Assistant Head of Supply Chain – Defence Nuclear Organisation

Welcome message from Rob Holland, Head of DNE Commercial Function

This is an important time to join the Defence Nuclear Organisation (DNO) within the Ministry of Defence (MOD). You will be at the heart of critical defence issues, delivering against one of the Department’s top priorities.

Established in 2016, the DNO oversees all nuclear activity across the Defence Nuclear Enterprise (DNE), working with partners including the Royal Navy, UK Strategic Command, Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), Sheffield Forgemasters and key industry suppliers such as BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and Babcock.

An opportunity to work in DNO Commercial has arisen within the Markets and Suppliers team, a dynamic and talented team working at the heart of the DNE to identify and mitigate supply chain risks, strengthening resilience, and driving collaboration across the DNE, MOD and wider Government. The role will include leading commercial activity across supply chain resilience and supplier fragility, using evidence and insight to assess exposure, mobilise mitigations, and coordinate timely interventions with delivery teams and partners. You’ll help shift the enterprise from a reactive posture to a more proactive, intelligence-led approach. Alongside this, you will manage the customer sponsor role for sponsored organisations—helping to provide a clearer demand signal, supporting cross-MOD business development, and ensuring robust governance and value-for-money oversight where the Department has a sponsor/ownership interest.

The candidate will need to demonstrate strong internal and external stakeholder management skills, excellent analytical and relational skills, and enjoy operating in complex environments and working across organizational boundaries. Successful candidates will access opportunities for commercial and professional development within the Defence Nuclear Enterprise.

The role will be based in London with regular weekly attendance in office and will require travel between the sites (London, Bristol, and Reading), and, with notice, some wider UK and international travel. The role will also require CIPS or working towards accreditation within two years of appointment plus an additional commitment to additional professional development as required.

This position will require individuals to hold DV or be willing to undergo the process of obtaining it before an appointment is made.

• Become an active member of DNO Commercial’s Senior Management Team.
• Lead an intelligence-led approach to identifying and mitigating supply chain risk, drawing on enterprise-level products and insights (e.g., risk & resilience dashboards and related analytics).
• Drive improved visibility and mapping of supply chains (including sub-tier dependencies), ensuring insights are usable for decision-making and interventions
• Support the formation and running of case groups, ensuring clear triage, action tracking, and proportionate escalation where senior/Ministerial decisions are required
• Build strong working relationships across MOD and wider Government to share intelligence and coordinate actions on shared supplier concerns
• Lead the customer relationship for sponsored organisations to help them become “best-for-enterprise” suppliers—working with the organisation, its major customers, partners, and MOD programme teams.
• Build commercial capability across the DNE Commercial function, working closely with the Commercial teams based in the National Armaments Directorate.

Desirable

• Demonstrate working knowledge of Single Source Contracting Regulations and Intellectual Property Rights, and the Procurement Act 2023.

Locations

The successful candidate(s) will be able to agree a contractual workplace from those locations listed in this advert. When selecting your location listed in this job advert please be aware that this will be your contractual base location with a requirement to spend a minimum of 60% of your working time in this organisational workplace.

Your time spent on official duties at workplace locations other than your contractual office such as supplier, customer or partner locations required to perform your role is included in the 60% attendance.

This requirement will however take into consideration any reasonable adjustments agreed upon appointment for people with a disability, flexibilities agreed for those with specific caring responsibilities, or other similar temporary flexibilities.

Open to UK nationals only.

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Experience and Technical skills.

Your application will be reviewed by a panel and should you be successful at sift we will invite you to attend a Virtual commercial Assessment and Development Centre (VADC). The panel will review results of the VADC and determine which candidates will go through to a subsequent final panel interview. Please note: Only candidates that achieve an A grade at ADC will be invited to interview for this role.

Please be advised that the Virtual ADC is taking place on Wednesday 16th September 2026 and will require a full day's attendance.

If you are invited to attend a virtual ADC, but for any reason are unable to meet the date outlined then please get in touch with the team on commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible. The ADC is booked and paid for in advance by departments, therefore it is only in certain circumstances we are able to accommodate alternative dates.

For full details of our process, and a likely timeline, please read the attached candidate pack.

Throughout our selection process, we will make decisions about your capability to do the job, based on evidence you provide against the Technical Skills (essential criteria) and your Job History (CV) that you will be asked to provide during the application process. Further help and advice on our application and selection process can be found at this web address https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/gcf-how-to-apply/

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 for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/artificial-intelligence-and-recruitment/

IMPORTANT: If you do not receive an acknowledgement of your application within 2 working days please contact: commercialresourcinghub@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.