Deputy Director Service Ownership

Job summary

This is an exciting time to join the Digital, Information, and Security Directorate within the Department for Transport as we restructure our directorate to ensure we are ready for future challenges, building a more sustainable, skilled, and in-house capability and ensuring that we are well equipped to efficiently and expertly deal with the increased and ever-evolving cyber-security threat, and lead the digital transformation of the department to realise the Government’s ambitions set out in the Blueprint for a Modern Digital Government.

Our restructuring will require a significant change in how we work to ensure we deliver clear outcomes to our customers and continue to learn and improve. As part of the senior leadership team, the role will be pivotal in creating, shaping, and nurturing the cultural change needed and through strong leadership and role modelling will reinforce the directorate’s cultural goals.

The deputy director will spearhead the establishment and management of four of our five new service lines: Essentials, Protect, Create, and Advance, significantly enhancing operational efficiency and will work to develop and embed the necessary processes to ensure this is delivered effectively.

This role is key in identifying the future digital requirements of the department, ensuring that opportunities to modernise ways of working are seized, and that stakeholders are consulted and informed about our roadmap for improved digital services. The role holder is a key figurehead for provision of digital within the department, a focal point for senior leaders, and a champion of high-quality, efficient, and user-centred service.

The deputy director is key in ensuring alignment with government and organisational priorities and serves as primary point of accountability for DfTc leadership, regarding digital service management, to ensure we operate to the highest standards. This role is key in ensuring that we deliver our key functions while maintaining employee trust, optimising resources, and being a cornerstone of DfTc’s operational excellence.

The deputy director oversees end-to-end service lifecycle management, fostering collaboration across all teams to ensure all service provision is aligned with organisational goals and government requirements while horizon scanning and future proofing service delivery.

Job description

Duties and responsibilities include:

• Define success and quality measures for a service and drive continuous improvements towards these.
• Manage budgets and oversee contracts related to digital, information, and security service delivery.
• Working with stakeholders they are responsible for the scalability, accessibility, efficiency, and secure delivery of services balancing current and future demands.
• Interpret and influence business strategy and translate the business needs to drive change and innovation that transforms the business.
• Develop and embed a comprehensive service lifecycle framework and produce regular performance reports.
• Own the strategic roadmap of the end-to-end lifecycle of a portfolio of products.
• Align services to architectural frameworks.
• Lead and mobilise service line owners in the delivery of their end-to-end lifecycles, roadmaps, and budgets.
• Drive strategic supplier relationships to support partnership working, driving innovation and additional value from contracts while managing ongoing service and delivery performance.
• Lead and drive a continuous improvement culture across all service lines.
• Create strategic plans for future services keeping abreast of changes in the digital landscape and across government to ensure our service offer remains innovative and future proofed.
• Develop a service provision roadmap for DfTc and partner organisations.
• Ensure effective essential BAU delivery, managing demands and expectations in the event of an incident.
• Provide clear and strategic people capability building plans – including talent pipelines; succession plans; and ensuring all staff have clear and structured development plans.

Person specification

You will need to be able to show, through your application, that you have the professional skills, breadth of experience, and personal qualities for this post, as well as the leadership skills to succeed at Deputy Director level in the Senior Civil Service.

• Extensive experience adapting to a range of delivery and service management models, with a strong understanding of their strengths and limitations.
• Proven ability to identify measurable benefits, ensure value for money, and make effective prioritisation decisions across competing demands. Strong track record of developing, embedding, and using performance measures and metrics to monitor, manage, and improve delivery outcomes.
• Demonstrable leadership experience delivering through matrix management and leading multidisciplinary teams across operations, policy, digital, and delivery.
• Ability to build, lead, and develop high-performing, diverse teams, including workforce planning, talent development, succession planning, and managed exits.
• Proven experience of using user insight to inform strategy and drive continuous improvement, ensuring high-quality, user-centred service delivery.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £86,000, Department for Transport 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.

Whatever your role, we take your career and development seriously, and want to enable you to build a really successful career with the Department and wider Civil Service.

It is crucial that our employees have the right skills to develop their careers and meet the challenges ahead, and you’ll benefit from regular performance and development reviews to ensure this development is ongoing. As a Civil Service employee, you’ll be entitled to a large range of benefits.

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

The Civil Service values and supports all its employees.

We have strong and pro-active staff networks, special leave policies for hospital appointments, reasonable adjustments put in place for those who need them, and diversity talent programmes to help everyone irrespective of background, to achieve their potential.

Pension

Your pension is a valuable part of your total reward package.

A competitive contributory pension scheme that you can enter as soon as you join where we will make a significant contribution to the cost of your pension; where your contributions come out of your salary before any tax is taken; and where your pension will continue to provide valuable benefits for you and your family if you are too ill to continue to work or die before you retire. Visit Civil Service Pension Scheme for more details.

Generous Annual Leave and Bank Holiday Allowance

25 days annual leave on entry, increasing on a sliding scale to 30 days after 5 years’ service (allowance is pro rata for part-time employees). This is in addition to 8 public holidays.

This will be complimented by one further day paid privilege entitlement to mark the King’s Birthday.
(Leave is Pro rata basis for part time/job share)

Staff Wellbeing

Flexible working including part-time or term-time working and access to Flexible Working Schemes allowing you to vary your working day as long as you work your total hours.

Generous paid maternity and paternity leave which is notably more than the statutory minimum offered by many other employers.

Childcare benefits (policy for new employees as of 5 April 2018): The government has introduced the Tax-Free Childcare (TFC) scheme. Working parents can open an online childcare account and for every £8 they pay in, the government adds £2, up to a maximum of £2000 a year for each child or £4000 for a disabled child. Parents then use the funds to pay for registered childcare. Existing employees may be able to continue to claim childcare vouchers, so please check how the policy would work for you here. Any move to the DfT from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments.

Onsite facilities Opportunity to use onsite facilities including fitness centres and staff canteens (where applicable).

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

Application

To apply for this post, you will need to complete the online form. This should be completed no later than 23:55 on 19th July 2026.

https://gdsearch.sandersonplc.com/deputy-director-service-ownership

The application will include:

A CV 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 Statement of Suitability (no longer than 1000 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 in the person specification.

Failure to submit both documents will mean the panel only have limited information on which to assess your application against the criteria in the person specification.

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 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.

Should you encounter any issues with your application please contact:

IndiaScarlett.Horton@sandersonplc.com

For a confidential discussion to help inform your application, please contact our recruitment advisors at Sanderson Government and Defence:

Josh.irving@sandersonplc.com ​

IndiaScarlett.Horton@sandersonplc.com

Longlist

The panel will assess your application to select those demonstrating the best fit with the role by considering the evidence you have provided against the essential criteria set out in the ‘Person Specification’ section. Failure to address any or all of these may affect your application. ​

The timeline further down indicates the date by which decisions are expected to be made, and all candidates will be advised of the outcome as soon as possible thereafter. Candidates selected for longlisting will be invited for a preliminary discussion with a consultant at Sanderson Government and Defence to further explore their skills and experience.​

Candidates applying under the Disability Confident, Redeployment or Veterans Scheme who meet the minimum selection criteria in the job specification are guaranteed an interview. Please complete the relevant parts in the application system if applying under these schemes.

Shortlist

The panel will review reports on those longlisted and will select a shortlist of candidates whose applications best demonstrate suitability for the role, by considering the evidence provided against the essential criteria set out in the Person Specification.

Assessment

If you are shortlisted you will be asked to take part in the following assessments :

• Individual Leadership Assessment – a combination of psychometric assessments
• Staff Engagement Exercise - a presentation and Q&A with a representative staff group from across the DfT.

These assessments will not result in a pass or fail decision. Rather, they are designed to support the panel’s decision making and highlight areas for the panel to explore further at interview.

Interview

You will be invited to attend a panel interview, which will include a presentation followed by an in-depth discussion of your previous experience and professional competence against the criteria outlined in the Person Specification. Interviews are expected to take place face to face at our London office.

Outcome and Feedback

Unfortunately, due to the anticipated number of applicants for this role, we are unable to provide feedback to those not successful at longlist stage.

Timeline

The timeline further down indicates the date by which decisions are expected to be made, all candidates will be advised of the outcome as soon as possible thereafter, and we will advise on any delays.

Expected Timeline

We will try and offer as much flexibility as we can, but it may not be possible to offer alternative dates for assessments or interviews. You are therefore asked to note the below timetable, exercising flexibility through the recruitment and selection process, in order to meet the dates given. Please note that these dates may be subject to change.

The anticipated timetable is as follows:

Advert Closing Date: 19th July 2026

Longlist: 24th July 2026

Shortlist: 5th August 2026

Assessments: Close to 13th August 2026

Panel Interviews: w/c 24th August 2026

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.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 : India Scarlett Horton
• Email : IndiaScarlett.Horton@sandersonplc.com

Recruitment team

• Email : SCS.Recruitment@dft.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, in the first instance, you should contact Government Recruitment Services via email: dftrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.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 at https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/

Attachments

SCS Candidate Pack - DD Service Ownership - - Final Opens in new window (pdf, 1159kB)