26.160 Head of Technology Delivery Office

Job summary

The Technology Delivery Office will operate as the Technology &Innovation (T&I) interface to DBS’s corporate demand, portfolio, governance and assurance arrangements.

The Head of Technology Delivery Office will establish and lead the T& I Technology Office, providing a single, consistent approach to managing T&I’s technical delivery commitments and contribution to organisational change. The role will provide clear visibility and control of technical demand, priorities, delivery, resources, dependencies, risks and performance, ensuring that T&I has the capacity and capability to deliver its commitments effectively.

The role will bring together change activity across T&I into a coherent portfolio, supporting proportionate governance, standards and reporting while providing leaders with the insight needed to make informed decisions about priorities, sequencing and resource allocation. Working across T&I and with wider corporate portfolio and change functions, the Head of Technology Office will strengthen technical delivery discipline, identify and resolve constraints, and ensure that technical activities are appropriately planned, resourced, governed, costed and tracked through to successful delivery.

Job description

• Lead the T&I Technology Office, providing oversight and control of all change activity for which T&I is responsible.
• Maintain an integrated view of T&I’s delivery commitments, technical pipeline and emerging demand, ensuring demand is understood, assessed, prioritised and aligned to the corporate portfolio plan.
• Support the T&I Intelligent Client Function (ICF), coordinating functions to establish the requirements, feasibility, impacts, dependencies, costs, risks and resources needed to deliver change
• Provide T&I leadership and the corporate portfolio function with advice on technical sequencing, delivery constraints, capacity, feasibility, risk and technology investment implications.
• Maintain an integrated T&I delivery view of technical milestones, resources, dependencies, risks, issues, benefits and technical delivery confidence, providing early intervention where delivery is at risk.
• Work in partnership with CMBI, using established corporate governance, assurance, reporting and change control arrangements rather than duplicating them.
• Ensure appropriate business cases, assurance and governance are in place, and that T&I provides the evidence required to support investment and delivery decisions.
• Lead technology delivery performance and reporting, providing T&I leadership with clear evidence of progress, constraints, emerging risks and decisions required.
• Establish effective resource and capacity management within T&I, identifying capability gaps and advising on allocation or reprioritisation of resources across the technology portfolio.
• Build and maintain strong relationships across T&I, CMBI and the wider organisation, resolving cross cutting issues and ensuring clear accountability for delivery.
• Develop the Technology Delivery Office's management capability, standards and ways of working, aligned to Government Functional Standard

Person specification

Essential Criteria

ABILITY

• Ability to build effective relationships and work collaboratively with senior leaders, delivery teams, corporate functions and external partners.
• Ability to lead, motivate and develop multidisciplinary teams, creating clear accountability and a strong focus on delivery.
• Ability to analyse complex technology delivery information and communicate clear, evidence-based advice, recommendations and decisions to senior audiences.
• Ability to remain resilient, calm and decisive when managing competing priorities, ambiguity and delivery pressures.
• Ability to prioritise and sequence change activity, balance demand against capacity, and direct resources to the highest-value outcomes.
• Ability to identify and resolve technical dependencies, risks, resource constraints and delivery issues through timely intervention and constructive challenge.

EXPERIENCE

• Demonstrable senior-level experience leading a portfolio, programme or change management office within a large and complex organisation.
• A strong track record of establishing and applying proportionate governance, assurance, reporting and change controls across a complex portfolio.
• Experience of managing technical demand and pipelines coordinating the technical assessment of demand, including feasibility, architecture, security, cost, sourcing, dependencies, technical capacity and delivery implications.
• Experience of providing senior leaders with clear, evidence-based information on technology delivery performance, technical delivery confidence, investment, dependencies, risks and resource allocation.
• Proven experience of leading and developing multidisciplinary teams to deliver high-quality outcomes and reporting.
• Experience of maintaining an integrated view of technology delivery commitments, milestones, capacity, costs, dependencies, risks, issues and technical delivery confidence.
  

TECHNICAL

• A recognised qualification, accreditation or equivalent professional expertise in technology delivery, digital delivery, portfolio, programme or project management. Strong knowledge and practical application of technology delivery planning and control, technical dependency management, delivery risk and issue management, capacity planning, delivery performance reporting and technical assurance
• Strong technical knowledge and practical application of portfolio governance, assurance, planning and control, risk and issue management, benefits management, and resource and capability management.
  

Desirable Criteria

ABILITY

• Ability to influence and constructively challenge senior stakeholders when priorities, resources or delivery confidence are unclear.
• Ability to translate complex technical delivery information into clear options and implications for non-technical decision-makers
• Ability to negotiate priorities and broker solutions across teams with competing demands.

EXPERIENCE

• Experience of operating within a government, public sector or similarly complex and politically sensitive environment.
• Experience of working in a safeguarding, regulatory or other high-assurance environment.
  

TECHNICAL

• Membership of a recognised portfolio, programme or project delivery professional body, with evidence of continuing professional development.

**SC clearance level is a requirement for this role.**

You must meet the security requirements before you can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check.

For meaningful checks to be carried out, you will need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time, to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. Whilst a lack of UK residency in itself is not necessarily a bar to a security clearance, the expectation of UK residency is the last 5 years continuous presence in the UK. (Continuous presence means being physically located in the UK. Having a UK bank account or maintaining a UK address is not a UK footprint). Failure to meet the residency requirements needed for the role may result in the withdrawal of provisional jobs offers.

Qualifications

A recognised qualification, accreditation or equivalent professional expertise in technology delivery, digital delivery, portfolio, programme or project management.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Making Effective Decisions
• Communicating and Influencing
• Working Together
• Changing and Improving
• Leadership
• Delivering at Pace

We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:

• Working Together
• Changing and Improving

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £60,380, Disclosure & Barring Service contributes £17,492 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

The DBS offers a number of excellent benefits for its employees. These can include:

• Generous annual leave entitlement
• Excellent maternity, paternity and adoption schemes (after a qualifying period)
• Commitment to the health and wellbeing of our employees
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Flexible working opportunities
• Eyecare voucher scheme
• Occupational Health Service including referrals for counselling and physiotherapy
• 24/7 Counselling and Wellbeing Service
• A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

The DBS vision and purpose is to make people safer by being a visible, trusted and influential organisation, providing an outstanding quality of service to all our customers and partners, where our people understand the important safeguarding contributions they make and feel proud to work here. To do this, the DBS is committed to being an employer that is able to attract, develop, retain and engage diverse talent that is representative of the communities we serve, and to be an organisation providing outstanding service to all our existing and new customers, who are diverse and have a range of different needs. We want all our staff to be able to bring their ‘whole self’ to work.

Further Information:

To view the DBS Recruitment and On-boarding Privacy Notice, please click the link below:

DBS Recruitment and On-boarding Privacy Notice - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

To apply for this role, please provide a CV along with a Personal Statement of no more than 500 words outlining how your skills, experience and qualifications meet the requirements of the role, including all essential and desirable criteria.

Please also provide behaviour examples for:

• Working Together
• Changing & Improving

If a large number of applications are received, the sift may base solely on the CV & Personal statement.

Candidates successful at the sift stage will be invited to attend a panel interview to demonstrate the following behaviours:

• Making Effective Decisions
• Communicating and Influencing
• Leadership
• Delivering at Pace

Interviews will be held virtually via MS Teams.

The following timetable outlines indicative dates. Please note, these dates may be subject to change without prior notice.

Advert closing date: Monday 9th November at 10am.

The initial candidate sift is due to take place week commencing 9th November 2026.

Interviews are due to take place week commencing 23rd November 2026.

Whilst we will endeavour to provide some flexibility with regards to dates wherever possible, it is unlikely that we will be able to offer an alternative date once an appointment has been scheduled.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a basic (or equivalent) criminal record check.Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : DBS People Support Team
• Email : DBSPeopleSupportTeam@dbs.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : DBSPeopleSupportTeam@dbs.gov.uk

Attachments

Head of Technology Change Office Opens in new window (docx, 308kB)