Head of Business Continuity & Resilience at Cambridge University Press & Assessment (CUPA), Cambridge

Head of Business Continuity & Resilience 

• Salary: £69,600 - £85,000 per annum 
• Location: Cambridge, UK/Hybrid - working at least 2 days per week from our office in Cambridge 
• Contract: Permanent  
• Hours: Full Time - 35 hours per week 

We are Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a world-leading academic publisher and assessment organisation, and a proud part of the University of Cambridge. 

We are seeking an experienced and strategically minded Head of Business Continuity & Resilience to lead our global resilience programme and enhance our ability to anticipate, withstand, respond to and recover from operational disruptions. This is an important organisation-wide role with a global remit covering our operations across over 170 countries.  

This is your opportunity to shape and embed a resilience strategy across a diverse, international organisation, working in close partnership with senior leaders and peers in different areas of the business to influence, guide and support effective ways of safeguarding our services and operations. 

About the role   

As our Head of Business Continuity & Resilience, you will be responsible for developing, implementing and continuously improving a global resilience framework that safeguards our people, operations, reputation and client commitments. 

You will provide strategic leadership across business continuity, crisis management, threat awareness and operational resilience, ensuring alignment with organisational objectives, regulatory requirements and industry best practices. 

Working closely with senior stakeholders throughout the organisation, you will help to deliver a culture of resilience and preparedness. You will work alongside our IT Disaster Recovery team, Group Security and product group business continuity leads, as well as colleagues in various shared service functions to ensure an organisation-wide effective resilience framework exists whilst empowering and supporting local business continuity leaders. 

Our success depends on maintaining resilient operations, protecting our people and services, and ensuring we can respond promptly and effectively to unplanned disruption in an increasingly complex risk environment. As the organisation's principal business continuity and resilience advisor, you will provide assurance to senior leaders across the organisation, ensuring compliance with international standards whilst driving best practice. 

This role operates within a business partnering model, where success is built on strong relationships, trust and influence. You will work closely with leaders and teams across the organisation, embedding practical, proportionate and commercially aware solutions that support both our people and organisational goals. 

You will be a trusted partner to senior leaders and operational teams in a global and organisationally complex environment. You will be part of an innovative culture that is always looking for new ways to solve the challenges we face and ready to adapt to the changing and challenging world in which we operate. 

Critical accountabilities include: 

• Develop and lead the organisation's global Business Continuity, Crisis Management and Incident Response strategy, ensuring resilience objectives are embedded across all business functions and regions. 
• Own and continuously enhance the global BCR framework, including business impact analysis, continuity and recovery planning, testing and assurance, threat awareness and horizon scanning, and programme maturity improvement. 
• Take a lead role in the response to major incidents and crises, providing governance and advice, executive support, and post-incident reviews to strengthen organisational preparedness and recovery capabilities. 
• Drive a culture of resilience through stakeholder engagement, training, exercising, risk assessment, performance reporting, and collaboration with internal teams, key service providers and external partners. 
• Lead, develop and innovate, building a high performing business continuity & resilience team, leveraging data, insights and emerging technologies to drive continuous improvement and inform senior decision making. 

This position has been classified as a hybrid role, requiring the selected candidate to typically spend 40-60% of their time collaborating and connecting face-to-face at their dedicated location. Aside from our hybrid principles, other flexible working requests will be considered from the first day of employment, including other work arrangements should you require adjustments due to a disability or long-term health condition. 

About You   

You are an internationally experienced business continuity leader with a strong background in office‑based, professional environments within multi-site global organisations. You will have a sound grasp of transforming, evolving and delivering a resilience framework model in a federated business model where collaboration and cross-functional coordination are key.  

You bring a blend of strategic insight and hands‑on operational capability, and are comfortable navigating complexity with resilience, pragmatism and sound judgement.  

You understand the inter-connection between enterprise risk management and business continuity & resilience.

Effective people and influencing skills are essential in this role. You lead with integrity and influence rather than mandate, using your relationship‑building skills to embed robust process and outcome centred resilience governance. 

You use data, insights and KPIs to inform strategy and decision‑making, and are passionate about developing balanced, realistic, inclusive and supportive management systems. You thrive in a global, matrixed organisation, and can naturally embed our Global Operations ethos of Agility, Resilience and Efficiency into how you lead, plan and deliver. 

If you meet the above minimum requirements listed above and in the job description, we encourage you to apply. Your application will be even stronger if you can also demonstrate the following desirable criteria: 

• Chartered professional status (or working towards) and experience leading ISO 22301 implementation in a global context.  
• A sound global mindset, with a proven ability to influence geographically dispersed teams, manage outsourced partners and collaborate effectively across cultures. 
• Strong crisis management and major incident response leadership and governance experience (especially in a Gold/Silver/Bronze structure). 

For a detailed job description, please refer to the link at the bottom of the advert on our careers site.   

We are a Disability Confident (DC) employer that is committed to equality and inclusion ensuring our recruitment process is accessible to all. The DC scheme's Offer of an Interview commitment applies to applicants who opt in, and disclose a disability or a long-term health condition, and best meet the minimum criteria for the role. In instances where interviewing all qualifying candidates is not practicable, we prioritise those who best meet the minimum criteria, as we would for applicants who do not have a disability or long-term health condition.  

Cambridge University Press & Assessment is an approved UK employer for the sponsorship of eligible roles and applicants under the Skilled Worker visa route. Please refer to the gov website for guidance to understand your own eligibility based on the role you are applying for. 

Rewards and benefits 

We will support you to be at your best in work and to live well outside of it. In addition to competitive salaries, we offer a world-class, flexible rewards package, featuring family-friendly and planet-friendly benefits including: 

• 28 days annual leave plus bank holidays 
• Private medical and Permanent Health Insurance  
• Discretionary annual bonus  
• Group personal pension scheme 
• Life assurance up to 4 x annual salary  
• Green travel schemes  

Ready to pursue your potential? Apply now.  

We aim to support candidates by making our interview process clear and transparent. The closing date for all applications will be 18th October 2026. We will review applications on an ongoing basis, and shortlisted candidates can expect interviews to take place week commencing 26th October 2026.