Combat Air Analysis Lead

Job summary

The Air & Maritime Environment Group (in Platforms Systems Division) provides an analytical and decision support capability delivering insights, evidence, subject matter expertise and advice.  The advice is provided to Air customers (including the Royal Air Force (RAF), Royal Navy, MOD Financial and Military Capability (FinMilCap) and Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S)) to support them in making the decisions necessary to manage their current and future capability.

We have an opportunity to lead the Operational Analysis (OA) effort that occurs across the Air Systems Programme supporting Combat Air.   As the Combat Air Analysis Lead, you will co-ordinate and deliver high impact evidence, analysis and advice to a range of Air customers and stakeholders on capability requirements, future concepts and procurement decisions.  The breadth of the decision support you will provide is far reaching, and covers the multi-billion pound Future Combat Air System (FCAS) Acquisition Programme, F-35, Typhoon and their associated weapons, sensors and other parts of the broader system such as autonomous collaborative platforms; it will also support the Air Capability to explore opportunities of non-conventional/kinetic effects.

You will lead the integration of work from the Air Systems Programme and other Programmes within Dstl to ensure cohesive delivery and increase the exploitation of outputs.   There are competing demand signals on the Combat Air Analysis Team to support the various high profile procurements and decision making, and the Combat Air Analysis Lead will form an agreement with the Air customer community on the prioritisation of work.

This is a high impacting role in a complex area of Defence, that will regularly deliver advice to senior officers at 1* and above and you will enable better decision making by customers and directly support the protection of the UK and partner nations, from internal and external threats.

Dstl recognises the importance of diversity and inclusion as people from diverse backgrounds bring fresh ideas. We are committed to building an inclusive working environment in which each employee fulfils their potential and maximises their contribution.

We particularly welcome female and ethnic minority applicants and those from the LGBTQI community, as they are under-represented within Dstl at these levels.

Job description

In this role you will:
•    Build strong networks internally and externally, engaging with key contacts to develop a plan for the delivery of Combat Air Analysis.
•    Influence external stakeholders to agree the prioritisation of tasks within the Combat Air Analysis Plan.
•    Establish and maintain the Combat Air Analysis Plan, ensuring cohesion with wider Programme and Strategic Capability aims.
•    Lead a technical team to provide timely, impartial, evidence-based advice that will enable the customers to make informed decisions.
•    Effectively manage and prioritise work for the technical team, and react to the changing circumstances quickly and calmly.
•    Identify opportunities and escalate requirements for the development of analytical capability (people; models, methods and tools; data; etc.), including the use of novel analytical approaches where appropriate.
•    Find and build opportunities to access external expertise to support the delivery of the Combat Air Analysis Plan.
•    Mentor and develop future technical leaders and analysts.

Person specification

We are looking for someone who has:
•    A strong desire to deliver outputs for Defence through Science and Technology.
•    The ability to communicate, influence and manage internal and external stakeholders to ensure capability success.
•    The ability to negotiate an agreed achievable way forward with a diverse set of demands.
•    The ability to interpret strategic intent to others in a manner that is clear and actionable.
•    The ability to lead, influence and motivate an extensive technical team to deliver exploitable deliverables.

Qualifications
Essential
•    Degree in a Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts or Mathematics discipline or, demonstrable relevant experience.

Skills 
Essential
•    Stakeholder management – including senior customers;
•    Excellent communication and influencing skills;
•    People leadership;
•    Able to demonstrate the professional credibility required to work collaboratively across organisational boundaries;
•    Ability to define and articulate problems, with the ability to provide effective solutions.

Experience
Essential
•    Communicating with and influencing senior stakeholders;
•    Taking strategic intent and translating into tangible deliverable actions;
•    Delivery of evidence based decision making support;
•    Successful delivery of complex technical outputs against requirements of time, cost and quality.
•    Proven ability to mentor and develop others.

Please see attached job description for desirable attributes.

Leadership

As a leader in Defence you will help shape, role model and bring to life the ‘One Defence’ mindset that will enable us to deliver our vision and strategic objectives. Your leadership style must be inspiring, confident and empowering. Working at every level of our organisation to break down silos, unite teams and create a culture that is trusting, collaborative, innovative, diverse and inclusive. Enabling us to deliver with pace and agility through the skills, commitment and empowerment of our employees and military colleagues.

Important Information

Our work in defence, security and intelligence requires our employees to be UK Nationals who are able to gain a high level of security clearance to undertake the projects we are involved in to protect us from security threats. For this reason, only UK Nationals will be able to apply for this role. If you are an international or dual-national candidate, and you think you have the skills we need, please consider applying to any of our government, security or defence partners.

This role will require Developed Vetting or the willingness to undertake the process, you should have resided in the UK for the past 10 years.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Leadership
• Communicating and Influencing
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Making Effective Decisions
• Developing Self and Others

We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:

• Leadership