Occupational Health, Head of Profession

MI5; Kearsley; On-site; GBP 75,000 - 78,000; Full time

Job summary

MI5 is seeking an Occupational Health Head of Profession to oversee its Occupational Health service, ensuring compliance and promoting health and wellbeing within a complex clinical landscape. The ideal candidate will have extensive leadership experience, communication skills, and hold an NMC registered degree in Occupational Health.

Benefits

25 Days Annual Leave

Dedicated Development Budget

Interest-free season ticket loan

Excellent pension scheme

Cycle to work scheme

Facilities such as a gym and restaurant

Paid parental and adoption leave

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in a Senior Leadership Occupational Health role.
• Proven track record in complex clinical landscape.
• Registered with NMC Part 1.

Responsibilities

• Oversee and implement the Occupational Health service.
• Provide clinical governance to the Occupational Health team.
• Manage contracted clinical services and oversee complex casework.

Skills

Communication

Leadership

Risk Management

Clinical Governance

Wellbeing Promotion

Education

Community Public Health Nurse (Occupational Health) degree or equivalent

Masters’ degree in Health Science

Job description

Cheltenham, London, Manchester

Job description

Flexible working: we recognise the importance of a healthy work-life balance, which is why we offer flexible working options including part-time, job share and compressed hours. Please note, due to the nature of this role, home working will not be possible.

About Us

MI5 keeps the country safe from serious threats like terrorism and attempts by states to harm the UK, its people and way of life. We carry out investigations by obtaining, analysing and assessing intelligence, and then work with a range of partners, including MI6 and GCHQ to disrupt these threats. Through our protective security arm, we provide advice and guidance to government, businesses and other organisations about how to keep themselves safe. A role inMI5 means you’ll do unique and challenging work in a supportive and encouraging environment, making a real difference to UK national security.

The Role

Our Occupational Health team is currently facing an exciting evolution which has created the opportunity to welcome someone with extensive experience to join as an Occupational Health Head of Profession. You’ll oversee and implement all aspects of our Occupational Health service, built on the core principles of enabling our mission, ensuring legal compliance, risk management and driving the promotion of health and wellbeing in the workplace.

Working closely with the heads of Safety, Wellbeing and Workplace Adjustments, you will ensure we deliver a professional and joined-up service to all agencies. You’ll provide clinical governance to a team that delivers a range of services to employees across the UK and overseas and manage a variety of contracted clinical services. You’ll also oversee complex casework, ensuring clinical advice is compliant and framed to enable risk owners to make informed decisions.

You’ll be responsible for enabling continued professional development for the Occupational Health team ensuring core skills and clinical registrations are maintained in addition to leading the development of a career pathway for trainee Occupational Health specialists. This is a uniquely challenging opportunity where you can positively impact the people that are protecting the UK.

You’ll be employed by MI5, however, if you apply to work in Cheltenham or Manchester, you will be based, and work predominantly with staff, at GCHQ. You should expect regular UK travel and occasional travel overseas.

About You

As well as being registered with NMC Part 1, you’ll have extensive, demonstrable experience working in a Senior Leadership Occupational Health role and a proven track record delivering excellence in a complex clinical landscape. You will have a specialist community Public Health Nurse (Occupational Health) degree or equivalent. A Masters’ degree (or equivalent) in Health Science, relevant to Occupational Health, is desirable.

You’ll have been working in a high consequence environment, within a senior role, such as the defence, oil or gas sectors and within a multi-disciplinary team. Your communication and interpersonal skills will be second to none, giving you the ability to engage with people across all levels of the business as you set the strategy for a cross-agency Occupational Health service.

Training and Development

When you start, you’ll get an organisation induction to help you settle in. We are proud to offer an inclusive and supportive working environment. We value and nurture our colleagues both professionally and personally, and, just as you support the team’s CPD, we will commit to helping your continued development too.

From a wide range of courses in our internal training academy to the chance to build on your professional qualifications, we’re dedicated to making the most of your skills and potential. Our support includes funding for enhancing both your clinical and management skills.

Rewards and Benefits

You’ll receive a starting salary of £77,123 in London or £75,881 in Cheltenham and Manchester, plus other benefits including:

• 25 Days Annual Leave automatically rising to 30 days after 5 years' service, and an additional 10.5 days public and privilege holidays
• Opportunities to be recognised through our employee performance scheme
• Dedicated Development Budget
• Interest-free season ticket loan
• Excellent pension scheme
• Cycle to work scheme
• Facilities such as a gym, restaurant and on-site coffee bars (at some locations)
• Paid parental and adoption leave

Equal Opportunities

At MI5 diversity and inclusion are critical to our mission. To protect the UK, we need a truly diverse workforce that reflects the society we serve. This includes diversity in every sense of the word: those with different backgrounds, ages, ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, ways of thinking and those with disabilities or neurodivergent conditions. We therefore welcome and encourage applications from everyone, including those from groups that are under-represented in our workforce such as women, those from an ethnic minority background, people with disabilities and those from low socio-economic backgrounds.

Find out more about our culture, working environment and diversity on our website :

We’re Disability Confident

MI5 is proud to have achieved Leader status within the DWP’s Disability Confident scheme. This is aimed at encouraging employers to think differently about disability and take action to improve how they recruit, retain and develop disabled people. As a Disability Confident Leader we aim to ensure that a fair and proportionate number of disabled applicants who best meet the essential minimum criteria for this position, will be offered an interview, if it is practical for us to do so. (This is known as Offer of an Interview.) To secure an interview for this role, the minimum criteria (in order of application process) are:

• You will be an experienced and qualified Senior Occupational Health Advisor with extensive experience working in a senior Occupational Health role with a specialist community Public Health Nurse (Occupational Health) degree or equivalent and registered with NMC part 1.

There is a wide range of extra support available throughout the recruitment process to enable you to do your best, see our website for information on reasonable adjustments we can offer.

What to Expect

Our recruitment process is fair, transparent, and based on merit. Here is a brief overview of each stage, in order:

• Eligibility questions – you’ll need to answer a series of questions relating to this vacancy.
• Cover letter – as part of your application we will ask you to include a cover letter detailing your relevant skills and experience against the essential criteria.
• If you meet the eligibility criteria, and pass the essential criteria sift, you’ll be invited to deliver a presentation and to an interview.

• Presentation on a relevant topic.
• Interview, including technical and competency-based questions.
• If successful, you will receive a conditional offer of employment and progress to the vetting stage of the process.

Please note, you must successfully pass each stage of the process to progress to the next. Your application may take around 6 to 9 months to process including vetting, so we advise you to continue any current employment until you have received your final job offer.

Before You Apply

To work at MI5, you need to be a British citizen or hold dual British nationality. Read about oureligibility criteria .

This role requires the highest security clearance, known as Developed Vetting (DV).It’s something everyone in the UK Intelligence Community undertakes. Find out more about the vetting process .

Please note we have a strict drugs policy, so once you start your application, you can’t take any recreational drugs and you’ll need to declare your previous drug usage at the relevant stage.

Before you apply, we advise you to consider setting up a separate email address for your contact with us, to ensure your personal and application correspondence remain separate. Try to avoid having identifying features in your email address, such as your first and/or surname and date of birth. This is good practice and will help you to manage your application with us more securely.

The role can be based in London, Cheltenham or Manchester, so you’ll need to live within a commutable distance of the location you are applying for. Please consider any financial implications and practicalities before submitting an application. An interest-free loan is available to assist with relocating to London into privately rented accommodation to take up the offer of employment.

Please note, you should only launch your application from within the UK. If you are based overseas, you should wait until you visit the UK to launch an application. Applying from outside the UK will impact on our ability to progress your application. You should not discuss your application, other than with your partner or a close family member.

Right to Withdraw Statement:

Please be aware that we withhold the right to bring forward the closing date for this role from the original closing date once a certain number of applications have been received. Please be mindful of this and submit your application at your earliest convenience to avoid disappointment.