Police seeking ICT specialists as it brings services in house

Wiltshire Police is launching a new ICT recruitment campaign as the Force begins the process of setting up its own in-house ICT team, moving away from a five-year partnership with Wiltshire Council.

The Force is moving all applications, software and servers to its Devizes headquarters over the next 12 months and creating a new 38-strong department to deliver critical ICT services to keep officers, staff and the public safe. The move is part of a national digital policing programme requiring nationally consistent digital services, standards and capabilities at a much higher data security level than the Council needs.

Head of ICT, Adrian Hudson who is driving the police recruitment campaign said: “We are in a unique position, building a brand new ICT team from scratch to deliver world class ICT that enables police officers to deliver services to our communities and change lives.

“It can be difficult to explain how a piece of technology can change someone’s life, but securely delivering the right information to the right person at the right time allows them to make good decisions based on evidence.

“I want to encourage a wider and more diverse workforce to come and work here. The ability to work flexibly to support childcare or other care responsibilities are critical to me in terms of reaching out to the maximum possible pool of talented applicants.

“I’m not looking for typical 9-5, Monday to Friday people. We are a very different organisation, 24/7 responsive to protect the most vulnerable. Flexibility works both ways in that people will work regular agreed hours and in return will be willing to help us safeguard our communities when a critical incident occurs or major incident is declared.

“We are not here simply as an ICT department; the work we do enables frontline police officers, PCSOs and investigators to protect and deliver resolutions to our communities.

“Technology can enable us to share information with partners, make better decisions and go beyond that looking into robotics for automation and artificial intelligence to inform predictive data analysis. We can develop and use that intelligence to be smarter about the way we use our resources to deliver the most effective outcomes and best value for money to the public.

The recruitment campaign will run in phases from now until the Spring. The first roles available include:

• DevOps Manager

• Service Desk Operations Manager

• Service Desk Analysts (5 posts)

• Field Engineers ( 4 posts)

• Applications Analysts (2 posts)

To apply, visit www.wiltshire.police.uk/ICT. Applications by CV are welcome until 23 February 2020.

Anyone interested in working for the ICT team for vacancies other than those advertised in phase 1 can register their interest on our website Talent Bank page for future roles (www.wiltshire.police.uk/PoliceStaff)