Finance Lead

Job summary

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government. We are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.

Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government, by:

1. joining up public sector services
2. harnessing the power of AI for the public good
3. strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure
4. elevating leadership and investing in talent
5. funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation
6. committing to transparency and driving accountability

We are home to the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI), the world-leading GOV.UK and at the forefront of coordinating the UK’s geospatial strategy and activity. We lead the Government Digital and Data function and champion the work of digital teams across government.

We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.

The Government Digital Service is where talent translates into impact. From your first day, you’ll be working with some of the world’s most highly-skilled digital professionals, all contributing their knowledge to make change on a national scale.

Join us for rewarding work that makes a difference across the UK. You'll solve some of the nation’s highest-priority digital challenges, helping millions of people access services they need.

Job description

As the Government Cyber Unit (GCU), our mission is to protect public services and the wider Government from cyber threats. We set strategic direction for Government and the public sector on cyber security, finding standards and policies through the Government Cyber Security Standard and the Cyber Policy Handbook. We assure system and organisation cyber security via initiatives such as GovAssure. Our team leads the operational response to cyber threats, vulnerabilities and incidents through the Government Coordination Centre (GC3) and manages the GCSS Portfolio to implement strategy across central Government and departments.

In June 2025, the GCU (under its previous name, the Cyber Directorate) moved from the Cabinet Office to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) as a part of a machinery of government change. This change aims to bring together the digital transformation of public services into one central department, presenting exciting opportunities and positioning DSIT to lead the government’s digital agenda.

We are proud of how our culture embraces a diverse workforce: we come from all walks of life and bring our different backgrounds, cultures, genders, experiences and skills to collaborate as a collective team to deliver more effectively. We strive for a collegiate and inclusive culture which enables voices at all levels to be heard - everyone plays their part in helping to keep the UK Government secure. We are committed to being an equal opportunities employer, welcoming and valuing diversity. We commit to supporting and developing our staff to reach their full potential and maximise their contributions. We do not tolerate harassment or discrimination.

Team Information:
There are two roles available in two different teams:

Business Support Team
The Business Support Team aids the unit in the delivery of our objectives by providing robust and consistent support on Finance, HR and Comms as well as other ad-hoc project support. We recognise that our staff have responsibilities and priorities outside of work so our approach is to work smart so flexible working arrangements are available and we actively promote hybrid working including a combination of time spent in the office with colleagues

Portfolio Team
The Portfolio Team supports the delivery of our strategic objectives via a portfolio of activity that supports their achievement. We undertake a traditional Portfolio Management Office (PMO) function, overseeing delivery, risk and outputs. As part of this, we closely track our financial position to maximise delivery. Alongside our PMO role, we offer our constituent projects and programmes targeted support from a deployable resource pool of P3M experts. We are a geographically-spread, hybrid team that recognises work life balance and flexible arrangements.

Person specification

Business Support Team:
As Finance Lead you will work closely with our Head of Business Support to lead on Unit level finance. You will manage unit level finances including unit level budget planning, forecasting and receipts. You will report on finances including L&D spending. As a new Business Support function, you will have a unique opportunity to shape and improve unit finance processes & oversight.

You will be responsible for (but not limited to):

• Leading all aspects of unit finances
• Unit budget planning
  
• Unit forecasting & budgeting
  
• Unit receipting
  
• Presenting financial information to seniors and stakeholders
  
• Managing unit & DD level budgets
  
• Managing L&D spending & reporting
  
• Lead relationship with wider DSIT finance
  
• Lead improvement of unit finance processes & oversight
  
• Lead In-year Rewards

Portfolio team:
Sitting in the Portfolio team, you will be a subject matter expert on public services financial management, ideally from a Central Government background. You will work closely with your Grade 7 to track, monitor, report on, and action financial information across our large Portfolio. This will include leading on financial commissions, governance, external reporting and in year financial activities. You will provide financial updates to the SLT and recommendations to support portfolio decision making.

You will be responsible for (but not limited to):

• Developing an understanding of the business, its stakeholders and deliverables
  
• Building and maintaining relationships with customer budget holders
  
• Providing advice on compliance with policy, standards, accountabilities and controls
  
• Translating, owning and adding insight to financial data to provide clear information and evidence to support business activities and requirements
  
• Providing guidance at appropriate level budget holder meetings and boards
  
• Reviewing and providing input to business cases/strategic documentation
  
• Identifying and applying relevant costs, benefits and investment appraisal techniques
  
• Providing relevant coaching and training to the business
  
• Providing ad-hoc analysis and presentations to drive and support business decisions, such as efficiency and cost reduction options, using all available data and analytics tools

Essential Criteria

• Financial experience and background in financial accounting, budget management, and financial processing.
  
• Level 4 qualification with AAT, CCAB or CIMA, Or Qualified with CCAB, CIMA or equivalent Or Working towards one of these qualifications
  
• Financial experience over an extended period of time
  
• Strong communication skills with an ability to build and maintain working relationships
  
• Sound judgement and initiative - i.e. taking lead on improving process and/or ways of working
  
• Able to run with work independently and showing proactive leadership skills

Desirable Criteria

• Understanding of cyber policy, risk and the government cyber transformation landscape.
  
• Experience of portfolio or programme management.

Qualifications

Level 4 qualification with AAT, CCAB or CIMA, Or Qualified with CCAB, CIMA or equivalent or Working towards one of these qualifications.

Behaviours

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

• Managing a Quality Service
• Changing and Improving

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £42,382, Department for Science, Innovation & Technology contributes £12,278 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.

Office attendance

The Department operates a discretionary hybrid working policy, which provides for a combination of working hours from your place of work and from your home in the UK. The current expectation for staff is to attend the office or non-home based location for 40-60% of the time over the accounting period.

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, Strengths and Experience.

After submission of the first stage of your application you will be invited to complete a Civil Service Numerical Test. If you successfully pass the test, you will be invited to complete the final stage of the application.

Please complete the online tests as soon as possible (within 24-48 hours is recommended), the closing date for the tests is 23:55 on 7th April 2026. If you fail to complete the online test before the deadline your application will be withdrawn. Guidance for the test will be available when you are invited to take the test. The tests are administered online and accessed via the CS Jobs website.

Online test maintenance

Our online test supplier will be performing scheduled maintenance between 1pm and 4pm on 29th March 2026. You will be unable to access tests during this period.

If you are in the middle of a test when the maintenance begins, your progress will be paused. You will be able to resume your test from where you left off via your application centre once the downtime has ended. Please note that you will not be able to launch any new tests while the system is offline.

As part of the application process you will be asked to complete a CV and personal statement. Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.

Please use your personal statement (in no more than 500 words) to tell us how you would be a good fit for this role by addressing the essential criteria.

Applications will be sifted on CV and Personal Statement. I

In the event of a large number of applicants, applications will be sifted on the personal statement only. Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift, or progressed straight to assessment/interview.

The interview will consist of behaviour and strength-based questions.

Interviewees will be asked to deliver a presentation; further details will be provided nearer the time.

To help you to prepare for your interview, for this campaign behaviour questions will be shared in advance of interview if you are successful at sift stage. These questions should be treated as confidential and should not be shared.

The interview panel may ask you other questions which will not be shared with you in advance, including any follow-up questions, and other elements listed in the job advert, for example, experience, abilities, strengths and technical skills. The panel will be looking for examples of your own work, experience, and ability so do try and avoid using AI written answers without any human oversight.

Sift and interview dates to be confirmed.

Further Information

Reasonable Adjustment

We are proud to be a disability confident leader and we welcome applications from disabled candidates and candidates with long-term conditions.

Information about the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) and some examples of adjustments that we offer to disabled candidates and candidates with long-term health conditions during our recruitment process can be found in our DSIT Candidate Guidance. A DSIT Plain Text Version of the guidance is also available.

We encourage candidates to discuss their adjustment needs by emailing the job contact which can be found under the contact point for applicants section.

If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section.

If successful and transferring from another Government Department a criminal record check may be carried out.

New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band.

A location based reserve list of successful candidates will be kept for 12 months. Should another role become available within that period you may be offered this position.

Candidates who meet the minimum benchmark may be placed on a Reserve List for consideration for similar roles, including those at a lower grade. Candidates who narrowly miss the benchmark and are not placed on the Reserve List may still be considered for an offer in a similar role at a lower grade.

Please note terms and conditions are attached. Please take time to read the document to determine how these may affect you.

Any move to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare; for further information visit the Childcare Choices website.

DSIT does not normally offer full home working (i.e. working at home); but we do offer a variety of flexible working options (including occasionally working from home).

DSIT cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign. DSIT holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify.

In order to process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring Service on your behalf.

However, we recognise in exceptional circumstances some candidates will want to send their completed forms direct. If you will be doing this, please advise Government Recruitment Service of your intention by emailing Pre-EmploymentChecks.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk stating the job reference number in the subject heading.

Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant’s details held on the IFD will be refused employment.

A candidate is not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5 year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government.

For further information on National Security Vetting please visit the Demystifying Vetting website.

Feedback

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

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.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 : Georgie Moore
• Email : georgina.moore@dsit.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : dsitresourcing.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 DSITrecruitment.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: Click here to visit Civil Service Commission/Complaints.

Attachments

DSIT T&Cs v1.2 Opens in new window (docx, 179kB)