Executive Assistant

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigates and prosecutes serious and complex financial crime, delivering justice for victims and enhancing the reputation of the UK as a safe place to do business. We also pursue criminals for recovery of unlawful financial gains. The SFO is a non-ministerial government department, which is accountable to the Attorney General and employs about 500 civil servants.

We tackle top-tier fraud, bribery and corruption – crimes that are often high-profile and cover many international jurisdictions – combining the skills of lawyers, investigators, forensic accountants, specialist counsel and other experts. These teams work collaboratively with one another and with law enforcement agencies throughout the world.

This is an exciting opportunity to join the SFO as an Executive Assistant (EA). You will be responsible for providing comprehensive EA and administrative support to the Head of Division to enable the Head to undertake their duties efficiently.

Successful candidates will be resourceful, proactive and have excellent planning and organisation skills. You must be a clear and confident communicator in writing, in person and over the phone. You must also be able to exercise discretion due to the sensitive nature of the issues you will have sight of on a daily basis.

As an Executive Assistant you will be responsible for:

• Providing full EA support, including diary and email inbox management. This includes ensuring appointments are properly diarised, any conflicts of time are dealt with appropriately, and dealing with ad hoc requests from a range of stakeholders. The EA will be responsible for incoming emails to ensure that tasks are prioritised and dealt with in a timely manner. Where appropriate, preparing responses or taking forward actions from emails on the Head’s behalf.
• Dealing with incoming correspondence and screening telephone calls, enquiries and requests - managing them where appropriate.
• Arranging travel and accommodation, ensuring the HoD has all the necessary details for external trips and events.
• Organising and attending meetings, ensuring the HoD has all the necessary papers for their meeting including sending out commissions as required, diarising preparation time and taking minutes where necessary.
• Producing documents, briefing materials, reports and presentations as necessary.
• Operating flexibly to complete other duties as required to assist colleagues and Senior Managers.
• Arranging introductory meetings with new staff joining the Division.

For more information about the role and for a full list of key responsibilities, please see attached Job Pack.

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

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

Application stage

You will first need to successfully complete the Civil Service Verbal test. Following this, as part of the application process you will be required to provide:

• A personal statement of no more than 750 words that explains how your skills and experience meet each of the essential experience criteria as listed in the job pack.

"Experience of providing executive support to Senior Civil Servants (or equivalent) including full diary management" is a lead criteria; this criteria will be assessed first and candidates who do not meet the required standard will not have the remainder of their application considered.

• A supporting CV outlining your job history and qualifications.

As part of the sift stage, a telephone screen will be conducted for candidates who pass the initial sift. This will take place on either the 30 September or 01 October 2026 and this is an opportunity to provide further information on your skills and experience. Successful candidates at this stage will progress to the interview stage.

It will not be possible to provide feedback to applicants who are unsuccessful at the application stage.

Interview stage

Behaviours and experience criteria as outlined in the job pack will be tested at interview.

Full details of the interview process will be made available to shortlisted candidates in the invite to interview.

Sift to take place from 24 September 2026.

Telephone screen to take place on either 30 September 2026 or 01 October 2026.

Interviews are expected to take place on 12 October 2026 or 13 October 2026.

All dates are indicative and subject to change.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. To be eligible you must meet the following residency requirements dependent of the level of security vetting required:

• SC: 5 years residency in the United Kingdom preceding this application.

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