Deputy Director - Head of Strategic Finance

Job summary

This role will shape financial strategy and provide essential leadership that underpins robust decision making and drives the effective operation of a large, complex organisation. Their guidance ensures that financial considerations are seamlessly integrated into every strategic and operational choice, fostering sound governance and supporting the department's long-term success.

This is a critical leadership role within the Home Office, supporting the delivery of effective and sustainable funding for the whole of Home Office. You will provide strategic financial advice and challenge to senior leaders, ensuring that funding decisions are evidence-based, value for money, and aligned with departmental priorities. You will lead a diverse team including finance, strategy and policy professionals and work closely with policy, operational and analytical colleagues to support fiscal events and manage relationships with key stakeholders including HM Treasury.

Working as part of the overall Finance Directorate, you will be expected to contribute to the overall management and leadership of the Finance function and contribute to the Government Finance Profession.

This role demands strong leadership, excellent communication skills and intellectual agility, and a collaborative spirit. It offers a unique opportunity to influence decisions at the highest level. For those passionate about transforming public services at a critical time for our country, there has never been a better time to join our team.

Job description

Key responsibilities include:

• Lead the department’s approach to Spending Reviews and fiscal events.
• Lead the department’s relationship with HM Treasury, including all key discussions and negotiations.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with the Home Secretary, Permanent Secretary, Second Permanent Secretary, Director General Chief Operating Office and the Executive Committee Board Members.
• Provide expert financial advice to senior leaders, including the Director General and Ministers, on funding allocations, distribution models, and investment decisions.
• Providing expert advice and assurance to deliver clear financial advice to support decision-making, including in submissions, Accounting Officer tests and advice.
• Oversee efforts to improve productivity and efficiency, making sure financial strategies help operations run better.
• Leading fees and income planning, including policy development and unit costing.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with policy, strategy and finance teams, and senior leaders both inside and outside the department.
• Help ensure the department’s financial strategy matches ministerial priorities and long-term goals.
• Lead the strategic finance, productivity and efficiency, and Fees and Income teams of team of 20.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

The successful candidate will need to demonstrate their knowledge, experience, capability and behavioural approach to a high standard against the following key criteria:

• Leadership - Substantial experience of leading, motivating and developing a diverse team of finance professionals and of developing a spirit of teamwork across functional and organisational boundaries to deliver an effective and efficient service, with specific experience of driving and improving performance
• Demonstrated ability to influence management at board level, combining strong analytical skills with ability to communicate complex positions clearly and compellingly.
  
• Strategic influence – a strategic thinker with the ability to anticipate risks, identify opportunities, and drive organisational change.
• Financial control – Experience of financial control in a large organisation with the ability to operate effectively in an environment of complexity and ambiguity. Experience of working with Ministers or board-level executives within a highly complex and politically sensitive environment.

Desirable Criteria

• CCAB, CIMA or equivalent qualified accountant with a substantial track record of success in a senior finance leadership role in a highly complex organisation.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £81,000, Home Office 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.

• 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

Online Application

Please follow the Job Advert instructions on the Civil Service Jobs website to apply online, no later than 23:55hrs on Sunday 29th March 2026

Provide some basic personal information;

1.A CV - setting out your career history, highlighting specific responsibilities and achievements that are relevant for this role, including details where budgets and numbers of people managed, relevant achievements in recent posts, together with reasons for any gaps within the last two years;

2.A Statement of Suitability – (limited to 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 essential criteria in the person specification.

3. Diversity Monitoring - as part of the online application process, you will be asked a number of diversity-related questions. If you do not wish to provide a declaration on any of the characteristics, you will have the option to select 'prefer not to say'. See the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy: 2022 to 2025 (HTML) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) for more information.

It is essential that in your written application you give evidence, using examples, of proven experience. These responses will be developed and discussed with candidates invited for interview. Failure to submit both a CV and Supporting Statement will mean the panel only have limited information on which to assess your application against the criteria in the person specification.

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 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 : Finance Directorate Chief of Staff
• Email : financedirectoratechiefofstaff@homeoffice.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : SCSRecruitment@homeoffice.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 SCSRecruitment@homeoffice.gov.uk in the first instance.

If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Home Office you can contact the Civil Service Commission. Complaints should be sent in writing to: Civil Service Commission, Room G8, 1 Horse Guards Road, London, SW1A 2HQ.

Attachments

DD Head of Strategic Finance - Candidate Pack Opens in new window (pdf, 728kB)