Chief Operating Officer

Rural Payments Agency

On-Site

Expires: Expiring in less than 3 weeks

Management

Full time

£86,000 per year

Job summary

The Rural Payments Agency plays a vital role in supporting farmers, land managers and the rural economy. Our work matters - to food production, environmental outcomes, and the communities who depend on our services.

We are now at an important point in our journey. We are simplifying how we work, modernising our services, and building an agency that can deliver with greater pace, confidence and consistency.

As Chief Operating Officer, you will be central to that change. You will shape how RPA works day to day, strengthen delivery across the organisation, and help ensure our people have the systems, clarity and support they need to succeed.

This is a role for someone who wants to make a practical, visible difference: improving services for customers, connecting strategy with delivery, and leading change at scale across a complex national organisation.

If you are an inclusive, delivery-focused leader who is motivated by public service and excited by the chance to help shape RPA’s future, I would be delighted to hear from you.

Job description

As part of the RPA Executive Team, you will shape the agency’s direction and translate priorities into a clear, deliverable operational strategy.

By owning RPA’s operating system, you will manage dependencies across teams and remove the blockers and complexities that get in the way of delivery.

You will be accountable for end-to-end delivery performance, setting clear expectations, tracking progress against outcomes and stepping in early when delivery is at risk. You will improve consistency and reliability by strengthening processes and ways of working.While also making sure teams use data, insight and learning to continuously improve.

You will lead and coordinate RPA’s response to major incidents. You will bring pace, clarity and control to resolve issues quickly and protect customer services, while
ensuring learnings are embedded to build stronger, more resilient ways of working.

You will shape how decisions are made by designing and maintaining proportionate governance, risk and assurance. To ensure decisions are clear, evidence-based and
timely so delivery remains fast without compromising quality.

You will create the conditions for success through people, leading high-performing teams across enabling functions and the wider operational community. You will bring
clarity to roles and expectations, foster a culture of ownership and collaboration, and invest in engagement, development and succession planning to sustain and improve
performance over time.

Person specification

We’re looking for a senior leader who can operate at pace, bring clarity complexity, and deliver consistently through others.

Essential:

Strategic leadership and presence:

A credible, confident leader who sets clear direction in complex environments and aligns senior stakeholders around delivery. Champions innovation and continuous improvement, spotting emerging trends, challenging the status quo, and translating insight into tangible outcomes.

Delivery and performance:

Proven track record of driving large-scale delivery (public, private or third sector) through clear accountability, strong planning, and effective performance management. Uses data to prioritise, troubleshoot and improve outcomes.

Governance and risk:

Strong understanding of governance, risk and assurance. Someone who can design proportionate controls that support pace while ensuring quality, compliance and clear decision-making.

People leadership:

Builds and leads high-performing teams. Sets clear expectations, develops capability, and fosters an inclusive, collaborative culture focused on ownership and high standards.

Desirable:

Incident leadership:

Experienced in leading complex incident response, maintaining situational awareness, making decisive calls, and embedding learning to strengthen resilience.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £86,000, Rural Payments Agency contributes £24,914 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Learning and development tailored to your role
An environment with flexible working options
A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
A Civil Service pension (opens in a new window) 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

What you need to do to apply

Candidates are asked to complete a CVandpersonal statement(no more than 1,250 words) on how your relevant skills and experience meet the essential criteria .Completed applications must be submitted no later than the closing date 23:55pm Sunday 5th July 2026

Please ensure that both documents are free of any identifying information. This will be captured through the online portal, whilst ensuring applications can be considered anonymously.

How we decide who to invite for interview:

Shortlisting for interview is made on the basis of merit. The selection panel will assess the evidence presented by all applicants against the advertised essential criteria and the highest rated applicants will be Invited to interview. If you are shortlisted, you will be asked to take part in a virtual staff engagement exercise. Full details of which will be provided to shortlisted candidates at the earliest opportunity. *Please note – feedback is not given at the shortlisting stage and will not be available should this be requested.

This exercise will not result in a pass or fail decision. Rather, it is designed to support the panel’s decision-making and highlight areas for the panel to explore further at interview.

Please visit SCS Assessmentfor more information.

Interview

You will be asked to attend a panel interview. The interview will take place in person at 2, Marsham Street, London.

At interview, we will assess your experience as part of the Civil Service Success Profiles framework. This will focus on the scale, complexity and impact of what you have delivered in your career. For more information on Success Profiles please visit: Success Profile -GOV.UK

You will be asked to draw on specific examples, and we will use follow-up questions to test how you applied your experience, the judgements you made, and the outcomes you achieved.

You will also be asked to deliver a short presentation. The topic will be confirmed in your interview invitation and will relate to the ‘Seeingthe BiggerPicture’ behaviour

We are interested in evidence of strategic leadership and delivery in complex environments, including how you translate your experience to new challenges and leading others.

Other information

Please let us know what adjustments we can put in place to help you through the recruitment process if you have a disability.

Defra is committed to ‘name blind’ sifting. That means that identifying characteristics such as your name, gender, age, address are removed from your application until after shortlisting for interview has taken place.

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 counter-terrorist 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

Salary range

£86,000 per year