Director, National Policing Systems (NPS) in Police and Public Protection Technology Portfolio (PPPT)

Job summary

Why this role matters

Home Office Digital designs, builds and runs the technology and services that deliver, at scale, some of the UK’s most critical and well-used public services. The engineering capability plays a critical part in every part of the Home Office in delivering its mission from how we secure the border and control immigration to issues passports and reducing and preventing crime, supporting these services that impact millions of people every year.

The Home Office Digital estate consists of more than 600 systems, enabling critical services such as;

• 13 million Electronic Travel Authorisations since launch
• 3 million visa applications annually
• 130 million border checks each year
• 7 million passport applications annually
• 140 million police checks on people, vehicles, and property

The Director: National Policing Systems (NPS) is a member of the Police and Public Protection Technology Portfolio (PPPT) Senior Management Team and is responsible for the strategic leadership, transformation and sustainment of a portfolio of nationally critical policing technology services. These services, including Law Enforcement Data Service (LEDS), Police National Computer (PNC), Police National Database (PND), Law Enforcement Community Network (LECN), Law Enforcement Cloud Platform (LECP), National Identity and Access Management (NIAM), and associated platforms, support over 250,000 users across UK law enforcement, security and intelligence agencies, Border Force and wider government.

The successful candidate will lead the continued modernisation of national policing systems, overseeing the transition from legacy capabilities to secure, scalable and resilient digital services. This includes completing the delivery of the LEDS, sustaining critical national infrastructure, and establishing a unified operating model for national policing technology services.

The role carries overall accountability for strategy, delivery, live service performance, risk management and stakeholder engagement. Reporting to the Director: PPPT, the postholder will lead a large multidisciplinary organisation of civil servants, partners and suppliers, working closely with senior policing leaders, Home Office colleagues and delivery partners to ensure services remain secure, reliable and aligned to operational needs.

As a senior leader within PPPT, the Director: NPS will drive collaboration, standardisation and organisational capability growth, shaping a high-performing product, engineering, delivery and service management function capable of supporting the future evolution of national policing services.

Job description

Key responsibilities:

• Provide strategic leadership and delivery oversight for the National Policing Systems portfolio, ensuring effective governance, risk management, financial control and stakeholder engagement.
• Lead the transformation of legacy policing capabilities into modern, scalable and secure digital services while maintaining service availability and operational resilience.
• Develop and champion coherent product and service roadmaps aligned to policing priorities, user needs and departmental objectives.
• Establish and mature a single service operating model that delivers consistent, end-to-end management, support and observability across the NPS portfolio.
• Lead a large, complex multidisciplinary workforce and supplier ecosystem, fostering a culture of collaboration, continuous improvement and high performance.
• Work with senior policing, Home Office and technology stakeholders to align strategy, architecture, investment and delivery priorities.
• Drive service quality, operational efficiency, resilience and cyber security across nationally critical policing systems and enabling platforms.
• Deputise for the Director: PPPT as required.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

You will have a demonstrable passion for delivery and digital service excellence, with the following skills and strong experience in:

• Proven experience leading complex digital product and service delivery across the full lifecycle, delivering high-quality, user-centred services and new capabilities at scale. Working across system to develop core digital strategies.
• Proven track record in transforming legacy services into modern, scalable solutions while successfully operating large-scale digital services, balancing service reliability, cyber resilience and continuous improvement
• The ability to build high trust relationships with very senior customers and stakeholders in a political, pressured environment, bridging technical and non-technical divides, with the confidence and credibility to challenge where necessary.
• Leading, managing, and motivating large multi-disciplinary teams, building the capability of delivery professionals, inspiring and empowering teams to perform to a high standard. Leading Transformation across large teams.
• Strong financial management skills with experience in managing substantial budgets.
• Proven expertise in managing suppliers and contracts within the context of technology change, able to establish and maximise effective working relationships with suppliers to stimulate innovation and guarantee successful delivery whilst delivering value for money from investment.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £105,000, Home Office contributes £30,418 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

Online application

Please follow the Job Advert instructions on the Civil Service Jobs website to apply online by 23:55hrs on 11th October 2026.

You will be asked to provide:

• A CV – (max 2 pages) setting out your career history, highlighting specific responsibilities and achievements that are relevant for this role. Please provide reasons for any gaps within the last two years.​​
• A Statement of Suitability – (limited to 1250) providing examples of how your experience meets the essential criteria.​​ This is your opportunity to give examples and show how your skills and experience fit the job requirements.

When writing a supporting statement, it is important that you:

• Read the job specification so you are clear about the job requirements. Structure your personal statement to reflect the essential criteria listed in the advert.
• Make sure you provide evidence against each of the listed criteria - i.e. ‘experienced in leading high performing and diverse teams and promoting inclusivity.’ When have you led a team, how large, what did you do to promote inclusivity, how did you handle diversity?
• Ensure any evidence you provide demonstrates the impact of your actions in that situation, provide statistical evidence where relevant.

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 : SCS Recruitment Team
• Email : SCSRecruitment@homeoffice.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : SCSRecruitment@homeoffice.gov.uk

Further information

The Commission publishes a guide that outlines its approach to handling a complaint under the Recruitment Principles. This can be accessed at http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/civil-service-recruitm…. We would recommend you read this guidance before submitting a complaint.

Complaints should be sent in writing to: Civil Service Commission, Room G8, 1 Horse Guards Road, London, SW1A 2HQ.

Attachments

Director NPS in PPPT - Candidate Pack Opens in new window (pdf, 3599kB)