Paralegal

Full time / Part time 

Salary:          £34,604 - £39,200, with potential for further progression to £44,137 with our pay progression scheme. 

Location:        Hybrid 

Contracted to our Manchester, London, Edinburgh, Cardiff or Belfast office. Through hybrid working we offer flexible home and office-based working opportunities and there will be times when you will be expected to attend the office to collaborate with colleagues or travel due to business need.   

This is an exciting opportunity to join the ICO Legal Service. As a Paralegal, you will provide a comprehensive and professional paralegal and administrative service to support lawyers in the ICO Legal Service.

The Information Commission (ICO) is the independent regulator of information rights. In a data-driven world, we provide advice, guidance, and support to organisations enabling compliance with their obligations, as well as protecting individuals and their personal data.

As an employer, we are passionate about making a positive difference to the lives and careers of our people, and we empower you to be curious, impactful, collaborative and respectful.

The Legal Service works with teams across the ICO to provide legal advice on key policy, enforcement, advisory and compliance issues. It supports the Commission to determine the appropriate legal lines to take on a variety of matters and makes recommendations to manage the ICO’s legal risks.

• →Using initiative and judgement assist lawyers at all levels with on-going legal matters, cases and/or projects, ensuring that they are dealt with in line with ICO standards, policy and regulatory priorities.
• →Use initiative to undertake legal research on specified legal points, when required to do so by a lawyer or when a given case demands it.
• →To provide input into the mentoring, oversight and training of administrative staff in the department, if required.
• →As required, to monitor the external legal spend for the team and to develop and capture statistics to identify trends and patterns within the team’s work areas.
• →Assess incoming correspondence (e.g. requests for advice) using judgement, intellectual ability and initiative, and assist other team members in flagging any potential issues before it is allocated. 
• →Administration of the team records and databases including, when required, ensuring that MS Excel spreadsheets and other reporting mechanisms are accurately maintained across the team to provide statistics for management reports and annual reports. 
• →To attend, or arrange attendance at, internal and external meetings, in order to ensure that minutes are taken and a record of meetings is maintained as specified by others in legal service. 
• →Assist with preparation for presentations and events.

Essential criteria assessed at application stage:

• Candidates must have a law degree, Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) or equivalent law conversion qualification, CILEX Level 3 Professional Diploma in Law or a higher/equivalent CILEX qualification, or have successfully completed an equivalent level of academic or professional legal training towards qualification as a solicitor, barrister or advocate in a UK jurisdiction

• Relevant work experience at a level demonstrating graduate ability.

• Proven ability of working on own initiative and dealing with individual case variations confidently (also measured at interview).

• Excellent accuracy and strong attention to detail (also measured at interview).

Essential criteria assessed during interview:

• Good intellectual and analytical ability. Demonstrable ability to apply knowledge of  relevant legislation in variety of circumstances.
• Very good written and verbal communication together with strong interpersonal skills. 
• Excellent time management skills and the ability to cope with tight deadlines, work flexibly and manage multiple tasks simultaneously.
• Experience of using computerised databases/ record management systems, ideally including SharePoint, and very good working knowledge of Microsoft Office Excel and Word.

The ICO is committed to promoting and enhancing equality, diversity, and inclusion. We are focused on developing a workforce that is representative of the communities we serve and together we are building an inclusive workplace where all of our colleagues have the opportunity to make a real difference. We are championing this through our Equality Diversity and Inclusion Board together with a number of staff networks. Read more about our commitment on our website.  

Candidates with a disability who meet the minimum criteria for this vacancy will be invited to interview as part of the ICO’s commitment to the Disability Confident Scheme. 

As part of the ICO’s commitment to our EDI objectives and creating a workplace that represents the communities and societies we serve, we guarantee an interview to candidates who declare they identify as belonging from an ethnic minority background and who meet the minimum criteria for this vacancy

If you are disabled or have an impairment and require an alternative application method, please email the HR team at recruitment@ico.org.uk

Please submit your CV by 23:59, 16 November 2026

We may close this vacancy early if we receive a high volume of applications. To ensure your application is considered, we encourage you to apply as soon as possible.

If you require any reasonable adjustments to support your application, please contact us at recruitment@ico.org.uk.

In the event of a high volume of applications, we may not be able to invite all candidates who meet the minimum criteria to interview. However, we encourage you stay in touch and apply for future roles that match your interests.

All candidates who meet the minimum criteria and apply in-line with our guaranteed interview scheme for disabled and ethnic minority applicants will be interviewed.

Clearance Required for this role: