Innovation, Science and Technology Manager - National Crime Agency - SEO

Location

Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Calder (Normanton), London*, Leicester, Warrington

*For roles based in London, your contractual place of work will be Stratford. While the Stratford site is expected to become operational from November 2025 – March 2026, you will be required to carry out your contractual duties from Vauxhall or another reasonable location on a temporary basis during the interim period.

Please note that, as Stratford will be your contractual place of work, any subsequent move from a temporary location will not entitle you to payments for travel time or costs under the Relocation and Excess Travel Policy.

About the job

Job summary

Threat & Risk Assessment, Capability Exploration and Research (TRACER) plays a critical role in supporting the National Crime Agency’s mission to protect the public from serious and organised crime. TRACER is a collaborative function that leads the NCA’s science and technology innovation activity, ensuring capabilities remain current, effective, and relevant in an increasingly digital landscape. It also provides threat and opportunity management for digital communications capabilities on behalf of the Home Office’s Digital Communications Capabilities partnership.

The team is creative and forward‑thinking, applying design‑thinking approaches to understand and address user and customer needs. The Innovation, Science and Technology function supports the development of new capabilities by working with stakeholders to define problems and opportunities, identify requirements, develop user cases, and conduct discovery activity. This includes piloting concepts, running experiments, assessing customer benefits, and translating insights into outline business cases and clear stakeholder communications, demonstrating how innovation enables law enforcement to adapt and remain effective.

To support this work, TRACER has established the Enabling Innovation and Experimentation Environment (EIEE). EIEE is a cloud‑based platform that enables the testing and evaluation of potential solutions to digital threats and opportunities, supporting informed investment decisions. Innovation is delivered through a range of approaches, including proofs of concept, technical demonstrators, testing activity, and desktop‑based exercises, drawing on both internal and external expertise.

TRACER is seeking Innovation, Science and Technology Managers to deliver impactful innovation across the NCA and the Home Office partnership.

This role sits within the Government science and engineering: career framework - GOV.UK

Job description

The Innovation, Science and Technology (IS&T) team works across the Agency and in close partnership with law enforcement and national security organisations to understand how adversaries exploit emerging technologies for criminal purposes, and to apply science and technology to counter those threats. The team also supports the development of new operational capabilities and drives the responsible adoption of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence.

A typical day in TRACER may involve engaging with operational teams to understand their challenges, conducting discovery work to develop a deep understanding of complex problems, commissioning research, and designing experiments or prototypes. The role also includes consulting with industry partners, collaborating with academia and other government science and technology teams, and presenting evidence‑based options to strategic governance boards to inform and shape investment decisions.

This breadth of activity demands a diverse and inclusive workforce. We therefore welcome candidates from a wide range of backgrounds, with different perspectives and ways of thinking, to ensure we continue to operate with creativity, ingenuity and impact.

Job Duties and Responsibilities

• Research, design and deliver innovative solutions to complex problems by leading discovery activity, designing experiments, and translating insight into practical, testable outcomes.
• Clearly communicate complex problems and solutions to a wide range of stakeholders, including operational teams, technical specialists, and senior decision‑makers.
• Lead and manage multiple workstreams, ensuring delivery to agreed standards, timelines and budgets, while continuously identifying opportunities to improve processes and ways of working.
• Provide effective project oversight, coordinating activity across teams and partners to ensure successful delivery of innovation initiatives.
• Work closely with NCA Commercial to identify, secure and manage commercial arrangements with leading private‑sector specialists and subject matter experts.
• Support the creation of commercial contracts that enable innovation activity to proceed at pace, ensuring open and fair competition and value for money.
• Develop evidence‑based recommendations by synthesising research findings, experimentation results and operational insight to inform future priorities and investment decisions.
• Support the development of key artefacts, including outline and strategic business cases, and contribute to communications strategies to engage and influence key stakeholders.
• Produce clear, high‑quality documentation that captures analysis, decisions and rationale, supporting transparency and governance.
• Manage innovation resources on a day‑to‑day basis, including subcontractors, ensuring appropriate tasking, performance management and capability development.
• Provide support to Innovation, Science and Technology Leads, contributing flexibly to team priorities and project delivery as required.
• Manage and oversee a responsive cloud‑based experimentation environment, including servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics and intelligence capabilities.
• Develop workplans and task team members to deliver prototyping, alpha and beta deployments, overseeing testing, experimentation and cost modelling to support informed decision‑making.

Person specification

• Proven experience leading multi‑disciplinary teams, setting clear direction and applying project management principles to translate innovation into operational delivery, ensuring outcomes are achieved on time and within budget.

• Ability to work effectively across diverse specialisms, confidently discussing complex concepts with technical and non‑technical stakeholders and coordinating delivery through structured planning and governance.

• Strong prioritisation and stakeholder management skills, with experience securing buy‑in from senior stakeholders and product sponsors, resolving conflicts, and balancing competing demands.

• Excellent communication and influencing skills, with the ability to build consensus, negotiate compromise, and bring stakeholders on board with decisions.

• Strong written and verbal communication capability, including experience of conveying complex or technical information clearly and persuasively to non‑technical audiences, ensuring messages are understood and acted upon.

• Demonstrable ability to identify, assess and integrate emerging science and technologies to drive innovation, operational effectiveness and efficiency.

• Experience designing and delivering scientific experiments or discovery activity, with a clear focus on outcomes, evidence generation and learning to address defined problems.

Desirable Criteria (to be used in the event of a tie-break)

• Post-18 qualification in STEM subject relevant to innovation, science and/or technology.
• Experience working in a law enforcement or national security environment.