Director of the Office for Life Sciences

Job summary

The Office for Life Sciences (OLS) is a trilateral unit working across the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and, since July 2025, the Department for Business and Trade (DBT). It plays a central role in delivering the UK Government’s ambition to be a global leader in life sciences, one of the eight priority Industrial Strategy sectors —driving economic growth, improving health outcomes, and ensuring the UK remains at the forefront of scientific innovation. OLS works at the intersection of health, science, and industry, shaping policy and delivery. This is being readvertised as a result of unforeseen changes in the availability of the original appointee.

As Director of OLS, you will lead the cross-government delivery of the recently published Life Sciences Sector Plan, part of the Government’s Industrial Strategy. You will also have responsibilities stemming from the innovation aspects of the recently published 10 Year Health Plan. This is a delivery-focused role at the heart of government, translating strategic commitments into real-world impact—accelerating innovation into the NHS, unlocking investment, driving the reform of regulation, and supporting the UK’s thriving life sciences ecosystem.

Working closely with the Executive Chair for the Office for Life Sciences who will lead on international and media engagement, you will be responsible for ensuring the UK is on track to be the third most important life sciences economy globally by 2035. The role requires a strategic, collaborative, and delivery-minded leader who can navigate complexity, build coalitions, and maintain momentum in a fast-moving and high-profile environment. You will need to broker strong partnerships with a wide range of pharma and med tech companies, as well as securing significant high-value manufacturing and R&D investments into the UK. You will also need to be a close partner with NHS colleagues and across the wider health system.

To ensure OLS can make the most of being a trilateral unit, it has one set of objectives agreed by the three Director-Generals working with the Executive Chair. Monthly governance meetings are opportunities to review progress against those objectives and identify any areas where further support is needed from the departments, Exec Chair or DGs. The DG for DSIT provides line management support, working closely with the other DGs.

Job description

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic Leadership:Set the strategic direction for the UK life sciences sector, ensuring alignment with government priorities on economic growth, health innovation, and science and technology.
• Policy Implementation:Oversee the implementation of the Life Sciences Sector Plan, both the 11 commitments for which you are personally responsible and delivering through others.
• Cross-Government Coordination:Lead a trilateral unit across DSIT, DHSC and DBT working closely with partners across Government and in the NHS, ensuring that you are making the most of being in all three departments and are truly a trilateral organisation.
• Industry Engagement:Act as a senior interface with global and UK-based life sciences companies, investors, and trade associations to promote the UK as a leading destination for life sciences innovation and investment.
• Team Leadership:Lead a high-performing, multidisciplinary team, fostering a culture of inclusion, innovation, and excellence.
• Corporate contribution: Make a wider contribution to the leadership of at least one of the host departments.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

• Strategic Vision and Leadership under Scrutiny: Demonstrated ability to set a compelling strategic direction for a multidisciplinary team, providing clarity, motivation, and support to deliver shared objectives in a complex and evolving political and policy environment.
• Innovation and Foresight: Ability to assess and respond to emerging scientific, technological, and regulatory developments in the life sciences sector, and to translate these into strategic opportunities for the UK.
• Collaborative Influence: A strong track record of building effective partnerships across government departments, the NHS, regulators, academia, and industry—demonstrating an understanding of the interconnected nature of health, science, and economic policy.
• External credibility: Ability to engage confidently and constructively with senior leaders in the life sciences sector, earning trust and credibility as a representative of government and a champion for UK innovation and investment.
• Decisive and Inclusive Leadership: Capacity to make bold, strategic decisions—sometimes in the face of competing interests—while fostering a culture of creativity, inclusivity, and openness to diverse perspectives.

Experience working in or with the NHS, health innovation systems, biomedical research, or the international life sciences industry is beneficial but is not essential for the role.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £100,000, Department for Science, Innovation & Technology contributes £28,970 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology offers a competitive mix of benefits including:

• A culture of flexible working, such as job sharing, homeworking and compressed hours.
• Automatic enrolment into the Civil Service Pension Scheme, with an employer contribution of 28.97%.
• A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by 1 day per year up to a maximum of 30.
• An extensive range of learning & professional development opportunities, which all staff are actively encouraged to pursue.
• Access to a range of retail, travel and lifestyle employee discounts.
• A hybrid office/home based working model where staff will spend a norm of 40-60% of their time in the office (minimum of 40%) over a month with flex dependent on balancing business and individual need.

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

When applying you will need to follow the online application process which includes submitting A CV setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements, along with a statement of suitability (1250 words).

Applications will be sifted to select those demonstrating the best fit with the post against the criteria set out in the person specification. Please ensure you keep this in mind when writing your CV and supporting statement.​ The timeline in the attached Candidate Information Pack indicates the date by which a decision is expected to be made, and all candidates will be advised of the outcome as soon as possible thereafter.

Townhall Information Session:

We will be hosting a virtual townhall on 30th January at 10.30am where interested candidates can discuss the role. Please email dg.sig@dsit.gov.uk by midday 28th January to receive the Teams link.

To ensure your privacy, candidates have the option to join the session anonymously; simply leave the name field blank or enter 'Guest' when prompted.

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 : scscandidate.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
• Email : scscandidate.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : scsrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Further information

Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. If you feel that your application has not been treated in accordance with the recruitment principles, and wish to make a complaint, then you should contact in the first instance dsitresourcing.GRS@cabinetoffice.gov.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response that you receive, then you can contact the Civil Service Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their web pages at: https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/contact-us/

Attachments

2026.01.15 Director Director of the Office for Life Sciences 424017 candidate information pack Opens in new window (pdf, 10MB)Director for the Office of Life Science - Accessibility Pack (1) (1) Opens in new window (docx, 244kB)