Deputy Director Scientific Facilities

Job summary

The UKHSA Scientific Facilities and Performance Directorate is responsible the safe and effective running of our core Scientific Facilities, leads our strategic Transformation and Capital Delivery programmes, and delivers business management functions and operational performance data for the group.

Working for your organisation

We pride ourselves as being an employer of choice, where Everyone Matters promoting equality of opportunity to actively encourage applications from everyone, including groups currently underrepresented in our workforce.

UKHSA ethos is to be an inclusive organisation for all our staff and stakeholders. To create, nurture and sustain an inclusive culture, where differences drive innovative solutions to meet the needs of our workforce and wider communities. We do this through celebrating and protecting differences by removing barriers and promoting equity and equality of opportunity for all.

Please visit our careers site for more information https://gov.uk/ukhsa/careers

Job description

Based within the Scientific Facilities and Performance Directorate, the Deputy Director – Scientific Facilities is responsible for operational site management, security, engineering services, media services and other site services at our three main UKHSA scientific campuses at Colindale, Porton and Chilton, as well as sites at Leeds and Glasgow. The role holder must support our specialist functions to deliver our services safely and effectively. This includes collaborating with a matrix of stakeholders including:

• Scientific functional leads and their teams which operate at each site.
• Corporate leads including the Finance Business Partner, HR Business Partner, Health & Safety, and Security leads.
• The Deputy Director for Workplace, and Health and Safety.
• UKHSA Health Security Campus programme.
• Leadership within other Groups which use our sites

The scientific campuses provide critical national infrastructure, and this role will advise and work with peers to maintain these designations. The role holder must ensure the sites are robust, safe, sustainable, compliant, and adaptable, and that they are available to meet UKHSA’s strategic priorities.

The role requires strategic leadership and the ability to inspire others, particularly when navigating complex change whilst supporting the welfare and wellbeing of staff, and ensuring our sites meet the diverse needs of our people. Additionally, our sites must operate with consideration to the environmental impact e.g. waste, access by public transport, utilities, noise, emissions etc.

To effectively discharge their duties the Deputy Director for Scientific Facilities will maintain frequent attendance and visibility at all three main campuses, with regular travel to Leeds and Glasgow.

The role requires a building engineering background of specialist estate management or a scientific technical background with comprehensive experience of the operation of specialist scientific facilities such as high containment microbiology laboratory operation.

The role holder must ensure the following requirements are met:

• Sites are properly maintained and suitable for operational use.
• Each site has a 5-year plan in place to ensure enduring suitability for operational delivery.
• All legal, statutory and contractual requirements are adhered to.
• Sites are managed and maintained by suitably qualified staff.
• Government property standards are met and best practice is always strived for.
• Resources are prioritised to ensure responsibilities are discharged in a timely manner and to an appropriate and / or required standard.
• Contracts for site support, security, estates management and engineering services are in place and always planned for in relation to expiring arrangements.
• Contracts are arranged according to best practice and to deliver high quality services with value for taxpayers, working with Commercial and Corporate teams to achieve this.
• At each scientific campus site a lead person from the Scientific Facilities Division is in place to ensure day-to-day responsibility for the safety and security of staff and visitors and a first point of contact for issues on the site.
• The team must keep staff and visitors informed about the operation of the site, liaising with the designated Site Lead should an issue occur, to include where serious enough to potentially be an incident where formal response may be required.
• Common standards and arrangements are applied across all sites to ensure consistent quality and safety of service is achieved.
• Commercial and Corporate teams are collaborated with and that UKHSA’s policies and procedures for property are adhered to.
• Site asset plans for all three campuses (and associated sites) are maintained
• Effectively integrate the development, day to day operations, and business continuity activities of all UKHSA and contractor teams at scientific campus sites, to enable the most efficient and effective provision of essential utilities and other support services required to provide and maintain UKHSA operations.
• Actively support and provide input to the specifications, design and delivery of the new Health Security Campus. It is expected the role holder will prioritise scientific facilities resource where needed to ensure the successful delivery of this core UKHSA programme.
• Be responsible for identification of, approvals and delivery of major change and continuous improvement construction and maintenance projects, to budget and in accordance with relevant governance and approval requirements, including those set out by the Group Capital Programme.
• Ensure continuous and appropriate commercially contracted hard and soft facilities management supplier arrangements are in place, providing oversight of business cases and approval processes and delivering regular service reviews to optimise utilisation of in-house/ outsourced services.
• Be responsible for day-to-day operations for both hard and soft facilities management service delivery including, maintenance, engineering, security, media services, catering, cleaning, and waste management.
• Review and monitor extant infrastructure developments, implementation of lessons identified from incident responses, and any other relevant supporting reviews or report recommendations to develop and maintain a justified, integrated, and prioritised list of essential works and supporting actions (Site and across Site Action Plans) that are required to sustain safe, efficient, and effective delivery.
• Develop a culture of excellence through investment in our people and building an engineering profession development pathway to improve retention and drive opportunity for all.

The role-holder must ensure good governance and site stewardship is adhered to, including:

• Continuous monitoring of risks present at each location, maintaining local and divisional site risk registers to inform and direct site development and operations, including sufficient controls in place to protect against cyber risk and breaches of industrial control systems.
• Responsibility for the Scientific Facilities Governance Group and all aspects of health, safety, security, and the welfare of all staff on the sites.
• Business continuity and contingency planning for all five sites, protecting essential services provided by UKHSA in times of crisis.
• Maintaining effective communication across sites, leading and supporting UKHSA internal communications and employee engagement activities.
• Promoting and maintaining good working relationships with neighbouring site operators, local authorities and other government agencies, site contractors, and all other stakeholders that support the effective operation of our sites.
• Liaise routinely with other UKHSA Directors and their teams at scientific sites and with other delegated property managers, to ensure a consistent approach to site leadership and management.
• Early identification of adverse events to enable rapid escalation where appropriate. Provision of, or support of, the Incident lead role, as appropriate.
• Lead mutual aid arrangements to ensure that all incident and outbreak responses affecting the sites are properly resourced with trained and available staff, and the required supporting infrastructure.
• Implement a performance insight driven approach to manage operational activity and develop KPIs to track and demonstrate operational improvement and excellence.

Sound management of Resource and Capital financial budgets including implementation and monitoring of financial controls and oversight to ensure the highest standard of scrutiny and tracking of spend, accurate forecasting and effective management of headcount to ensure this is prioritised and managed within budget capacity.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Educated to degree level in an Engineering, Scientific, or comparable discipline, including a relevant professional registration/qualification
• Evidence of relevant continuing professional development qualifications

Desirable criteria

• Educated to PhD level in an Engineering, Scientific, Medical or equivalent discipline

Knowledge and Experience

Essential criteria

• Significant experience in providing building management, operations and engineering of a scientific estate, operational public health or health related services at a senior level
• Experience in the leadership and management of a science focused or other relevant specialist campus, including engineering, hard and soft facilities management, health and safety, media production and site security. Expertise which links to this and relates to microbiology, epidemiology, chemicals, radiation, or nuclear science will be beneficial
• Experience of managing significant revenue and capital projects to time, cost, and quality, including negotiation in tender processes and knowledge of complex Government Frameworks
• Experience of overseeing regulatory and compliance, operational quality and safe sites, from development of policy through to implementation and monitoring

Desirable criteria

• Knowledge and experience of working under regulations and standards associated with the operation of scientific campus sites
• Proven working knowledge and experience of site and laboratory health & safety and compliance regulations

Skills and Capabilities

Essential criteria

• Leadership of operational services for a national organisation
• Evidence of managing major change and delivering major works successfully and positively
• Proven skill in people management in mobilising and motivating multi-disciplinary teams to learn, develop and deliver to high standards

Equality and Diversity

Essential criteria

• An understanding of and commitment to equality of opportunity and good working relationships, both in terms of day-to-day working practices, but also in relation to management systems

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £81,000, UK Health Security Agency 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%

BENEFITS

We pride ourselves as being an employer of choice, where Everyone Matters promoting equality of opportunity to actively encourage applications from everyone, including groups currently underrepresented in our workforce. UKHSA ethos is to be an inclusive organisation for all our staff and stakeholders. To create, nurture and sustain an inclusive culture, where differences drive innovative solutions to meet the needs of our workforce and wider communities. We do this through celebrating and protecting differences by removing barriers and promoting equity and equality of opportunity for all.

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

Selection Process: (Success Profiles)

External
Open to all external applicants (anyone) from outside the Civil Service (including by definition internal applicants).

Stage 1: Application & Sift

This vacancy is using Success Profiles .

At sift stage you will be assessed against the essential criteria listed in the Job Description & Person Specification attached to this vacancy advert.

You will be required to complete an:

• Application form (‘Employer/ Activity history’ section on the application)
• 750 word Statement of Suitability/ behaviour statements / technical statements

Healthjobs UK has a word limit of 1500, but your statement of suitability must be no more than insert word count.

This should outline how your skills, experience, and knowledge, provide evidence of your suitability for the role.

You will receive a joint score for your application form and statement. (The application form is the kind of information you would put into your C.V –please be advised you will not be able to upload your CV. Please complete the application form in as much detail as possible)

If we receive a large number of applications an initial sift against the lead criteria will be conducted:

Significant experience in providing building management, operations and engineering of a scientific estate, operational public health or health related services at a senior level.

We will only take through applications to full sift that meet the lead essential criteria.

Please note feedback will not be provided at this stage.

Stage 2: Interview (success profiles)

You will be invited to a face to face interview, in exceptional circumstances, we may be able to offer a remote interview.

Interviews will be held at Canary Wharf or Colindale Week (location to be confirmed) Commencing 04 May 2026. Please note this date is subject to change.

During the interview we will assess you against the below:

Previous Skills and Experience: Technical skills and experience

The Behaviours tested during the interview stage will be:

Leadership

Communicating and Influencing

You will be asked to complete a short ‘in tray’ exercise. This will be completed as part of the interview process on the day and will form part of the discussion with the panel.

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Hybrid working attached to any Scientific Campus

This role is being offered as hybrid working based at one of our Scientific Campuses. We offer great flexible working opportunities at UKHSA and operate using a hybrid working model where business needs allow. This provides us with greater flexibility about how and where we work, to get the best from our workforce. As a hybrid worker, you will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of your contractual working hours (approximately 3 days a week pro rata, (averaged over a month) working at one of UKHSA's scientific campus sites (Colindale or Porton).

Security Clearance Level Requirement

Successful candidates must pass a standard disclosure and barring security check.

This role requires the successful candidate to obtain or hold Security Check (SC) clearance upon commencement of employment

Security Check (SC)

For meaningful National Security Vetting checks to be carried out individuals need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time. You should normally have been resident in the United Kingdom for the last 5 years as the role requires Security Check (SC) UK residency less than the outlined periods may not necessarily bar you from gaining national security vetting and applicants should contact the Vacancy Holder/Recruiting Manager listed in the advert for further advice.

Internal Fraud Check

If successful for this role as one aspect of pre-employment screening, applicant’s personal details – name, national insurance number and date of birth - will be checked against the Cabinet Office Internal Fraud Hub, and anyone included on the database will be refused employment unless they can show exceptional circumstances. Currently this is only for external candidates to the Civil Service.

Salary Information

If you are successful at interview, and are moving from another government department, NHS, or Local Authority, the relevant starting salary principles for level transfers or promotions will apply. Otherwise, roles are offered at the pay scale minimum for the grade, but in exceptional circumstances there may be flexibility if you are able to demonstrate you are already in receipt of an existing, higher salary. Pay increases are through the relevant annual pay award for the role and terms.

SCS1

• £81,000 - £117,800

UK Health Security Agency promoted diversity in the workplace and is an Equal Opportunities employer.

Reasonable Adjustments

The Civil Service is committed to making sure that our selection methods are fair to everyone. To help you during the recruitment process, we will consider any reasonable adjustments that could help you. An adjustment is a change to the recruitment process or an adjustment at work. This is separate to the Disability Confident Scheme. If you need an adjustment to be made at any point during the recruitment process you should contact the recruitment team in confidence as soon as possible to discuss your needs.
You can find out more information about reasonable adjustments across the Civil Service here: Reasonable Adjustments , Civil Service Careers

Careers website

Please visit our careers site for more information UKHSA Hub , Civil Service Careers

Future location

UKHSA is investing in a new state-of-the-art National Biosecurity Centre in Harlow, Essex, which will eventually bring together teams currently based at Canary Wharf, Colindale and Porton Down. For more details, please see: Huge biosecurity centre investment to boost pandemic protection - GOV.UK.

The new facilities will start becoming operational in the mid-2030s, with full completion by 2038. Staff will move in phases as facilities become available. If you're
appointed to a role currently based at Canary Wharf, Colindale or Porton Down, please note that we'll continue investing in these sites for the next decade. As we get closer to the transition, we'll provide full information about relocation support available to staff.

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 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.

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

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 : Marc Merel
• Email : Marc.Merel@ukhsa.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : SCS.MDrecruitment@ukhsa.gov.uk

Further information

The law requires that selection for appointment to the Civil Service is on merit on the basis of fair and open competition as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's Recruitment Principles. 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 UKHSA Public Accountability Unit via email: Complaints@ukhsa.gov.uk If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission: Visit the Civil Service Commission website: https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk