Remote tech support jobs in west kirby, merseyside

Background

People and communities around the world have the solutions to social injustice, authoritarianism, and the climate crisis. But repressive governments, corrupt corporations, and armed groups use violence and oppression to try and silence them.

By building resistance and resilience among those challenging unaccountable power, Open Briefing supports a shared vision for a world where communities and ecosystems can thrive.

As a mission-driven nonprofit, we join forces with grassroots activists, community groups, and social movements at risk. Working together, we strengthen their physical safety, digital resilience, and collective wellbeing. As a social impact consultancy, we help leading nonprofits and foundations navigate risk and support the people and partnerships that make change possible.

This dual approach allows us to work at every level of civil society, from the grassroots to the global.

We have scaled to meet a 66% surge in demand for our support over the past two years, with our international team now responding to 11 new cases every week. Last year, we:

• Answered 575 calls for assistance across 100 countries.
• Delivered over 6,000 hours of mentoring and accompaniment.
• Trained over 1,000 activists in 112 holistic security workshops.

Across all our work, the same approach guides us. We come with questions, not just answers. We listen to the knowledge and experiences of the people we support before sharing our own. Then we act, together.

We are expanding our diverse, inspired, and purpose-driven team. Will you join us as our new director of digital and information security?

Role description

As our director of digital and information security, you will lead our digital risk and resilience team and programme in order to help build resistance and resilience among the people and movements challenging unaccountable power.

Your focus in this senior role at this crucial time will be on leadership, strategy, growth, and culture, with specific responsibility for our digital risk and resilience programme, internal information security, and tech transformation. Your responsibilities will include:

Lead our digital risk and resilience programme

1. Manage the design and delivery of our digital and information security support, including:
   • Coordinate the digital security mentoring, accompaniment, and capacity sharing we deliver to at-risk activists and low-resource civil society organisations referred through our rapid response mechanism.
   • Oversee the professional information security consultancy and advisory services we provide to high-profile nonprofit and foundation clients.
   • Develop our holistic security approach and ensure the smooth delivery of holistic security projects as part of our cross-programme leadership group.
2. Lead a team of digital and information security professionals and technologists, including:
   • Build and maintain an effective team, and recruit, onboard, and mentor new consultants as required to meet increased demand or to fill gaps.
   • Inspire, motivate, and line manage team members and foster a team culture that ensures psychological safety and reflects our values.
   • Quality assure and provide expert input into the work of consultants in the team as appropriate.
3. Drive our evolution in this risk domain from a service-focussed workstream to an impact-driven programme, including:
   • Build strategic relationships with hubs, hotlines, networks, and other key nodes in the protection ecosystem, particularly across the global majority.
   • Produce tools, guides, and trainings on key digital and information security issues of concern to activists and organisations at risk.
   • Raise Open Briefing’s profile in the digital rights and tech communities by representing the organisation externally, including at conferences and events and within relevant civil society networks.

Champion our own digital and information security

1. Maintain an up-to-date registry of our valuable and sensitive information assets and the technical and organisational measures in place to protect them.
2. Define, prioritise, and implement additional technical and organisational measures to better protect each of our valuable and sensitive information assets.
3. Continuously improve the digital hygiene of our team members and the security of our devices, accounts, communications, and website by introducing additional general measures, including device management and regular digital security training.
4. Coordinate our response to any data breach or security incident involving our information assets, devices, accounts, communications, or website.

Drive tech transformation in our organisation

1. Act as a catalyst for change and drive tech transformation as a strategic enabler of our growth and scale.
2. Map current systems and workflows to identify gaps, reduce complexity, and deliver improvements that strengthen security and ease staff burden.
3. Lead the specification, procurement, and implementation of new tools – including secure case management, communication, and collaboration systems – and oversee change management and training to ensure successful adoption across our team.
4. Establish a clear and responsive process for handling team requests for IT and digital security support, ensuring timely assistance and continuous improvement.

Shape our organisational strategy and culture

1. Play an active role in strategic decision making, organisation development, and delivering our three-year strategy as a key part of our senior leadership team.
2. Support our CEO and development director to cultivate new and existing funding partnerships, including for our digital risk and resilience programme.
3. Model our organisation’s values and culture by using inclusive language, acting with empathy and compassion, and demonstrating a solutions-focussed and growth mindset in your interactions with all our internal and external stakeholders.

Advance your own growth and development

1. Engage in our programme of training and coaching in order to grow as a leader.
2. Remain up to date with key developments in digital and information security and relevant technology, such as data protection regulations, digital rights, internet freedom, and new surveillance and censorship technologies.

You will be supported in your role by a digital risk and resilience coordinator and a team of highly-motivated consultants, other members of the senior leadership team, our office manager, and a CEO who models servant leadership. You will also have detailed handover notes and access to our extensive internal knowledge base and up-to-date project management system.

To help you grow as a leader, we will co-design your quarterly objectives, regularly review your priorities and progress, and provide an annual 360 performance and growth review. All team members also have access to unlimited professional coaching and other learning and development opportunities.

Person specification

Essential

1. You will be an experienced and empathetic leader or manager who values collaboration and teamwork.
2. You will have a proven track record in digital and information security roles.
3. You will have considerable digital and information security expertise and be able to communicate and apply that knowledge clearly, concisely, and effectively.
4. You will have experience working with nonprofits and foundations and/or grassroots movements, organisations, and activists.
5. You will have experience working in professional consultancy and advisory roles.
6. You will be sensitive to the progressive and rights-based missions and diverse profiles of our clients and other stakeholders.
7. You will have excellent written and spoken English.
8. You will be based in a country with a time zone that is UTC +/- 3 hours or able to accommodate our core working hours.

Desirable

1. You may have a strong understanding of the physical security and psychosocial aspects of holistic security and how they interact with digital risk and resilience.
2. You may have proficiency in additional languages.

Terms and conditions

We are a global, remote-first, and digital nomad-friendly organisation. This is a home-working role with some potential for occasional international travel.

We are looking for someone who wants to become part of our close-knit team and develop a long-term working relationship with us and our stakeholders. You will be properly onboarded and continually supported by empowering managers and highly-experienced colleagues. Your line manager will be our CEO, Chris Abbott.

This is a full-time employed role. We will offer you a remuneration package made up of fair pay, sector-leading benefits, and progressive leave policies, including:

• Salary of £72,400 per annum.
• 7% employer pension contribution (UK).
• Family private medical insurance.
• Employee Assistance Programme, including welfare counselling.
• Unlimited professional coaching.
• Enhanced annual leave of 25 days plus local public holidays.
• Additional leave days for annual closedown.
• Enhanced sick pay.
• Flexible working, including flexitime and remote and home working.
• Access to local coworking spaces.
• Support for climate action:
  • Personal carbon emissions offsetting.
  • Up to two additional leave days for sustainable travel.
  • Up to two additional leave days for climate activism.
• Apple MacBook Pro and peripherals.

‬‭In order to ensure that we comply with local laws and regulations, Open Briefing staff based‬ outside the United Kingdom will be contracted locally through an‬‭ employer of record‬‭ (EOR).‬ Wherever possible, we apply the same terms and conditions of employment to all staff,‬ whether employed directly or through an EOR. Where there are differences due to local laws and regulations, we will apply the better of the provisions set out above or the local statutory requirements.

How to apply

To apply, please submit your CV and cover letter (no more than two pages each) using the secure form.

You will be asked three screening questions in the form as part of your application:

1. What excites you about Open Briefing and this role?
2. In this role, you’ll support civic actors facing complex threats from state, corporate, or criminal adversaries. These actors often have limited resources, knowledge, or experience to identify or respond to such risks. What do you see as the key factors when designing effective digital and information security strategies in this context? If possible, please share an example of a role or project in which you tackled similar challenges
3. Our team is diverse in language, culture, location, working style, and employment model. Many of our consultants work with us part-time, alongside other clients, and are embedded in a wider ecosystem. Your role will be to support their growth, match them to the right work, and integrate their efforts across a broader, cross-functional team. What challenges would you anticipate in leading such a diverse, distributed team? Please share an example of a role in which you managed similar challenges – ideally within a global civil society or service-oriented organisation.

Please note the following dates:

• Closing date: 20 June 2025 (16:00 UTC)
• First round interviews: 30 June and 1 July 2025
• Second round interviews: 3 and 4 July 2025
• Desired start date: 1 August 2025 or as soon as possible thereafter

Please let us know in your cover letter if any of these dates are problematic and we will try to accommodate. Given the nature of our work, the successful applicant will need to complete a reasonable vetting process before being appointed.

Join our friendly and mission-driven team at NFER, where you’ll help bridge the gap between research and classrooms. This is your chance to bring vital insights directly to schools – raising awareness of the NFER Classroom brand and increasing the reach and impact of our research findings within the education community.

Pay: £36,000 - £40,000 (FTE)
Contract: 18-month fixed-term contract
Hours: Part-time (21 hours)
Location: Remote within the UK, with occasional visits to our Slough office (approx. 6 times per year)
Annual Leave: 30 days plus 4 paid closure days FTE
Pension Contributions: 10% employer contributions
Family Support: Enhanced maternity/parental leave and paid compassionate leave

What you’ll be doing
In this role, you’ll be at the heart of our mission to connect schools with powerful, practical research. You’ll take a leading role in shaping how NFER communicates with educators, using your creativity and insight to bring our work to life across digital channels.

One day you might be crafting social media content that sparks conversation among teachers, the next, you’ll be writing an email newsletter that lands just right with a headteacher seeking evidence-based ideas. You’ll help turn research into engaging, accessible summaries, so schools can quickly grasp key insights and put them into action.

You’ll also update and improve our For Schools website pages, ensuring every word is useful and user-friendly. Behind the scenes, you’ll track performance using analytics, learning what works and what could work even better. And throughout it all, you’ll collaborate with researchers, designers, and communications experts to deliver thoughtful, impactful campaigns that schools actually want to read.

PERSON SPECIFICATION
Essential skills and experience:

• Experience in marketing communications or a related role
• Excellent writing skills and creative flair
• Confidence using digital tools such as social media platforms, Canva, Google Analytics and CRM systems
• Strong time management and the ability to work independently
• A collaborative approach and a clear focus on impact
• Experience working in or with schools is a bonus, but not essential.

If you meet only 70% of our essential skills, still apply; you may have skills we didn’t know we needed.

Other roles you may have experience of include: Marketing Executive, Marketing Officer, Marketing Assistant, Marketing Coordinator, Marketing Specialist, Brand Executive, Communications Executive, Digital Marketing Executive, Social Media Executive, Content Marketing Executive, Email Marketing Executive, SEO Executive

WHY NFER?
At NFER, we are recognised globally for providing trusted research, resources and insights that drive meaningful change. By joining us, you’ll contribute to a mission that prioritises impact over profit, working in an environment where collaboration, flexibility, and inclusion are valued.
What we offer:

• A supportive and inclusive workplace culture.
• Opportunities to develop your skills and advance your career.
• Flexible working arrangements to support work-life balance from day 1.
• The chance to make a real difference in the education sector.

APPLICATION PROCESS
We are reviewing applications on a rolling basis and encourage you to apply early. Shortlisting will commence from 23rd June 2025.

We are committed to creating an inclusive and accessible recruitment process. If you require any adjustments or accommodations at any stage, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We’re here to support
you and ensure a positive experience. For further details, please review the Job Information Pack.

If you’re ready to bring your skills and passion to a role that makes a difference, we’d love to hear from you. Apply now and start your journey with NFER.

Introduction

Iswe is a social impact foundation dedicated to finding ways to put people at the heart of social and political decision-making to solve some of society’s greatest challenges. 

We are looking for a hands-on Product Manager to lead the delivery and ongoing development of Assemblis - a hugely ambitious global platform to strengthen community-led decision-making - as it moves from a working prototype to a fully fledged product used by community groups worldwide.

The period from 2025 to 2026 presents a unique opportunity to scale the use and impact of Assemblis around the COP30 UN Climate Conference—set to take place in the Amazon at the end of 2025—by leveraging strategic relationships, including key support from the Brazilian government.

About Assemblis

Assemblis will support communities across the world to run community gatherings, deliberate on shared challenges, and make collective decisions. The platform combines step-by-step guidance, storytelling features and data aggregation, enabling community groups to deliberate meaningfully, share their insights and connect with each other.  Our vision:

A world of resilient local communities that have the tools and confidence to make fair, effective decisions, through community assemblies that facilitate learning, build solidarity and have clear pathways to local and global action.

Assemblis will support people to deliberate on challenges and act together in their communities, whilst building a global picture of citizen needs, actions and solutions, which will inform global decision making. One of the ways it will do this is through the Global Citizens’ Assembly - a permanent institution that Iswe and partners are building.

A Global Citizens’ Assembly for COP30 to be launched in Brazil in November is the key opportunity to pilot Assemblis. We are about to test a minimum viable product (functional prototype) with small sets of global users, and are looking for someone who can lead the iteration process, with the goal of an alpha launch in Climate Week in September.

Assemblis’s vision - A world of resilient local communities that have the tools and confidence to make fair, effective decisions, through community assemblies that facilitate learning, build solidarity and have clear pathways to local and global action. 

We know that building a team representative of wider society fosters creativity and innovation. We welcome people of all backgrounds, identities and experiences and are committed to being a place where all belong. We therefore particularly welcome applications from candidates who are disabled, Black, Asian or from other minority ethnic backgrounds, who identify within the LGBTQIA+ community, or identify as from a lower or disadvantaged socioeconomic background as these groups are currently under-represented on our staff team.
 

About the role

You’ll take a user-centred approach to shaping the product, balancing strategic vision with on-the-ground experimentation. You’ll lead, and help to build, a small, agile team, currently a developer, researcher/product designer and data specialists, working closely with a wider team of deliberation specialists, content creators and a strong network of global partners. 

You will play a key role in defining the roadmap, testing features with real-world users and ensuring Assemblis becomes a powerful, trusted tool for citizen-led change.

We are open to full-time or part-time applicants, depending on experience and availability.
 

Main duties

• Lead product delivery: Own the product vision and roadmap, ensuring features meet user needs and align with organisational goals.

• User-centred design: Champion a user-first approach through ongoing testing, feedback loops, and engagement with a diverse global user base.

• Team leadership: Lead and support a small cross-functional team; identify and recruit additional roles as needed.

• Technical direction: Work with developers to make key decisions on technology architecture, infrastructure, and tools, ensuring scalability and sustainability.

• Stakeholder collaboration: Work closely with Iswe’s internal leads to ensure strategic alignment, and global partners (civic groups, movement partners, and research collaborators) to incorporate their needs into the platform.

• Governance and data: Embed deliberative values in product choices, including data ethics, privacy, accessibility, and transparency.

• Business model development: Support the development and testing of a sustainable income-generating model for Assemblis, while ensuring accessibility and alignment with Iswe’s mission.

• Agile processes: Implement lightweight product management processes (e.g. sprints, prioritisation frameworks, documentation) to maintain momentum and clarity.

• Working in the open: Publish regular blog/weeknotes content to communicate about the work to ensure transparency and inspire healthy criticism and collaboration.
   

About you

This role will suit you if you are a decisive leader who is excited by the potential of civic tech to deepen democracy and empower communities. But you must also be a doer - ready to take responsibility for getting things done, while you grow the team. You might come from a digital agency, a startup, a civic organisation, or a product-led nonprofit. What matters most is your ability to lead with empathy, think strategically, and build things that work.
 

Essential skills and experience

• Strong product management experience in digital platforms, tools or services

• Passion for civic technology and democratic innovation

• Good knowledge of the technologies shaping deliberative democracy, such as facilitation tools, decision-making platforms, participatory budgeting systems, emerging AI tools, etc.

• Creative and bold; willing to listen to competing opinions, ask questions and raise healthy challenges 

• Self reflective; able to give and receive feedback well

• Experience managing or collaborating with cross-functional teams

• Excellent communication skills, both internally and externally

• Able to be an ambassador for the product, speaking persuasively to partners and stakeholders

• Ruthless and pragmatic prioritisation and strong project management skills

• Comfortable working in a startup-style environment (adaptable, proactive, solutions-oriented)
   

Desirable skills and experience

• Experience building online tools or platforms

• Experience working with global, multilingual, or underserved communities

• Familiarity with accessibility and inclusive design principles

• Understanding of data governance, privacy, and ethics in civic platforms
   

Salary, Benefits & Working Conditions

• Salary:  £55-70k per annum, depending on experience

• Hours: Full-time or part-time (minimum 4 days/week); UK adjacent hours

• Location: Remote (occasional UK in-person meetups)

• Leave: 35 days holiday plus UK bank holidays (pro-rata if part-time); 14 days medical leave

• Pension: Statutory employer contributions (currently 3%)
   

About Iswe

We believe that many of the crises we face today - health, climate, the cost of living etc - are symptoms of failing governance structures, and that putting people in the driving seat of decision-making will transform our futures for the better. Our work focuses on Citizens’ Assemblies.

Our team has decades of experience in democratic innovation. Projects include Global Assembly for COP26 and The Future Armenian. Iswe is a fast-growing foundation, dedicated to empowering citizens to play a leading role in the decision-making that affects their lives. 

Our work is founded on strong values, including openness, transparency and humility. We believe that when ‘I’ (an individual) becomes ‘we’ (part of the collective), the results are transformational. We are actively working to build a healthy culture, rooted in care and characterised by being self-organising and self-reflective. We are committed to addressing the dynamics of oppression in ourselves and our work.
 

How to Apply

Please submit a CV and short cover letter outlining your interest in the role and relevant experience, via CharityJob.

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, and the advert may be closed early if we find a suitable candidate.