About the job

Job summary

As part of Defence Digital, you will build and deliver services that have a real-life impact on the security and protection of the UK. You’ll become part of a supportive team doing important work that can’t be found anywhere else.

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Due to security and information access restriction, the role is only open to a sole BRITISH national.

This position is advertised at 37 hours per week. 

Job description

This Project Support Officer role delivers PMO programme and project support to agile, waterfall and hybrid projects in the Defensive Cyber and Cryptographic domains. The Project Support Officer is a key role, responsible for managing internal programme Governance, providing delivery assistance to the Programme and Project Managers, in conformance to the policy, governance and guidance issued from the DD Portfolio Team (DDPT).

The PMO is undergoing a period of internal transformation. You will be responsible for assisting the delivery of workstreams within this change activity, in addition to BAU.

Responsibilities include:

• Governance – Management and organisation of internal and external boards including preparation of packs, distribution to wider audience and tracking stakeholder attendance.
• Stakeholder – Manage professional relationships with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders, and act as lead point of contact for some external parties.
• Monitoring and reporting – Capture and analyse MI to support Programme board reporting and perform Business Intelligence to support the key Programme decision makers.
• Risks and Issues – Support programme and project staff with risk, issue, opportunity, dependency and assumption management activities.
• Planning and scheduling – Implement and maintain appropriate systems to enable effective planning and scheduling.
• Resource Planning – Support programme and project resource and workforce planning.

Person specification

You will need to be confident and able to work under pressure whilst always remaining polite and courteous. You will also need to have the ability to use a degree of initiative, and the ability to retain information to prioritise daily duties.

This job role is suitable for hybrid working, which is an informal, non-contractual and voluntary arrangement, blending a balance of attendance in the workplace (your permanent duty station) and working from home as a personal choice.  If you are successful, any opportunities for hybrid working will be discussed with you prior to you taking up your post.

Ideally you will already have some project management experience or qualification (such as APM or equivalent), but if not a willingness to develop and gain professional certification is essential. 

The successful candidate is required to carry out all their duties from a UK location and cannot do so from an overseas location at any time.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £35,290, Ministry of Defence contributes £9,528 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, Experience and Technical skills.

Application:

To apply, please complete the CV (to include: job history; qualification details and previous skills and experience) and personal statement template provided on the CS Jobs dashboard. Your statement will be read by the recruiting line manager, so it is essential that your statement includes evidence of the following criteria and is no more than 1250 words.

Each of the criteria has been identified by the manager as being important in this role and for that reason each one of the following will be scored  0-7 and make up part of your overall score to assess your suitability to be invited to interview:

• Experience of leading a team to deliver outputs in a project or programme environment.
• Ability to work to short deadlines and to prioritise accordingly, ensuring organisational tasks are carried out efficiently.
• Experience in the ability to produce, tailor and analyse high quality management information.
• Experience of managing professional relationships with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders.

Interview:

We’ll assess you against these Success Profiles Behaviours & Technical experience during the interview process:

Behaviours:

• Leadership
• Communicating and Influencing
• Working Together

Technical skills:

• Scheduling
• Risk and Issue Management
• Governance

  

Defence Digital operates an organisation model in which every individual belongs to a Government Profession. The successful applicant will be posted into one of the defined Government Professions on Standard Terms of Reference for the grade. Defence Digital reserves the right to move individuals between roles, within their allocated profession, to meet the needs of the business and in support of agile resourcing.

Within Defence Digital each profession is led by a Professional Head of Community who will lead professional development and support the Continuous Professional Development path for their group.

Strategic Command is going through a significant transformation programme which aims to improve the way the Command conducts its business and delivers for Defence and the nation. As a consequence of this, all posts within Strategic Command Headquarters and in time the wider organisation, are/will be subject to review and potential changes as we continuously improve across the period of the transformation programme. These changes may be minor or could be more substantive and will generate new opportunities.  Throughout, the Command’s transformation programme is committed to following the MOD’s framework on managing and supporting people through the change process and places an emphasis on early and open consultation and engagement with the Command’s personnel and Trade Unions. 

Our people are at the heart of everything we do at Defence Digital. It’s vital that our workforce reflects the diversity of both our audience and the wider society in the UK, so we’re proud to be an equal opportunities employer, and we actively seek candidates from a diverse set of backgrounds and communities. We also recognise the importance of a good work life balance, so we do everything we can to accommodate flexible working, including part-time and job shares for all our roles. Please let us know in your application or at any stage throughout the process if this is something you want to explore.

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. If you need to advise us that you need additional help or reasonable adjustments for the recruitment process, please contact: DBSCivPers-Resourcingteam3@mod.gov.uk  

As a result of the changes to the UK immigration rules which came into effect on 1 January 2021, the Ministry of Defence will only offer sponsorship for a skilled worker visa under the points based system, where a role has been deemed to be business critical.  

The role currently being advertised has not been assessed as business critical and is therefore NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points based system. Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn. 

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.

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.