Chief Strategy Officer

Job summary

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is the UK’s sovereign regulator for medicines, including biological medicines, medical devices, and blood products. Our primary purpose is to ensure that products intended for the UK market are safe and effective and to monitor the ongoing safety of licensed products.

The Chief Strategy Officer is responsible for setting and stewarding the organisations long‑term strategic direction and ensuring that the strategy is translated into clear priorities, policies, programmes and outcomes. The post‑holder provides corporate leadership across strategy development, business planning, performance insight, governance, policy reform and delivery, and acts as the organisation’s senior lead for economic growth and external strategic relationships.

This role leads the Strategy Group which sits at the centre of the organisation’s coordination architecture, enabling greater clarity, alignment, prioritisation, sequencing, and coherence across the organisation.

The role operates at executive level, advising the Chief Executive, Chair, Executive Committee and Board, and represents the organisation with Ministers, senior officials, national partners and external stakeholders.

Job description

For full details please refer to the Candidate Pack attached. High level responsibilities are;

• Provide authoritative strategic advice to the Chief Executive and Chair, Executive Committee and Board on emerging risks, opportunities and external trends.
• Translate long‑term strategy into annual business plans, corporate priorities and measurable outcomes.
• Own the annual business planning cycle, ensuring strong integration between strategy, resources, risk and delivery.
• Lead the organisation’s business intelligence and performance framework, providing high‑quality analysis, insight and reporting to support decision‑making.
• Ensure corporate governance, organisational risk management and compliance frameworks are in place that ensure high standards of transparency, assurance and accountability
• Lead and manage the Private Office, including oversight of briefings, correspondence and diary coordination for the Chief Executive and Chair
• Provide executive oversight of project delivery across the organisation, ensuring delivery is aligned to strategic priorities.
• Lead and sponsor the Enterprise Portfolio Management Office (EPMO), embedding strong portfolio management, prioritisation and benefits realisation.
• Provide strategic leadership on policy and regulatory reform, including UK‑wide and EU‑derived reforms and primary/secondary legislation.
• Act as the organisation’s senior interface with sponsoring departments and partners on policy development and legislative change.
• Lead the organisation’s UK national partnerships, building effective relationships with government, regulators, agencies and delivery bodies.
• Contribute as a full member of the Executive Committee to collective leadership, culture and organisational effectiveness.

Person specification

It is essential that the CV and personal statement provide evidence and examples of your experience in each of the essential criteria listed below and the main duties of the role listed in the previous section:

• Senior / executive leadership experience in complex organisations, with a proven track record of delivering strategy in politically or regulated environments.
• Strong experience in business planning, performance management and governance, including the delivery of major programmes, change portfolios and complex organisational change.
• Experience of policy development, regulatory frameworks and/or legislative processes.
• Excellent judgment, political awareness and the ability to balance competing priorities.
• Understanding of the UK life science industry and the life science regulatory environment.
• Highly effective influencing skills, communication and political awareness with the personal credibility to gain the trust of a diverse range of senior stakeholders within and outside government, and national partners.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £105,000, Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency contributes £30,418 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%

• As well as offering a great place to work, MHRA offers a supporting benefits package for its employees at work and outside of work. As an MHRA employee you will have access to a range of benefits such as:

  Please refer to the candidate pack for the full details

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

Deadline for submission by 23:55 17th September 2026, providing the documents outlined below

• A two-page CVsetting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure you have provided reasons for any gaps within the last two years;
• A Statement of Suitability (no longer 1250 words) explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular reference to the criteria listed in the person specification.
• A Diversity Monitoring Form. If you do not wish to provide a declaration on any of the particular characteristics, you will have the option to select ‘prefer not to say’. All monitoring data will be treated in the strictest confidence and will not be provided to the selection panel. The information you provide when submitting your application will help us monitor our progress towards the Civil Service becoming the most inclusive employer.
  
  
• The names of at least three referees who may be contacted at shortlist stage, i.e. before the final interview, describing in what capacity and over what period of time they have known you. Referees will not be contacted without your consent.

MHRA is a ‘Disability Confident Employer’ under the government’s Disability Confident Scheme which denotes organisations that have a positive commitment towards disabled people. Disabled applicants who meet the minimum selection criteria as set out in the essential criteria of the person specification are guaranteed an interview. Selection will be on merit. If you wish to claim a guaranteed interview, you should declare so at the point you submit your application.

Should you need any adjustments to make the recruitment process more accessible to you, please contact a member of the team at the application address indicated above. The preferred method of application is online.

If you are unable to apply online please email: careers@mhra.gov.uk . All applications will receive an automated response.

Shortlist

You will receive an acknowledgment of your application through the online process. The panel will then assess your application to select those demonstrating the best fit with the post by considering the evidence you have provided against the essential criteria within the person specification. Failure to address any or all of these may affect your application. The indicative timeline in this pack indicates the date by which decisions are expected to be made, and all shortlisted candidates will be advised of the outcome as soon as possible thereafter.

Assessment

If you are shortlisted, you will be asked to take part in a Stakeholder Engagement Assessment. This assessment will not result in a pass or fail decision but is designed to support the panel’s decision making and highlight areas for the panel to explore further at the panel interview.

For further information regarding the assessments please visit – https://scs-assessments.co.uk/

Interview

The panel interview will be a more in-depth discussion of your previous experience and professional competence in relation to the criteria set out in the Person Specification and may also include a presentation.

Full details of the assessment process and interview will be made available to shortlisted candidates. Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview.

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

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 : The Resourcing Team
• Email : Careers@mhra.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : Careers@mhra.gov.uk

Further information

In accordance with the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles our recruitment and selection processes are underpinned by the requirement of selection for appointment on the basis of merit by a fair and open competition. If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should contact the Resourcing team at Careers@mhra.gov.uk, in the first instance. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive you can contact the Civil Service Commission at: civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk - info@csc.gov.uk - Civil Service Commission Room G/8 1 Horse Guards Road London SW1A 2HQ

Attachments

Candidate Pack - PB2 Chief Strategy Officer FINAL Opens in new window (pdf, 620kB)