Deputy North England Director

Job summary

As Deputy North England Director, you will provide strategic and operational leadership in support of the North England Director, helping to lead all aspects of Forestry England’s business across the North England Forest District.

You will be responsible for overseeing the leadership of day-to-day delivery of forestry and land management, civil engineering and recreation operations, supported by Heads of Function and their teams, while also contributing fully to the wider strategic leadership of the district. You will play a key role in ensuring that complex and interdependent programmes of work are planned, prioritised and coordinated effectively, supporting innovation, continuous improvement and change to improve delivery, resilience and value for money.

You will lead the translation of Forestry England’s national strategy, Growing the Future, into effective, integrated and sustainable local delivery through the development of the district business plan.

You will act as deputy to the North England Director when required, representing Forestry England with partners and stakeholders, and coordinating input to major programmes and projects of regional and national significance.

Job description

Key responsibilities & accountabilities

Strategic leadership

• Be accountable and provide strategic leadership across forestry and land management, civil engineering, and recreation operations, ensuring delivery aligns with national priorities and the District Business Plan.
• Translate national strategy, business plans and performance targets into clear operational priorities and delivery programmes.
• Actively promote a “one team” culture, working across all district and national functions to improve integration, efficiency and outcomes.

Leadership, people & culture

• Provide visible leadership, coaching and support to senior staff and managers, particularly those leading Land Management, Recreation and Visitor Experience, and Civil Engineering.
• Create and sustain a strongly positive health, safety and wellbeing culture, ensuring compliance and continuous improvement.
• Champion equality, diversity and inclusion, fostering an inclusive, supportive and high-performing working environment.
• Lead workforce planning for operational teams, building capability, succession and resilience for the long term.
• Provide leadership in emergency response, business continuity and contingency planning, ensuring the district has readiness to manage incidents; in line with national policy.

Business planning & programme leadership

• Working closely with the Director and Finance Manager, coordinate the five-year business planning cycle, ensuring the district leadership team is sighted on future opportunities, risks, constraints and resource implications.
• Champion and lead a programme management approach in the planning of operations and infrastructure development; aligning forest planning, planting, harvesting, civil engineering, recreation investment and land management programmes over both annual and multi-year timescales.
• Work closely with teams to ensure operational programmes are realistic, affordable and deliverable.
• Drive efficiency in the planning for and use of the vehicle and machinery fleet across the district.

Performance, commercial & operational improvement

• Deliver strong operational performance while ensuring professionalism across teams and demonstrating excellence across the estate through accreditations (e.g. UK Woodland Assurance Standard, Visit England quality assessment at Forest Centres).
• Achieve strong commercial and financial outcomes, improving the district’s net position and being accountable to the North England Director for budgets, contracts, suppliers and commercial relationships within areas of oversight. This includes ensuring procurement and contract management compliance with organisation policies.
• Lead a culture of continuous improvement, driving innovation, modernisation, and improved systems, processes and ways of working.

Deputy & external representation

• Act as deputy to the North England Director when required, including chairing meetings and representing Forestry England externally.
• Build and maintain effective relationships with key stakeholders, partners and customers.
• Coordinate Forestry England’s input into significant regional and national plans and projects affecting Forestry England’s forests in the north and, occasionally, across England.

And any other tasks, reasonably requested by your line manager.

Person specification

Key responsibilities & accountabilities

Strategic leadership

• Be accountable and provide strategic leadership across forestry and land management, civil engineering, and recreation operations, ensuring delivery aligns with national priorities and the District Business Plan.
• Translate national strategy, business plans and performance targets into clear operational priorities and delivery programmes.
• Actively promote a “one team” culture, working across all district and national functions to improve integration, efficiency and outcomes.

Leadership, people & culture

• Provide visible leadership, coaching and support to senior staff and managers, particularly those leading Land Management, Recreation and Visitor Experience, and Civil Engineering.
• Create and sustain a strongly positive health, safety and wellbeing culture, ensuring compliance and continuous improvement.
• Champion equality, diversity and inclusion, fostering an inclusive, supportive and high-performing working environment.
• Lead workforce planning for operational teams, building capability, succession and resilience for the long term.
• Provide leadership in emergency response, business continuity and contingency planning, ensuring the district has readiness to manage incidents; in line with national policy.

Business planning & programme leadership

• Working closely with the Director and Finance Manager, coordinate the five-year business planning cycle, ensuring the district leadership team is sighted on future opportunities, risks, constraints and resource implications.
• Champion and lead a programme management approach in the planning of operations and infrastructure development; aligning forest planning, planting, harvesting, civil engineering, recreation investment and land management programmes over both annual and multi-year timescales.
• Work closely with teams to ensure operational programmes are realistic, affordable and deliverable.
• Drive efficiency in the planning for and use of the vehicle and machinery fleet across the district.

Performance, commercial & operational improvement

• Deliver strong operational performance while ensuring professionalism across teams and demonstrating excellence across the estate through accreditations (e.g., UK Woodland Assurance Standard, Visit England quality assessment at Forest Centres).
• Achieve strong commercial and financial outcomes, improving the district’s net position and being accountable to the North England Director for budgets, contracts, suppliers and commercial relationships within areas of oversight. This includes ensuring procurement and contract management compliance with organisation policies.
• Lead a culture of continuous improvement, driving innovation, modernisation, and improved systems, processes and ways of working.

Deputy & external representation

• Act as deputy to the North England Director when required, including chairing meetings and representing Forestry England externally.
• Build and maintain effective relationships with key stakeholders, partners and customers.
• Coordinate Forestry England’s input into significant regional and national plans and projects affecting Forestry England’s forests in the north and, occasionally, across England.

And any other tasks, reasonably requested by your line manager.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Leadership
• Managing a Quality Service
• Changing and Improving
• Seeing the Big Picture

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £60,293, Forestry Commission contributes £17,466 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

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours.

How to apply…

You will be asked to write a 200 word statement on your relevant experience and career history, along with a personal statement of no more than 500 words. You will be assessed on both during sifting. More details about how to apply are listed on the application form.

The Behaviours being assessed at interview are –

• Leadership
• Managing a quality service
• Changing and improving
• Seeing the big picture

You will be asked to prepare and deliver a short presentation within the interview process.

The provisional interview date is Tuesday 11th August 2026 at our Bellingham office.

Successful candidates will undergo a criminal record check and the government baseline personnel security standard check.

If you require any reasonable adjustments, please email fcrecruitmentteam@forestryengland.uk.

If you're planning to use AI to support your application, please ensure you've read our guidelines here first.

Read more about our application process and working with us on the Forestry England website.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Medical

Successful candidates will be expected to have a medical.

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.The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).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 : fcrecruitmentteam@forestryengland.uk
• Email : fcrecruitmentteam@forestryengland.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : fcrecruitmentteam@forestryengland.uk

Further information

Our recruitment process is underpinned by the principle of appointment on the basis of fair and open competition and appointment on merit, as outlined in the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles.If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with these principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should in the first instance contact FCE by email: englandhr.services@forestryengland.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive, you can contact the Civil Service Commission, which regulates all Civil Service recruitment.

Attachments

Forestry England Job Description - Deputy Director North England FINAL (3) Opens in new window (pdf, 214kB)