Chief Information Officer (CIO) at IO Associates, England, £Contract Rate

Chief Information Officer (CIO)

• Employment Type: Contract (Freelance)
• Location: UK
• IR35: Outside
• Job Title: Chief Information Officer (CIO)
• Day Rate: Contact Me
• Duration: 12 Months Rolling
• Start Date: ASAP

Role Overview:

We are seeking an exceptional Contract Chief Information Officer (CIO) to lead a mission-critical technology transformation within a security-cleared on-prem data centre environment. This engagement is central to improving resilience, security posture, and operational capability across a business-critical estate where availability, control, and compliance are non-negotiable.

This is an Outside IR35 contract, requiring a senior technology leader with a strong network security background and a proven track record delivering complex change in constrained, regulated, and security-led environments.

Why This Role (Transformation Focus):

This is not business-as-usual IT leadership. The CIO will be accountable for shaping and executing a transformation programme that may include:

• Uplifting service resilience and operational maturity across a critical on-prem estate
• Driving security hardening and control compliance (including network security and privileged access)
• Modernising Legacy platforms/tooling while maintaining continuous availability
• Establishing stronger governance, reporting, and delivery cadence across teams and suppliers
• Enabling the organisation to operate faster, safer, and with clearer accountability

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the end-to-end technology strategy and transformation roadmap, aligned to mission outcomes and security constraints.
• Take executive ownership of on-prem data centre operations: uptime, capacity planning, lifecycle/refresh, performance, DR/BCP readiness.
• Drive a measurable uplift in security and risk management, including control implementation, compliance, and audit readiness.
• Direct network security strategy and execution: segmentation, secure remote access, boundary/perimeter controls, monitoring and incident readiness.
• Establish strong transformation governance: milestones, RAID management, dependency tracking, and reporting to senior stakeholders.
• Improve IT service management performance (incident/problem/change), reducing operational friction and raising service quality.
• Lead and mentor multi-disciplinary teams across infrastructure, security, service delivery, and operations.
• Manage and hold suppliers to account-commercial control, delivery quality, and measurable outcomes.

Required Experience:

• Proven experience as a CIO/IT Director/Head of IT (or equivalent) leading significant change programmes.
• Strong experience in security-cleared environments (eg, defence, central government, intelligence, critical national infrastructure).
• Deep understanding of on-prem data centre architecture and operations (compute/storage/network/virtualisation, backup, DR).
• Credible network security background (hands-on earlier career or senior leadership responsibility) within enterprise-scale environments.
• Track record of delivering transformation while maintaining service continuity and meeting strict compliance and security requirements.
• Ability to influence confidently at senior level and communicate risk/trade-offs clearly.

Clearance Requirement (Active):

Due to the nature of the work, applicants must already hold active UK access/clearance at one of the following levels:

• SC, DV, or eDV (Enhanced DV)
• UKIC access/clearance
• STRAP-level access (where applicable)

Active clearance is mandatory; candidates who are only "clearable" are unlikely to be considered.

Working Pattern:

• On-site presence is expected due to the classified, on-prem environment (exact pattern to be confirmed).

If interested, please send me your most recent CV and contact information so that we can speak in more detail!