Deputy Director Enterprise Analysis and Insights

Job summary

This high-profile leadership role is central to the Defence Nuclear Enterprise (DNE), which delivers the UK’s Nuclear Deterrent as a National Endeavour. As one of three Deputy Directors within the Enterprise Portfolio Team (EPT), you will play a pivotal role in shaping strategic decision-making across the DNE’s extensive portfolio of Government Major Projects and critical delivery activities.

The Enterprise Portfolio Team drives enterprise-wide priorities, improving business planning, embedding professionalisation and consistency in project delivery, and enhancing management information, analysis, and insight. In this role, you will strengthen and evolve the DNE’s enterprise analytical capability, delivering strategic, evidence-based insights that build confidence in managing a complex, interdependent portfolio. Your work will reduce strategic risks, optimise investment decisions, and support the Secretary of State’s oversight of the enterprise.

Collaborating with the Deputy Directors for the Enterprise Project Delivery Function & Profession and the Enterprise Portfolio Office (EPO), you will provide collective leadership, foster integrated working, and drive better planning across the enterprise. You will cultivate relationships with internal and external stakeholders, facilitating collaboration across organisational boundaries, underpinned by an inclusive, people-centred approach to delivery.

As a visible and inclusive leader, you will guide a team of specialists, set strategic direction, and deliver insights to address complex challenges, identify emerging risks, and recommend innovative interventions. Your work will embed robust, evidence-based decision-making that prioritises the best outcomes for the enterprise. Operating with a high degree of autonomy, you will lead a cross-departmental functional capability, delivering insights and interventions in a dynamic and challenging programme environment.

You will also establish and embed a culture of quality assurance, ensuring all analytics and insights adhere to government standards and frameworks, including the government’s colour books. Applying professional judgement and an inquiring mindset, you will ensure the use of the best available data, methodologies, and recommendations, even when faced with variable data quality.

This role requires exceptional communication skills to present complex insights and strategic recommendations clearly and persuasively to senior stakeholders. You will operate in a landscape of complexity, uncertainty, and competing pressures, delivering optimal outcomes for the DNE. As part of a growing and maturing team, you will also flexibly lead and support emerging tasks as required. This is a challenging and rewarding opportunity to make a profound impact on the success of the Defence Nuclear Enterprise.

Job description

Strategic Leadership and Enterprise Planning

• Lead the sustainment and development of the Nuclear Enterprise Integrated Network (NEIN) to inform enterprise availability, identify opportunities, and optimise delivery.
• Utilise the NEIN, alongside other data sources and tools, to identify conflicts, opportunities, and optimisation options for enterprise delivery.
• Commission and oversee strategic analysis to identify emerging issues or threats to the DNE plan, leveraging key artefacts such as enterprise assumptions, dependencies, and strategic risks.
• Provide senior leaders with evidence-based recommendations and insights to inform investment decisions, portfolio balancing, and strategic interventions.
• Champion the implementation of technological advances and innovative analytical methodologies to enhance enterprise outputs and support the delivery of the DNE Enterprise Portfolio Team (EPT) strategy and associated change activities.

Data-Driven Analytics and Decision Support

• Direct and oversee complex, data-driven analytics to improve enterprise decision-making, including predictive modelling, optimisation, trend analysis, benchmarking, and pressure checks.
• Aggregate, integrate, and ensure the coherence of disparate enterprise information to deliver high-quality outputs that inform strategic decision-making up to ministerial level.
• Ensure robust quality assurance policies and processes are in place and consistently followed in the production of data, evidence, and analysis.
• Deliver timely responses to urgent requests, balancing the need for accuracy with the necessity of quick decision-making.

Risk Management and Horizon Scanning

• Work with relevant boards and forums to maintain, develop, and challenge the overall strategic risk register systematically and objectively.
• Provide horizon scanning and risk outputs to enable informed decision-making and proactive responses to potential strategic problems or changes.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to deliver interventions that build resilience against strategic shocks and pressures.

Stakeholder Engagement and Governance

• Collaborate with senior stakeholders, using persuasion, influencing, and negotiation skills, to identify and communicate solutions that can be ratified through appropriate governance forums.
• Clearly communicate analytical results and complex concepts to non-expert audiences, including senior stakeholders, to secure buy-in and support for recommendations.
• Manage the demand for enterprise analysis across the DNE, ensuring that priorities are addressed transparently and effectively.

Cross-Functional Interventions and Delivery

• Lead pan-enterprise, cross-functional interventions in response to DNE Senior Leadership Team (SLT) directed objectives, such as deep-dive analyses, early interventions, and solutions to mission-critical issues.
• Oversee the delivery of interventions that address strategic challenges and ensure alignment with enterprise objectives.

Team Leadership and Culture

• Provide visible leadership to a geographically dispersed team of circa 15 specialists, fostering a high-performing, inclusive, and collaborative culture.
• Inspire and develop team members, ensuring they are equipped with the skills and support needed to deliver high-quality outputs.

Person specification

• Exceptional Leadership and Strategic Vision: Proven ability to lead and manage teams effectively, fostering an inclusive and collaborative environment, while setting and delivering strategic direction for an organisation.
• Innovative and Forward-Thinking: Skilled at researching, adopting, and applying new ideas and approaches, encouraging innovation to address challenges and emerging risks, with a commitment to seeing ideas through to successful implementation.
• Outstanding Communication and Influencing Skills: Ability to simplify and articulate complex technical language, presenting insights clearly and persuasively through compelling methods, including data visualisations, to engage and influence senior stakeholders.
• Strong Relationship Management: Demonstrated success in building and maintaining excellent relationships with internal and external stakeholders, using these relationships to influence decisions and drive change at senior levels.
• Resilience and Wellbeing Leadership: Maintains personal resilience in high-pressure, complex environments while fostering a psychologically safe and supportive atmosphere to ensure team wellbeing and morale.
• Project Management and Problem-Solving Expertise: Strong project management skills with a track record of planning and delivering process improvement initiatives, combined with excellent problem-solving and decision-making abilities focused on business outcomes.

Qualification

• Hold a relevant analytical or project delivery qualification (e.g. bachelor’s degree in a relevant analytical subject/Certified Analytics Professional (CAP) / Managing Successful Programmes/APM Qualification/Prince 2/Agile)

Desirable criteria may be used in the event of a strong field of candidates when there is a need to distinguish between candidates. This will be as a second sift, after the essential criteria has been considered:

• Knowledge and experience of Defence.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £90,000, Ministry of Defence contributes £26,073 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

To apply for this post, you will need to complete the online application process accessed via the Civil Service Jobs portal. This should be completed no later than 23:55 Sunday 15 November 2026 and will involve providing the two documents which are weighted equally:

• A CV (no more than 2 pages) setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure you have provided reasons for any gaps within the last two years.​
• A Personal Statement (no more than 2 pages) providing tangible examples that clearly evidence how you meet the essential criteria for the role.​

External candidates who join the MOD and are new to the Civil Service will be subject to a six-month probation period.​

For further information about the role and full application process, please refer to the candidate pack attached below. If you wish to receive any material in a different format for accessibility, then please contact People-CivHR-SCSCandidateSupport@mod.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 meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is developed vetting (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

Open to UK nationals only.

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 Team
• Email : People-CivHR-SCSCandidateSupport@mod.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : People-CivHR-SCSCandidateSupport@mod.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, you should contact People-CivHR-SCSCandidateSupport@mod.gov.uk in the first instance. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission Civil Service Commission - Recruitment.

Attachments

Deputy Director Enterprise Analysis and Insights Candidate Pack Opens in new window (pdf, 232kB)