About the job

Job summary

The Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) finds and funds exploitable innovation to support UK Defence and Security mission quickly and effectively, and support UK prosperity. Our vision is for the UK to maintain its strategic advantage over its adversaries and build a safer future for the country and our people.

DASA is part of the Ministry of Defence (MOD) but we work across all Government departments who have responsibility for national security. We are serious about making a difference to those on the front lines in the armed forces, police and elsewhere who protect us, and we are committed to supporting the innovators who can help.

DASA has four mutually supporting teams, Outreach, Operations, Partnership & Impact and Support Services. This role is within the Operations Team running our main competition processes.

You will join a team of DASA Delivery Managers who help Government customers to identify solutions to their priority challenges from within the wider supply base. You will be supported by other DASA staff across the teams, to design and deliver these services ensuring that what DASA provides meets customers’ innovation needs.

Could you help us by undertaking this exciting and dynamic management role?

Dstl recognises the importance of diversity and inclusion as people from diverse backgrounds bring fresh ideas. We are committed to building an inclusive working environment in which each employee fulfils their potential and maximises their contribution.

Job description

In this role you will:

• Design and deliver funding cycles, maintaining strict deadlines.
• Undertake engagement with, and management of, defence and security customers and stakeholders relevant to your tasks.
• Lead delivery of the overall service from definition of the problem space to award of contract, ensuring it is managed to time, cost and quality, including appropriate monitoring and reporting.
• Support our Outreach team to reach out to relevant suppliers from industry and academia to support your service.
• Work with our Partnerships & Impact team to ensure that we are accelerating ideas in a way that maximises the potential for exploitation.
• Work with our Support Services team to ensure events, communications and logistical support are integrated with our service delivery.
• Work with Dstl’s Commercial and Intellectual Property (IP) teams to ensure timely placement of contracts with suppliers and compliance with relevant legal and regulatory obligations.
• Work with Project Managers from Dstl and across Government, and their wider support teams, beyond the initial point of contracting, to maintain an oversight of progress and where DASA can further support.
• Work at pace and to tight deadlines to achieve what is required of this role, whilst maintaining close, trusting relationships with those you work with. You will be a team player who is focused on delivery, and is comfortable operating in a high pressured and demanding environment.

You will become an employee of Dstl but working for DASA which reports to Director Defence Innovation within MOD Finance and Military Capability. You will be line managed by one of the DASA Delivery Leads who is also a Dstl employee. 

Person specification

We are looking for someone who has:

• A passion for innovation; wanting to help customers quickly and effectively find solutions to meet their most pressing challenges. This will include an ability to spot areas of mutual interest across customers, making the linkages and avoiding duplication of effort.
• The organisational skills, leadership skills and enthusiasm to design and deliver bespoke services including competitions, market investigations, hackathons, or other services to meet the requirements of defence and security customers.
• Consultancy and facilitation skills to support our customers in exploring and curating their challenges, ensuring open mindsets and embracing diversity of thought.
• The ability to balance the delivery of longer term tasks with the ability to react to quick-turnaround tasks.
• A range of effective communication skills including: development of publishable content for our website, provision of clear and defendable guidance and feedback and internal communications such as progress updates and briefs to the Delivery Leads, Senior Management Team and key stakeholders as appropriate.
• People skills to develop good working relationships with the other parts of the wider defence and security innovation ecosystem, including the Defence Innovation Unit and Front Line Commands Innovation Hubs, a range of security customers and Government departments as well as with the expert assessors, moderators, technical partners and project managers who help inform the down-selection of successful proposals and deliver contracted proposals.
• Commercial awareness to support Commercial Services to ensure timely placement of contracts with successful suppliers.
• Good reflective and creative skills to suggest improvements to current processes and contribute to the development of novel service offerings.
• The ability to be a team player and contribute to the development of the team including the directing and mentoring of Associate Delivery Managers to support delivery.

Important Information:

Our work in defence, security and intelligence requires our employees to be UK Nationals who are able to gain a high level of security clearance to undertake the projects we are involved in to protect us from security threats. For this reason, only UK Nationals will be able to apply for this role. If you are an international or dual-national candidate, and you think you have the skills we need, please consider applying to any of our government, security or defence partners.

This role will require full UK security clearance and you should have resided in the UK for the past 5 years. For some roles Developed Vetting will also be required, in this case you should have resided in the UK for the past 10 years.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £35,970, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory contributes £9,711 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

We want you to have your best chance of success in our recruitment process, so If at any stage of the application process you would like help or assistance please contact the Dstl Recruitment Team dstlrecruitment@dstl.gov.uk and we will do all we can to support you.

Sifting will take place week commencing 8th January with successful candidates being invited to attend an interview via MS Teams week commencing 5th February.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

Open to UK nationals only.

This job is not open to candidates who hold a dual nationality.

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.