multiple domains including Engineering DevOps AI Cyber Security and Cloud technology platforms.

• Experience of driving change and process efficiency/improvements delivering value for money and innovation.

• Ability to inclusively lead a large group of talented individuals with a wide variety of professional expertise experience and backgrounds.

The FCAs Values & Diversity
Our ambition is to create a diverse and inclusive workplace that reflects the society we serve helping us to be a better regulator. We serve the public and our decisions directly affect the wellbeing of people businesses and the UK economy. So our values matter. They represent the culture we aspire to every day guiding our judgements building trust and helping us to be At our best.

The FCA is committed to achieving greater diversity across all levels of our organisation. Given this we particularly welcome applications from women disabled and minority ethnic candidates as under-represented groups.

As an inclusive employer we are open to considering flexible working arrangements including job shares. Please inform your recruiter if you wish to apply for this role on a flexible basis.

As part of the FCAs on-going commitment to develop our national presence most of our vacancies are now open to working in our Edinburgh Leeds or London offices. This means that as part of the application process you will be able to select your preference of which office location you would like to work from.

Application Support

We want to remove any possible barriers and are committed to providing a wide range of reasonable adjustments so that you can keep the focus on your conversations and be at your best. If you have an accessibility requirement disability or condition that means you might require changes to the recruitment process please contact your recruiter to discuss this further.

Our aim is to make you application as easy as possible and your recruiter will be happy to work with you to make any necessary arrangements where possible.

Benefits
Our competitive benefits scheme gives you the opportunity to create a personalised benefits package tailored to suit your lifecycle. You can this this allowance to purchase additional benefits such as dental or cycle to work or you have the option to top up your base salary by taking this as cash. Core benefits that you will receive as standard are:

• 30 days holiday per year plus bank holidays

• Private healthcare with Bupa

• A non-contributory Pension of at least 8% of basic salary each month (there are several contribution levels that increase depending on your age- up to 12% a month once you reach age 35)

• Life assurance of eight times your basic salary

• Income protection

Conflicts of interest
All applicants to the FCA are required to demonstrate that they do not have other interests likely to conflict with their responsibilities as an employee of the FCA. You should declare any potential conflict of interest as early as possible in the selection process and also disclose information or personal connections that if appointed might be open to misperception.

Any potential conflicts of interest will not prevent candidates going forward to interview but may if appropriate be explored during the interview to establish how the candidate would address the issue(s) should they be successful in their application.

Useful information

• The FCA has retained Global Resourcing to manage this role; send applications directly to Global Resourcing.

• Applications must be submitted directly to the search firm.

• The closing date for this role is 23:55 on Sunday 4th October.

• Selection will be via a two-stage interview and psychometric assessment

• If successful you will be required to obtain and retain SC Clearance.

• Colleagues spend a minimum of 50% of their working time in the office each month (60% for Directors and Executive Directors) across our London Leeds and Edinburgh offices.

• The salary range for the role is Londonand National.