Business Service Owner - Contact Centre and Public Support

Job summary

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UK’s largest producer of official statistics, covering a range of key economic, social and demographic topics. These include measuring changes in the value of the UK economy, estimating the size, geographic distribution and characteristics of the population, and providing indicators of price inflation, employment, earnings, crime and migration.

Census 2031 represents our most ambitious data collection project yet – a once-in-a-decade opportunity to capture a complete picture of everyone living in England and Wales. Building on the digital success of 2021, we're pioneering new ways to reach every household and community, ensuring no one is left uncounted. This vital work will provide the foundation for policy decisions, resource allocation, and community planning for the next decade.

Your work will support delivery of this transformational project that will shape how we understand and support our nation's future. You’ll be part of a team that ensures everyone is counted—and every voice is heard. We're building a culture that values collaboration, fresh thinking, and respect for diverse expertise. Whether you're a seasoned professional or bringing new perspectives, you'll be part of a team that welcomes bold ideas, works transparently, and thrives on solving complex challenges together.

Job description

This role is responsible for the leading the delivery of the set of operational services that comprise the Public Support Service for Census 2031. These are high profile services of significant scale which are key to ensuring high quality public support for the populations of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

These services will be delivered by internal and external delivery partners, so will require significant expertise in managing partnerships to deliver complex services at scale and pace to fixed timeframes.

Proven experience in leading a large-scale public facing operation through the full delivery lifecycle will therefore be essential.

Business Service Owners work collaboratively with other service owners, design teams, and delivery partners (internal and external) to bring services to life throughout the Census lifecycle. They are responsible for managing service requirements, resources, and budgets throughout the entire lifecycle — from design, build, and testing, through transition and live operation. This includes ensuring successful knowledge transfer to business-as-usual teams or decommissioning the service once the Census is complete

Responsibilities:

Design and Build Phase

• Accountable for the detailed design, integration, and delivery of assigned Census service(s).
• Gather and prioritise technical and non-technical service requirements.
• Provide high-level requirements to suppliers and internal delivery partners.
• Accept build designs and services against agreed design criteria, requirements and acceptance criteria.
• Ensure solutions are operable across integrated service designs,meet testing standards and meet acceptance criteria.
• Raise and escalate design changes, risks, and issues to the appropriate governance forums.
• Manage onboarding of suppliers and maintain strong working relationships with delivery partners.
• Developing strong working relationships with devolved government partners.
• Provide evidence and assurance for contractual compliance and supplier payments.

Operate and Run Phase

• Manage day-to-day supplier and delivery partner performance, resolving or escalating issues as needed.
• Lead the operation and delivery of service(s) to achieve programme objectives.
• Act as the escalation point for supplier and delivery partner issues.
• Manage risks, incidents, and change requests (RFCs) within service boundaries.
• Ensure timely and accurate payments to suppliers based on performance.
• Provide evidence and assurance of service delivery within contractual/SLA tolerances.
• Support operational issue resolution and continuous improvement.
• Decommission and Evaluation.
• Manage the decommissioning of services, ensuring successful closure and knowledge transfer.
• Coordinate and deliver evaluation activities for service group(s).

Role Specific Responsibilities

• Lead the design and requirement specification for the Public Support services for Census 2031 for England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
• Lead the collaboration of multi-nation, multi- disciplinary stakeholders to assess and select the suppliers who will deliver the Public Support service for Census 2031.
• Develop strong partnerships with external suppliers and cross nation stakeholders to lead the development of a complex set of services through build and testing, ensuring the services integrate effectively as part of the whole Census 2031 service.
• Oversee the live operations of UK wide, multi-lingual, omni-channel support services, including telephone, email, web chat, SMS, and social media.

Person specification

Essential Criteria:

• Proven experience in leading a large-scale public facing operation through the full delivery lifecycle.
• Good understanding of survey data collection operations and experience of delivering public support services.
• Demonstrated success in managing complex projects and services, particularly in public sector or major programme contexts. Highly adept at identifying and mitigating risks, resolving issues, and managing escalations with confidence.
• Demonstrated ability to deliver services in compliance with contractual or SLA requirements, while staying within allocated budgets and resources.
• Extensive experience in managing supplier relationships and driving collaboration between internal and external partners. Skilled in stakeholder management and persuasive communication, influencing strategic decisions at every level.
• Ability to work collaboratively across multidisciplinary teams, while building a positive culture and ways of working.

Behaviours

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

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Making Effective Decisions
• Managing a Quality Service
• Leadership

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £56,861, Office for National Statistics contributes £16,472 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

The Office for National Statistics is part of the Civil Service, and as such we share a number of key benefits with other departments, whilst also having our own unique offerings to support our valued colleagues across the organisation.

Whether you are hearing about us for the first time or already know a bit about our organisation, we hope that our careers site will give you a great insight into the benefits and facilities available to our colleagues, and our fantastic working culture.

Inclusion & Accessibility

At ONS we are always looking to attract the very best people from the widest possible talent pool, and we are proud to be an inclusive, equal opportunities employer. As a Disability Confident Leader we’re committed to ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly throughout the recruitment process.

As part of our application process, you will be prompted to provide details of any reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process that you need. If you would like to discuss any reasonable adjustments before applying, please contact the recruitment team in the first instance.

If you would like an accessible version of any of the attachments or recruitment documents below or linked to in this advert, please contact the recruitment team who will be happy to assist.

ONS are committed to flexible ways of working that support a healthy work-life balance. ONS has already considered how this job could be right sized for applicants working flexibly and we are happy to explore options with you about working part time, in a job share or flexibly, in line with our hybrid working policies.

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.

Security Clearance

For ONS the requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for 3 consecutive years immediately prior to applying and the department will consider eligibility by exception on a case-by-case basis. You will be asked to provide information regarding your UK residency during your application, and failure to provide this will result in your application being rejected.

If you are unsure that you meet the eligibility above, please read the information available on Gov.uk on this link, or contact the recruitment email on the advert before applying to discuss, as failure to meet the residency requirements will result in your security clearance application being rejected and any offer of employment being withdrawn.

At the point of SC application, you will need to provide or give access to the following evidence:

• Departmental or company records (personnel files, staff reports, sick leave reports and security records)
• UK criminal records covering both spent and unspent criminal records
• Your credit and financial history with a credit reference agency
• Security Services records

Application Process

Number of Stages: 2 stage process

Stage 1: Application

Stage 2: Interview

Stage 1 – Application

The assessment process at the application stage will be based on your work history, skills, experience, CV, and personal statement. It is important that your application is tailored to highlight the skills, knowledge, and experience relevant to the role.

A personal statement is required at application stage, the maximum wordcount allowed is 1250 words, which should not be exceeded. You should provide evidence for each essential skill criterion listed in the person specification. As these criteria are scored, it is advisable to give clear examples for each one, including the impact of your actions, ideally utilising the STAR technique (Situation, Task, Action, Result).

Please note that Success Profiles Behaviour examples are not required at this stage of the application process.

In instances where a high number of applications are received, the sift pass mark may be adjusted, and candidates will be invited to interview based on merit order, i.e., those with the highest scores.

Stage 2 – Interview

If invited to interview, you will be assessed using techniques aligned with the Civil Service Success Profiles framework, covering all behaviours listed in the job advert and any required technical skills.

Interviews will be carried out in person in our Titchfield Office.

Our main locations are Newport (South Wales), Titchfield and Darlington.

A reserve list may be held for a period up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made.

Important Dates:

The Sift will be conducted from Monday 23rd February 2026

Interviews will be conducted from Monday 9th March 2026

Dates are subject to change.

For the full terms and conditions of the post, please see attachment.

Please note that all campaigns may be subject to withdrawal at any stage if the internal resource position changes.

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

Security

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 : Recruitment Operations
• Email : recruitmentoperations@ons.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : recruitmentoperations@ons.gov.uk

Further information

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, in the first instance, you should contact recruitment.complaints@ons.gov.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission

Attachments

ONS_Vacancy_Terms(Permanent) Opens in new window (pdf, 83kB)