NATO ICT role mapping support

Spektrum supports apex purchasers (NATO, UN, EU, and National Government and Defence) and their Tier 1 supplier ecosystem with a wide range of specialist services. We provide our clients with professional services, specialised aerospace and defence sales, delivery, and operational subject matter expertise. We are looking for personnel to join our team and support key client projects.

Who we are supporting 

The NATO Communication and Information Agency (NCIA) is responsible for providing secure and effective communications and information technology (IT) services to NATO's member countries and its partners. The agency was established in 2012 and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.

The NCIA provides a wide range of services, including:

• Cyber Security: The NCIA provides advanced cybersecurity solutions to protect NATO's communication networks and information systems against cyber threats.
• Command and Control Systems: The NCIA develops and maintains the systems used by NATO's military commanders to plan and execute operations.
• Satellite Communications: The NCIA provides satellite communications services to enable secure and reliable communications between NATO forces.
• Electronic Warfare: The NCIA provides electronic warfare services to support NATO's mission to detect, deny, and defeat threats to its communication networks.
• Information Management: The NCIA manages NATO's information technology infrastructure, including its databases, applications, and servers.

Overall, the NCIA plays a critical role in ensuring the security and effectiveness of NATO's communication and information technology capabilities.

The program

Assistance and Advisory Service (AAS)

The NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency) is NATO’s principal C3 capability deliverer and CIS service provider. It provides, maintains and defends the NATO enterprise-wide information technology infrastructure to enable Allies to consult together under Article IV, and, when required, stand together in the face of attack under Article V.

To provide these critical services, in the modern evolving dynamic environment the NCI Agency needs to build and maintain high performance-engaged workforce. The NCI Agency workforce strategically consists of three major categorise's: NATO International Civilians (NIC)'s, Military (Mil), and Interim Workforce Consultants (IWC)'s. The IWCs are a critical part of the overall NCI Agency workforce and make up approximately 15 percent of the total workforce.

Role Background

At present, NATO does not have a standardized way to describe professional roles in the domain of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), nor are the Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes that are required to perform each of these roles successfully standardized. Building on the previous year’s mapping of NATO Cybersecurity Roles, the aim of this project is to expand the mapping of all ICT roles to the SFIA Framework.

A 'NATO ICT Role' refers to a specific function within NATO that individuals occupy and execute. These roles are defined based on the SFIA framework, which serves as an industry-standard for standardizing language and categorizing skills. The scope of this mapping project includes all professionals in NATO who are involved in designing, developing, implementing, managing, and protecting the data and technology that power the digital world.

The project includes the creation of a database with all the acquired NATO ICT roles. The database will allow the identification of required trainings for each NATO ICT role and further analysis, for instance in supporting the forecasting of future training efforts.

Role Duties and Responsibilities

• Where needed, finalize existing mappings, which focuses on NATO Cybersecurity roles and support the loading of these mappings in to the platform that was selected as Proof of Concept (Lexonis)
• Build an inventory of NATO ICT roles and associated ICT Job Descriptions.
• For all persona’s and 50% of all NATO ICT roles:
• Map the duties to the associated competencies and proficiency levels in the SFIA framework
• Create references to existing NATO and commercial training programs.
• Develop an annex and visual overviews to describe the SFIA mappings and training recommendations
• Across all mapped NATO ICT roles: generate a cross-entity picture of ICT role training
• recommendations
• Support the evaluation of the 2024 Proof of Concept of the mapping platform (Lexonis), pertaining to the platform’s ability to:
• host, manage and analyse mappings
• generate visual and usable reporting
• identify required trainings for each NATO ICT role and further analysis, for instance in forecasting future training efforts and conducting competency assessments
• function and to be accredited in the NATO IT system landscape, adhering to the associated security policies
• Based on the evaluation outcomes, support the acquisition and/or implementation of the selected tool to host and manage all NATO CS and CSI role mappings to industry frameworks
• Support the loading of all mappings between NATO ICT roles and industry frameworks to the selected platform

Essential Skills and Experience

• Certification in ITIL 4 and/or Agile Project Management
• Demonstrable high level of Digital Literacy and a Cybersecurity certification
• More than 6 years’ NATO experience in Education and Training, and more than 6 years’ industry experience in change management and Learning & Development related posts.
• Knowledge of / practical user experience with NATO Cybersecurity Education and Training design and delivery.
• Experience with mapping competencies to industry standard frameworks.
• Experience with mapping NATO specific Cybersecurity job roles to the NICE and SFIA frameworks and related training offerings.
• Experience with working with NCI Agency, NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) and NATO Enterprise entities (including the NATO Office of the chief Information Officer (OCIO).
• Experience with technical platforms to support competency based talent management / job role mapping (e.g. Lexonis).
• Demonstrable strong and recent existing networks in NATO ACT MDFD, NATO ACT CAP DEV, NATO SHAPE J6, NATO SHAPE J2, NCISG, NATO HQ entities (including JISD) and the NATO Education and Training Facilities (NETFs) community.
• Demonstrated ability to deliver a Learning Architecture and experience with SFIA and NICE frameworks.
• Strong project management skills
• Experience with working in an international environment comprising both military and civilian elements.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Demonstrable experience of working with NATO International Staff (IS) Human Resources (HR) and NATO International Military Staff (IMS) HR with regards to the mapping of Cybersecurity roles
• Demonstrable experience of NATO Lessons Learned process (for the purpose of quality assurance).
• Demonstrable experience with collaboration with NATO Enterprise entities in their implementation of the NATO Enterprise Digital Transformation Action Plan

Education

• Master’s degree in Communications, Public Relations, Security related field, and/or multi-year experience doing Digital Transformation in an international environment, OR;
• Bachelor of Education/MSc degree in Human / Organizational Performance, OR;
• Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in Electronics Engineering, Computer Science/ Software Engineering/ Mathematics/ Electronics or related discipline at a nationally recognized/certified University, with 5 years post related experience, OR:
• A lower academic qualification combined with the demonstration of particular abilities or experience of relevance to this work, with a minimum of 8 years relevant experience.

Language Proficiency

• Business English

Working Policy

• Remote

Travel

• Some travel to other NATO sites may be required

Security Clearance

• Valid National or NATO Secret personal security clearance