Building Safety Regulator, Deputy Director, Technical Policy and Professional Standards

Job summary

​This post will be in the Building Safety Regulator, not MHCLG. BSR is a non-executive departmental body of MHCLG, BSR staff are not civil servants, but retain access to civil service pensions and civil service jobs. It is equivalent in pay scale to a civil service Pay band 1 post, as indicated on this advert.

We are seeking an exceptional senior leader to lead the Building Safety Regulator’s Technical Policy and Professional Standards function, a role at the heart of government’s building safety agenda. This is an influential leadership position at the interface of professional expertise, regulatory delivery, and political decision-making.

The function sits at the centre of some of the most high-profile policy agendas in government. Building safety remediation, housebuilding, net zero, and built environment performance all depend on credible, well-governed technical standards and a competent building control profession. The postholder will be the BSR’s authoritative voice on these issues, working closely with MHCLG, across government and external technical experts to bring professional and technical insight to political decision-making.

Job description

The BSR was established following the Grenfell Tower tragedy to deliver the Government’s building safety reforms. Having recently gained independence as a non-departmental public body of MHCLG, it is now building the institutional foundations and leadership capability to fulfil its long-term role, including as the platform for a future single construction regulator.

This is also a period of significant organisational change for the BSR, and the postholder will need to be genuinely comfortable operating in an evolving environment, adapting plans and priorities as the organisation develops.

The Technical Policy and Professional Standards portfolio spans the Approved Documents underpinning the Building Regulations, sector competence and certification, oversight of the building control profession, and responsibility for Competent Person Schemes, including leading reform of that landscape to ensure it remains fit for the challenges of a changing built environment. It is a diverse, multidisciplinary function, bringing together technical specialists, policy professionals, and regulatory practitioners. Leading it effectively requires clarity of direction, the ability to build trust across very different professional communities, and the confidence to operate in a high-profile and politically sensitive environment.

You will report to the Director of Strategy, Risk, Regulatory Policy and Change and be a member of the BSR’s Senior Leadership Team. You will work closely with MHCLG on policy development and Whitehall handling, and with professional bodies, standards organisations, and industry groups to maintain confidence in the regulatory system.

This is a high-impact leadership role for a confident, politically astute senior leader who can inspire diverse teams, command credibility with technical and non-technical audiences alike, and exercise sound professional judgement in a complex and scrutinised environment.

Person specification

• Provide strategic leadership across the Technical Policy and Professional Standards portfolio, setting clear direction for a large, diverse multidisciplinary function and ensuring coherent delivery across technical standards, professional oversight, and regulatory assurance.
• Act as the BSR’s principal adviser on technical and professional standards to BSR senior leaders, MHCLG, Ministers, and other government departments — translating complex technical and professional issues into clear, timely, and actionable advice in support of political decision-making.
• Lead the BSR’s engagement on government’s high-profile built environment agendas — including building safety remediation, housebuilding, net zero, and performance — ensuring technical policy positions are coherent, evidence-based, and communicated effectively across Whitehall and to Ministers.
• Oversee the development and maintenance of Approved Documents and related publications, ensuring the BSR’s technical standards are legally sound, practically effective, and command confidence across the sector, working with and through teams of deep technical specialists.
• Set and maintain professional standards for the building control profession, overseeing the BSR’s approach to competence, conduct, and accountability across registered building inspectors, local authority building control bodies, and registered building control approvers.
• Lead the BSR’s oversight and reform of Competent Person Schemes, driving forward improvements to the framework to ensure it remains effective, proportionate, and fit for the demands of a modern built environment regulatory system.
• Build and sustain influential relationships with professional bodies, industry groups, standards organisations, and regulators, maintaining the BSR’s credibility and the sector’s confidence in the regulatory framework.
• Ensure the function’s work is grounded in robust evidence and forward-looking analysis, drawing on research, learning from incidents, innovation, and horizon scanning to keep technical and professional standards ahead of emerging risks.
• Develop and lead a high-performing, inclusive Technical Policy and Professional Standards function, building capability across a range of professional disciplines and fostering a culture of rigour, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Contribute to the BSR’s longer-term regulatory reform agenda, including as a senior leader in the development of the future single construction regulator.

Essential Criteria

• Outstanding senior leadership capability, with a track record of leading large, diverse or multidisciplinary teams and driving high performance across complex functions — including teams of specialists in fields where you may not yourself hold deep technical expertise.
• Proven ability to operate at the interface of technical, policy, and political environments — providing authoritative advice to Ministers and senior officials, and translating complex professional or technical matters into clear, credible positions.
• Significant experience of working across government, shaping high-profile policy agendas and managing sensitive Whitehall relationships, with a strong understanding of departmental and ministerial priorities.
• Experience of building and sustaining influential external relationships — with professional bodies, industry groups, regulators, or standards organisations — and of maintaining institutional credibility in a scrutinised environment.
• Strong understanding of governance, assurance, and professional standards frameworks, and how these drive safer outcomes and public confidence in a regulatory system.
• Demonstrated ability to lead through ambiguity and complexity, balancing competing demands and maintaining strategic focus in a fast-moving and politically sensitive environment.
• Exceptional communication and influencing skills, with the ability to engage and inspire a wide range of audiences — from specialist professionals to senior politicians — and to build coalitions across organisational and professional boundaries.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £81,000, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government contributes £23,465 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).

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

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

Introduction: This post will be in the Building Safety Regulator. BSR is a non-executive departmental body, so BSR staff are not civil servants, but retain access to civil service pensions and civil service jobs. It is equivalent in pay scale to a civil service Pay band 1 post, as indicated on the CS Job advert

How to Apply - To apply you will need to submit a CV and Statement of Suitability via the Be Applied link. Your CV (up to two pages) should set out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure you have provided reasons for any gaps within the last two years. Your Statement of Suitability (up to two pages) should explain how your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with reference to the essential and desirable criteria for the role.

Equal Opportunities - We encourage candidates to complete the Equal Opportunities Monitoring Data via Be Applied. The data will be treated in the strictest confidence and used for monitoring and statistical purposes only.

Interview Schemes - BSR is a Disability Confident employer and is committed to protecting and promoting the physical and mental health of all colleagues and applicants. We also operate the Great Place to Work for Veterans and Redeployment schemes. Applicants applying under these schemes who meet the essential criteria will be guaranteed an interview. Applicants applying under these schemes who meet the essential criteria, will be invited to interview.

ThePanel - Victoria Molho - Hiring Manager. 2 Additional panel members TBC. Additionally, the panel may be joined by one of our staff representatives from a pool of volunteers as part of our commitments to diversity and inclusion.

Shortlist - Applications will be sifted after the closing date and shortlisted candidates will be invited to the next phase of assessment and interview. Your CV and Statement of Suitability will be assessed against the essential criteria, these will also be used to form the basis of the panel’s final interview questions. Desirable criteria will only be used to determine the merit order of candidates who rank evenly against the essential criteria.

Assessment - Shortlisted candidates may be invited to attend a Staff Engagement Panel, designed to provide insight into how you engage and interact with your team. Feedback from the session is passed to the panel for consideration alongside your final interview.

Candidates may also be invited to meet with a Senior Stakeholder. This is not a formal part of selection, but an informal chance to find out more about the role and organisation.

Shortlisted candidates may also be invited to give a short presentation or complete an exercise at interviews - further details will be provided when invited to interview.

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

Expected Timeline

• Advert closes: 12th July 2026

• Shortlisting: W/C 13th July 2026

• Assessments: W/C 20th July 2026

• Interviews: W/C 27th July 2026

*Please note that we try to offer flexibility where possible, but it may not always be possible to offer alternative interview dates.

Terms & Conditions

Salary​ - Remuneration for this role is £81,000 per annum.

​For existing civil servants, the usual policy on level transfer and promotion will apply and is non-negotiable. If appointed on promotion you would get the higher of 10% uplift or the new minimum for SCSPB1 – Deputy Director. Please also note that, if successful, any existing specialist allowances you currently receive will not automatically transfer or be retained upon moving to this role.

Contract - This is a permanent role. ​This post will be in the Building Safety Regulator, not MHCLG. BSR is a non-executive departmental body of MHCLG, BSR staff are not civil servants, but retain access to civil service pensions and civil service jobs.

​Security Clearance - All BSR roles require candidates to meet the Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS)to confirm identity and employment history. This successful candidate must also hold Security Check (SC)clearance, which can take up to eight weeks. All offers are conditional on successful completion of the required checks, and candidates should not resign from their current role until clearance is confirmed. Further information is available in the Cabinet Office HMG Personnel Security Controls.​

​Near Miss Offers - Please note that near miss offers may be made at the lower grade to candidates who do not meet the grade criteria for this campaign.

Annual leave - You will be entitled to 25 days leave, increasing on a sliding scale to 30 days after 5 years’ service. In addition to this you are entitled to 8 public/bank holidays plus an additional day for the King's Birthday. The allowance is pro-rated for part-time staff. With competitive maternity, paternity and parental leave we also recognise the importance of a good work-life balance and offer flexible working and a family friendly approach to work.

Terms of benefits​

• Defined benefit pension scheme (a career average basis for new recruits).​
• Occupational Health Services.​
• Access to health and wellbeing support.​
• Leave provisions including carers’ leave, paid and additional unpaid maternity leave, paid paternity leave and paid adoption leave, volunteering leave.​

Conflict of interest​
Candidates must note the requirement to declare any interests that might cause questions to be raised about their approach to the business of the Department. If you believe that you may have a conflict of interest, please contact SCS.recruitment@communities.gov.uk before submitting your application.​

Appeals and complaints​

If you are unsure about any part of the process or require additional information about the post to enable you to progress your application you should speak to the SCS recruitment team at SCS.recruitment@communities.gov.uk ​

• ​
• Candidates can appeal at any stage of the recruitment process if they believe there has been:​
• a procedural irregularity;​
• an infringement of the Civil Service equal opportunities policy; or​
• exceptional circumstances which were not notified to the interview panel which might have affected performance on the day​

​It is important to note that these are appeals about the process not the decision. In the first instance, an appeal should be directed to the team at SCS.recruitment@communities.gov.uk. ​

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise.

As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a 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.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

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

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.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 : SCS recruitment
• Email : scs.recruitment@communities.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : scs.recruitment@communities.gov.uk