AI & Technology Security Operations Head of Department, Financial Conduct Authority
£140-190k
Salary dependent on location
Financial regulation service
Open for applications
Financial regulation service
1001+ employees
Open for applications
£140-190k
Salary dependent on location
1001+ employees
Company mission
To enable a fair and thriving financial services market for the good of consumers and the economy.
Role
Who you are
- 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
- 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
What the job involves
- 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 FCA’s 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 FCA’s 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
- As Head of AI & Technology Security Operations, you will join the DTI senior leadership team at a pivotal moment in the FCA’s 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 FCA’s reputation as a trusted, innovative regulator
- Leading the development and operation of the FCA’s 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
Application process
- End Date: October 5, 2026
- The closing date for this role is 23:55 on Sunday 4th October
- Selection will be via a two-stage interview and psychometric assessment
Salary benchmarks
Our take
Developed on the back of the Financial Services Act of 2012, the Financial Conduct Authority is a regulatory body that acts as a regulator for financial firms, ensuring the integrity of the financial markets in the UK. Broadly focused on financial companies that provide consumer services, it’s governed by the Bank of England and therefore acts independently of the government.
The FCA is responsible for regulatory innovations, such as stronger customer authentication requirements, including biometric and code requirements for payments, that have clamped down on fraud and improved security for national consumers. The FCA also introduced the Anti-Money Laundering Supervision in 2017.
The organisation’s independence from government ensures its impartiality as a regulator. In the late 2010s, it set up the cryptoasset registration, a department responsible for ensuring the legality of crypto payments. This has become an important aspect of national counter terrorism measures, and exemplifies the complex and vital work that the organisation carries out.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Company benefits
- 25 days holiday per year plus bank holidays
- Hybrid working (work from home up to 60% of your time)
- Private healthcare with Bupa
- A non-contributory Pension of at least 8%
- Life assurance
- Income protection
Company HQ
Stratford Cross, London, UK
Leadership
Nikhil Rathi
(CEO)Previously the Private Secretary to UK Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and was the Chief of Staff and Director of International Development at the London Stock Exchange. Studied at St Anne's College Oxford.
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