Resilience and emergencies professional

Resilience and emergencies professionals are found in Category 1 and Category 2 organisations as defined in the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (for example emergency services, local authorities, NHS, utility companies), military, the voluntary, charitable, and international sectors, and government. They are also found in the private sector and those subject to major accident hazard, radiation, or pipeline regulation (for example companies transporting or storing toxic chemicals).

The broad purpose of the occupation is to contribute to the local or national resilience and security agendas. They protect and ensure public safety and continuity of essential services by effectively mitigating risks, preparing and planning for emergencies, and coordinating the response to incidents and recovery after the event. Working with stakeholders before, during, and after an incident, they develop locally appropriate ways to avoid disruptive events and prepare and recover from disasters. They ensure organisations satisfy their statutory obligations related to hazards and threats. For example, the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations 2015 (COMAH), Water Act 2014, Network and Information Systems Regulations 2018, Health and Social Care Act 2012.

In their daily work, a resilience and emergencies professional interacts with stakeholders at all levels of seniority across Category 1 and Category 2 organisations, local or national government, the military, voluntary organisations, community groups, and members of the public. Many resilience and emergencies professionals will work within or interact with a local resilience forum including planning for and embedding arrangements for military aid to civil authorities.

A resilience and emergencies professional will be responsible for working independently or in a small team, internally and externally, to research and assess how hazards and threats might impact the organisation and the people who rely on them. They consider a wide range of risks to people, business, and the environment. For example, severe weather, flooding, social disorder, industrial action, industrial accidents, failures in critical national infrastructure, or pandemics. They must research, assess and anticipate emerging threats. These may be caused by global factors such as climate change, economic and political instability, migration and demographic change. Resilience and emergencies professionals must lead and empower others to contribute to strategies that mitigate risks and achieve sustainable outcomes. To ensure their organisation and others are appropriately prepared to respond when emergencies occur, they must develop and deliver training and emergency exercises and ensure lessons are learned and captured. Whilst resilience and emergencies professionals would not typically be responsible for departmental budgets, they need an awareness of funding and financing mechanisms, costs and resourcing challenges associated with emergencies and resilience. Some resilience and emergencies professionals may be required to be on an on-call rota and may need to be able to respond to incidents and emergencies 24/7/365 as part of an on-call mechanism.