Senior Operational Resilience Lead (Contract)

Location: London or Bristol (Hybrid)
Rate: £650 per day
Duration: 6 Months Initial Contract

We're supporting a major financial services organisation in the appointment of a Senior Operational Resilience Lead to drive the next phase of its Operational Resilience programme.

This is a highly visible role with responsibility for enhancing the organisation's resilience framework, embedding resilience thinking across the business, and supporting ongoing regulatory expectations. The successful candidate will work across multiple business and technology functions, influencing senior stakeholders and delivering tangible improvements to the firm's resilience posture.

Key Responsibilities

Operational Resilience Reporting & Metrics

• Review and enhance the existing Operational Resilience reporting framework.

• Develop meaningful management information and resilience metrics aligned to Important Business Services (IBSs).

• Establish reporting that demonstrates resilience improvements, vulnerability remediation, control effectiveness and strategic progress.

• Produce clear and actionable insights for senior leadership and governance forums.

Training & Awareness

• Deliver and embed an Operational Resilience training and awareness programme.

• Create role-based training materials for key stakeholder groups, including Service Owners, Business Leaders and Technology teams.

• Drive engagement activities that increase awareness and accountability across the organisation.

• Ensure the programme is sustainable and embedded into business-as-usual operations.

Resilience by Design

• Define practical resilience-by-design principles that can be adopted across change and transformation initiatives.

• Integrate resilience considerations into delivery lifecycles, governance processes and project frameworks.

• Work with change, architecture and delivery teams to ensure resilience requirements are considered from inception through to implementation.

Tooling & Continuous Improvement

• Assess the current Operational Resilience tooling landscape and identify opportunities for improvement.

• Develop a roadmap for future-state capabilities and tooling enhancements.

• Collaborate with technology, risk and security stakeholders to support implementation planning and investment decisions.

Vulnerable Customer Resilience

• Partner with vulnerable customer and business teams to assess resilience considerations during disruption events.

• Review whether Important Business Service assessments, impact tolerances and Business Continuity Plans adequately address vulnerable customer needs.

• Identify opportunities to strengthen customer outcomes during operational disruptions.

Required Experience

• Proven experience leading Operational Resilience programmes within financial services.

• Strong understanding of UK Operational Resilience regulations and expectations.

• Experience working with Important Business Services (IBSs), impact tolerances, scenario testing and resilience assessments.

• Demonstrable experience developing governance reporting, metrics and management information.

• Ability to influence senior stakeholders across business, operations and technology functions.

• Experience embedding resilience requirements into change, transformation or technology delivery environments.

• Excellent communication, facilitation and stakeholder management skills.

Desirable

• Experience within retail banking, insurance or wealth management.

• Business Continuity, Operational Risk or Enterprise Resilience background.

• Experience supporting regulatory reviews or resilience maturity assessments.

• Knowledge of vulnerable customer frameworks and customer outcome considerations.

This role would suit an experienced Operational Resilience professional who enjoys working across strategy, governance, change and delivery, and is comfortable operating autonomously within a complex regulated environment.