Head of Risk and Operations

About The Job Job summary Discover a career in your hands at HMRC. Whether you're seeking purpose, growth, or a workplace that gives you a true sense of belonging, hear from some of our employees as they share their story about what it's really like to work at HMRC. Visit our YouTube channel to watch the full series and come and discover your potential. Our team is rapidly growing as we invest in new technologies and capabilities, and we are in search of enthusiastic individuals who can help us in achieving our mission. We are continually improving the service we give to our customers and, in line with this, we are creating a new response and management team within the HMRC Fraud Prevention Centre. The Fraud Prevention Centre (FPC) is a strategic capability within HMRC Security, designed to safeguard customers and the organisation against identity-related fraud and emerging threats. Its mission is built on three interconnected pillars: Protection, Detection, and Response, all underpinned by advanced threat intelligence and customer support. The Centre operates across multiple functional areas, including Proactive Protection, Customer Support & Response, and Strategy & Advisory, to deliver a holistic approach to fraud prevention. Job Description As G6 Head of Risk & Operations, you will lead the operational delivery of the Fraud Prevention Centre (FPC), driving a high-performing, integrated operating model across risk, performance, communications, corporate delivery, and organisational capability. You will bring together these functions to deliver coherent, data-driven fraud prevention outcomes, ensuring insight is translated into clear decisions, prioritisation, and measurable impact, unifying activity across teams and telling the FPC story. Risk and Operations will build and shape the developing FPC, shaping the culture, and expectations, providing frameworks and standards for delivery, continuously building the capability of the FPC. This includes leading the end-to-end operating environment: from strategic communications and external handling, through risk management, control effectiveness and performance analytics, to corporate planning, financial stewardship, and operational resilience. You will also establish a single, trusted approach to quality and knowledge management, embedding consistent processes, playbooks, and service standards, while building the capability, capacity, and specialist skills required to sustain delivery. Through leadership, collaboration and pace-setting, you will ensure the FPC can respond decisively to emerging fraud threats while maintaining consistency, quality, and confidence across senior stakeholders, partners, and customers. Person specification You will bring strong leadership of multi-disciplinary teams in complex, high-profile environments, with the ability to set direction, prioritise effectively, and deliver across competing demands while maintaining pace, quality, and control. You will demonstrate excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills, with experience aligning priorities across organisational boundaries and translating complex operational, technical, and risk information into clear, actionable insight for senior decision-makers. You will have strong capability in risk and performance management, using data, metrics, and structured frameworks to assess control effectiveness, identify and escalate risks, and drive continuous improvement. You will bring a track record of building high-performing teams and organisational capability, including workforce planning, recruitment, and development of specialist skills, alongside the ability to set clear expectations for performance, accountability, and quality. You will also demonstrate excellent communication and sound judgement, ensuring clarity, consistency, and credibility across internal communications, senior briefings, and external outputs in a highly scrutinised environment. Key Accountabilities Include • Provide strategic leadership across Risk & Operations, setting direction and priorities aligned to FPC mission outcomes and organisational objectives. • Set and lead the integrated operating model for FPC Risk & Operations. Establish and lead a coherent, scalable operating framework that enables consistent and effective delivery across all services, defining clear standards, processes, templates, and controls. Ensure activities are unified through common ways of working and governance, and drive continuous improvement and maturity across all areas to maintain high-quality, consistent, and fit-for-purpose delivery. • Lead strategic communications, engagement, and messaging for FPC. Working in partnership with HMRC Communications specialists, establish and maintain communications frameworks and libraries that enable accurate and consistent victim correspondence, internal communications, senior briefings, and responses to FOIs, Parliamentary Questions and media. Ensure all communications are aligned, authoritative, and drive effective customer education, guidance, and behaviour change. • Lead corporate planning, financial management, and operational resilience. Own oversight of budgets, business planning, benefits realisation, and business continuity, working with peers to ensure resources are prioritised effectively and the FPC remains resilient and responsive to changing demand and threat conditions. • Lead the evolution and application of a data-driven risk and performance management system. Define and continuously mature a framework for risk identification, control effectiveness, data collection, and performance analytics, embedding a threat- and control-led approach across all activity. Ensure incident data, vulnerabilities, and outcomes are mapped to kill chain threats and supported by KRIs/KPIs aligned to control effectiveness. Deliver authoritative ExCom reporting on identity fraud risks, control coverage, and operational impacts-driving clear prioritisation, escalation, and timely intervention. • Embed quality assurance, standards, and operational consistency. Establish and continuously improve internal processes, playbooks, templates, and service quality monitoring approaches, ensuring consistent, high-quality delivery and repeatable standards across all operational activities. • Champion and lead a single, trusted knowledge and quality environment across FPC. Ensure operational guidance, standards, performance insight, and learning are governed and maintained as a single source of truth, embedding quality assurance, version control, monitoring, and continuous improvement to enable consistent delivery and effective decision-making across FPC. • Translate operational data into decision-making insight and action. Ensure fraud performance metrics, risk indicators, and incident data are synthesised into clear, actionable insight for senior leaders, driving prioritisation, escalation, and timely intervention across the fraud threat landscape. • Build organisational capability: workforce planning, recruitment, onboarding, learning, and talent development across the directorate, including role-specific skills in fraud operations, risk, assurance, data, and knowledge management. • Maintain strong stakeholder relationships, influencing at senior levels and partnering across functions to share intelligence, align communications, strengthen controls, improve operational readiness, and deliver agreed fraud prevention outcomes. Essential Criteria: • Strong leadership of multi-disciplinary teams, with experience creating an inclusive, high-performing culture and delivering through others in complex, fast-paced environments. • Proven operational leadership capability, with the ability to set direction, prioritise competing demands, and deliver outcomes to clear standards, timescales, and governance expectations. • Strong risk and performance management expertise, including experience of using data, metrics, and structured frameworks to assess control effectiveness, identify and escalate risk, and drive evidence-based decisions and continuous improvement. • Experience designing, implementing, or evolving operating models and ways of working, including establishing standards, processes, controls, and governance to enable consistent, scalable delivery. • Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills, with experience working across organisational boundaries to align priorities, resolve complexity, and deliver shared outcomes with senior stakeholders. • Strong communication skills, with the ability to translate complex operational, technical, or risk information into clear, audience-appropriate messaging, including inputs to senior briefings and external outputs. • Experience of financial and resource management, including planning, prioritisation, and ensuring delivery aligns to organisational objectives and constraints. • Ability to lead and embed change, including shaping new approaches, driving adoption of consistent standards, and delivering sustainable improvements across people, process, and performance. Desirable Criteria: • Experience working in fraud, cyber security, financial risk, assurance or similarly regulated operational environments. • Knowledge of service management, quality assurance, and continuous improvement approaches (e.g., ITIL, Lean, Agile) and how these can be applied in operational settings. • Experience designing or delivering communications/awareness campaigns across a range of internal, customer, business, or public facing audiences, including through SharePoint. • Strong data literacy, including asking the right questions, use of effective data visualisation and dashboarding to drive decision-making, performance management, and service improvement. • Experience with workforce planning, recruitment and capability development for specialist and technical roles. • Relevant professional qualifications (e.g., finance, risk, audit, project/programme management) or equivalent experience. Further Location Information Please ensure that you only apply for a location that you are willing and able to work from, as we will only make one offer of employment. Any additional notes included in a 'Further Location Preferences (optional)' field within the application form, will not be considered. Please be aware that you cannot change your location preference after submitting your application. Office closures For more information on where you might be working, review this information on our locations . If your location preference is for one of the following sites, it's important to note that these are not long-term sites for HMRC and we will require you to move to a new building in the future, subject to our location strategy and the applicable employee policies at that time. These Sites Are • Benton Park View, Newcastle - moving to Pilgrims Quarter, Newcastle • Telford Plaza, Telford - moving to Parkside Court, Telford You will be given more information about what this means at the job offer stage. Leeds Locations Moves Adjustment Payment will be available for this role, provided the successful applicant is a current HMRC colleague in Bradford and meets the eligibility requirements outlined in the HMRC's Moves Adjustment Payment guidance. Benefits Alongside your salary of £71,725, HM Revenue and Customs contributes £20,778 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window). HMRC operates both Flexible and Hybrid Working policies, allowing you to balance your work and personal commitments. We welcome applications from those who need to work a more flexible arrangement and will agree to requests where possible, considering our operational and customer service needs. We offer a generous leave allowance, starting at 25 days and increasing by a day for every year of qualifying service up to a maximum of 30 days. • Pension - We make contributions to our colleagues' Alpha pension equal to at least 28.97% of their salary. • Family friendly policies. • Personal support. • Coaching and development. To find out more about HMRC benefits and find out what it's really like to work for HMRC hear from our insiders or visit Thinking of joining the Civil Service Things you need to know Artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use. Selection process details This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window) , and will assess your Strengths and Experience. How To Apply As part of the application process, you will be asked to provide the following: • A name-blind CV including your job history, previous skills and experience, and full qualification details. • A 1000-word Personal Statement. Your Personal Statement should be used to describe how your skills and experience would be suitable for the advertised role, making reference to the essential criteria and person specification outlined in the advert. Please complete a separate statement (Max 250 words) for the Desirable Criteria where applicable. This is not essential for the role but may be considered by the vacancy-holder where candidates have the same scores at interview. Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form. Sift In the event of a large number of applications being received, an initial sift may be held on your CV. At full sift your CV, and your Personal Statement will be assessed, with the successful candidates being invited to interview. We may also raise the score required at any stage of the process if we receive a high number of applications. Interview During the panel interview, your experience will be assessed, and you will be asked strength-based questions to also explore what you enjoy and your motivations relevant to the job role. This Is An Example Of a Strengths-based Question "It is often said that the customer's needs should come first. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?" There is no expectation or requirement for you to prepare for the strengths-based questions in advance of the interview, though you may find it helpful to spend some time reflecting on what you enjoy doing and what you do well. Interviews will take place via video link. Sift and interview dates to be confirmed. Eligibility Please take extra care to tick the correct boxes in the eligibility sections of your application form . Mistakes sometimes happen but if you contact us later than two working days (Monday-Friday) before the vacancy closes, we may not be able to reopen your application for you. If you do make a mistake with your eligibility form, or have withdrawn yourself in error and need your application reinstated whilst the campaign is still live, please contact us via: unitybusinessservicesrecruitmentresults@hmrc.gov.uk - Use the subject line to insert appropriate wording for example - 'Please re-open my application - [insert vacancy ref] & vacancy closing date [insert date]'. To check that you are eligible to apply for this role, please review the eligibility information before submitting your application . Exceptionally, candidates who are not successful at this grade may be considered for appointment to similar roles at a lower grade where the eligibility criteria are met. If this applies, we will contact you directly. Sponsorship We have assessed this role against both Home Office and HMRC criteria and we are unable to offer sponsorship for a Skilled Worker Visa. This means the vacancy is not open to applicants who require visa sponsorship. The HMRC app can help you with your application The HMRC app can provide you with your past 5 years' employment history, making the process of filling in your application quicker and easier. If successful in your application, you will need your National Insurance number for the onboarding process. Download the HMRC app now and save your National Insurance number to your digital phone wallet. How to download the HMRC app and sign up for an account Download the free HMRC app from the App Store or Google Play store. If you have an HMRC online account already, sign straight in using your ID and password. If not, you can prove your identity by answering some questions or providing your photo ID. You'll then be able to access the app quickly and easily by signing in using a 6-digit PIN, your fingerprint, or facial recognition. You can find guidance for technical issues on GOV.UK: Technical support with HMRC online services . Reserve List A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made for the same or similar roles - if this applies to you, we'll let you know via your Civil Service Jobs account. Merit List After interview, a single merit list will be created, and you will only be considered for posts in locations you have expressed a preference for. Appointments will be made in strict merit order in line with the set number of roles in each location. Criminal Record Check Applications received from candidates with a criminal record are considered fairly in accordance with the DBS Code of Practice and the Recruitment of ex-offenders Policy. Hybrid working at HMRC HMRC is an office-based organisation, and colleagues are expected to spend 60% of their working time in the office. Our offices provide opportunity for interaction, collaboration which aids learning and development and a sense of community. Where the role allows it, and where the home environment is suitable, colleagues can work from home for up to 2 days a week, averaged over a calendar month (or a proportionate amount of time for colleagues who work less than full time). Reasonable Adjustments We want to make sure no one is put at a disadvantage during our recruitment process. To assist you with this, we will reduce or remove any barriers where possible and provide additional support where appropriate. If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should: • Contact the UBS Recruitment team via unitybusinessservicesrecruitmentresults@hmrc.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs. Complete the "Assistance required" section in the "Additional requirements" page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you're deaf, a Language Service Professional. Technical Support If you are experiencing problems that cannot be resolved by our ' help ' section, then technical support is available. You will receive a reply in 2 working days. Additional Security Information Please note: in addition to the standard pre-employment checks for appointment into the Civil Service, all candidates must also obtain National Security Vetting at Security Check (SC) clearance level for this vacancy. You will normally need to meet the minimum UK residency period as determined by the level of vetting being undertaken, which for SC is 5 years UK residency prior to your vetting application. If you have any questions about this residency requirement, please speak to the vacancy holder for this post. From 1 April 2026, applicants will be required to meet updated nationality and residency requirements so that National Security Vetting (NSV) checks can be conducted. If this affects you, we will give you more information at the appropriate time. Important Information For Existing HMRC Contractual Homeworkers Please note that this role is unsuitable for contractual homeworkers due to the nature and/or requirements of the role. Terms and Conditions Customer facing roles in HMRC require the ability to converse at ease with members of the public and provide advice in accurate spoken English and/or Welsh where required. Where this is an essential requirement, this will be tested as part of the selection process. HMRC has a presence in every region of the UK. For more information on where you might be working, review this information on our locations . The Civil Service values honesty and integrity and expects all candidates to abide by these principles. The evidence you provide in your application must relate to your own experiences. Any instances of plagiarism or other forms of cheating will be investigated and, if proven, the relevant application(s) will be withdrawn from the process. Recording of interviews is prohibited unless explicit agreement is sought in line with the UK General Data Protection Regulations. Questions relating to an individual application must be emailed as detailed later in this advert. Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant's details held on the IFD will be refused employment. A candidate is not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5 year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government. New entrants will join on the minimum of the pay band. Please note that, if you are applying for roles on a part-time basis, the salary agreed will be pro-rata, reflective of the working hours agreed within your contract. If you experience accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section. For more Information for people applying for, or thinking of applying for, roles at HM Revenue and Customs, please see link: Working for HMRC: information for applicants - GOV.UK . 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. Diversity and Inclusion The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window) . Apply and further information This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative. Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records. Contact point for applicants Job Contact • Name : Sam Carter • Email : sam.carter@hmrc.gov.uk • Telephone : 03000559478 Recruitment team • Email : unitybusinessservicesrecruitmentresults@hmrc.gov.uk Further information Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission's Recruitment Principles. You have the right to complain if you feel there has been a breach of the Recruitment Principles. In the first instance, you should raise the matter directly via ubsrecruitmentcomplaints@hmrc.gov.uk. Please note that we do not accept complaints or appeals regarding scoring of outcomes of campaigns, unless candidates can provide clear evidence that the campaign did not follow the Recruitment Principles. If you are not satisfied with the response, you may bring your complaint to the Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their website.