Head of Corporate Psychology

GCHQ

On-Site

Expires: Expiring in less than 5 weeks

Flexible

£86,795 - £99,529 per year

Job summary

As Head of Corporate Psychology, you’ll set the long-term strategic direction and lead the delivery and continuous development of corporate psychology services, supporting the organisation through a period of growth and consolidation. You’ll ensure services effectively enable organisational performance, people and priorities, operating at a senior level to provide expert psychological advice and assurance to leaders navigating complex organisational and workforce challenges.

This is a high-profile leadership role, where you’ll shape how psychological expertise is applied across areas such as vetting, wellbeing and recruitment. Working across multiple systems and agencies, you’ll engage and influence senior internal and external stakeholders, building strong relationships to support effective decision-making. You’ll operate within a fast-paced, often unpredictable environment, ensuring that practice remains responsive, proportionate and aligned with organisational risk.

Job description

Operating with a high degree of autonomy, you’ll lead a small team of specialist practitioner psychologists, providing coaching, professional leadership, ethical oversight and development. Accountability includes maintaining professional standards and ensuring the quality and impact of services, driving continuous improvement and compliant delivery across all areas of practice.

Day to day, you’ll contribute to complex, risk-based decision making, where ambiguity and uncertainty are common. This includes consultation on sensitive cases involving risk, security and staff wellbeing, applying sound judgement in challenging situations. Effective influencing skills, adaptability and the ability to build trust are critical to success.

The scope of the role is broad, unique and highly stimulating, spanning strategic leadership, professional oversight and stakeholder engagement. As part of the wider senior leadership community, this role is pivotal in strengthening organisational capability, driving significant organisational impact, and shaping the ongoing evolution of corporate psychology in response to emerging challenges.

Person specification

You bring significant experience as a practitioner psychologist, applying psychological expertise within complex organisational environments. As an HCPC- registered Practitioner Psychologist, with a background in Clinical (Doctorate or equivalent) or Occupational Psychology, you operate with confidence and credibility at a senior level.

This is underpinned by extensive post-registration experience, gained at Consultant (Clinical) or Principal (Occupational) level, alongside experience leading services, functions or programmes of work. You understand how to apply psychological expertise across organisational settings, whether through assessment, consultancy, intervention or service development, and are comfortable taking responsibility for high-impact, sensitive areas of work.

You’re an experienced leader, able to provide both professional and operational direction to specialist teams. Confident in managing and developing senior practitioners, you maintain high professional standards while supporting others to grow and succeed. You’re also comfortable representing your function internally and externally, acting as a credible and authoritative voice for psychology, with significant organisational influence.

With refined consultancy and influencing skills, you build effective relationships and advise senior stakeholders on complex, often sensitive issues. You balance professional rigour with pragmatism, applying evidence-based approaches while remaining responsive to organisational priorities and constraints.

You’re adaptable and thoughtful in your approach, able to operate effectively in environments shaped by uncertainty, change and competing demands. You exercise sound judgement, particularly where work involves risk, security or staff wellbeing, maintaining a firm commitment to professional ethics, integrity and continuous improvement.

You demonstrate a clear commitment to promoting equity, inclusion and diversity through your leadership and professional practice, fostering an inclusive and respectful working environment.

Benefits

Training and development

We’re committed to supporting your ongoing development as a senior practitioner and leader, helping you sustain high-quality, ethical practice within a complex and evolving organisational environment. On joining, you’ll receive a structured induction to the organisation and your team, giving you a clear understanding of how corporate psychology contributes to our mission.

We offer access to a range of continuing professional development opportunities aligned to advanced practice and leadership. This includes peer networks, professional supervision where appropriate, and opportunities to connect with other psychology and behavioural science specialists across the organisation and the wider intelligence community.

At this level, development is largely shaped through practice. Building expertise comes through leading strategic initiatives, advising senior stakeholders and helping to shape the future direction of corporate psychology. A key part of the role also involves developing others, supporting the growth of practitioner psychologists and strengthening capability across the function.

You’ll be encouraged to maintain your professional registration and stay current with evolving research, standards and best practice. Development may include specialist training, leadership programmes, and opportunities to contribute to cross-government or external professional forums.

Progression at this level may be more limited in traditional terms, but there is potential to move into broader leadership roles over time. Future development pathways are continuing to evolve, reflecting both organisational need and the expanding role of psychology within this context.

Rewards and benefits

You’ll receive a starting salary of £86,795 to £99,529, plus other benefits including:

25 days’ annual leave, rising automatically to 30 days after 5 years' service, and an additional 10.5 days of public and privilege holidays. Previous NHS service will be recognised

opportunities to be recognised through our employee performance scheme

an interest-free season ticket loan

an excellent pension scheme

a cycle to work scheme

facilities such as a gym, restaurant, and on-site coffee bars at some locations

paid parental and adoption leave

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

Equal opportunities

At GCHQ, diversity and inclusion are critical to our mission. To protect the UK, we need a truly diverse workforce that reflects the society we serve. This includes diversity in every sense of the word: people with different backgrounds, ages, ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, ways of thinking, and those with disabilities or neurodivergent conditions. We therefore welcome and encourage applications from everyone, including those from groups that are underrepresented in our workforce, such as women, people from ethnic minority backgrounds, people with disabilities, and those from low socio-economic backgrounds.

Find out more about our culture, working environment and diversity on our website.

We’re Disability Confident
GCHQ is proud to have achieved Leader status within the Department for Work and Pensions Disability Confident scheme. This scheme aims to encourage employers to think differently about disability and take action to improve how they recruit, retain and develop disabled people. As a Disability Confident organisation, we aim to offer a fair and proportionate number of person-to-person interviews to any candidate who self-identifies as disabled and meets the essential criteria for the role. This is our ‘Offer of Interview’ (OOI). The following essential criteria will be assessed at sift. To secure an interview for this vacancy, candidates must meet these criteria to be considered for interview (in order of the application process);

You will be required to reach the minimum pass mark for the online Situational Judgement Test (SJT), which assesses criteria important for all roles in our organisation.
Registration as an HCPC Practitioner Psychologist (Clinical or Principal Level)
Demonstrate the ability to lead services, functions, and programmes of work at a senior level
Demonstrate the ability to navigate complex high-stakes organisational environments using psychological expertise

There is a wide range of extra support available throughout the recruitment process to enable you to do your best. Visit our How to apply page for information on reasonable adjustments we can offer.

What to expect

Our recruitment process is fair, transparent, and based on merit. Here is a brief overview of each stage, in order:

An initial online application form including pre-screening questions to ensure you meet our eligibility criteria
Online Situational Judgement Test (SJT) rating the appropriateness of your responses to a series of short scenario
A CV and application sift, assessing your motivation for the role and organisation, as well as your relevant skills and experience
An assessment centre, a technical exercise and a competency based interview designed to evaluate your suitability for the role. Full details will be provided in advance
If successful, you will receive a conditional offer of employment

Please note, you must successfully pass each stage of the process to progress to the next. Your application may take around 6 to 9 months to process including vetting, so we advise you to continue in any current employment until you have received your final job offer.

Before you apply

To work at GCHQ, you need to be a British citizen or hold dual British nationality. Read about our eligibility criteria. (Penna link to appropriate website Eligibility sections)

This role requires the highest level of security clearance, known as Developed Vetting (DV). It’s something everyone in the UK Intelligence Community undertakes. Find out more about the vetting process. (PENNA link to org website vetting page).

Please note we have a strict drugs policy. Once you start your application, you must not take any recreational drugs, and you’ll need to declare your previous drug usage at the relevant stage.

Before you apply, we advise you consider setting up a separate email address for your contact with us, to ensure your personal and application correspondence remain separate. Try to avoid including identifying features in your email address, such as your first name, surname or date of birth. This is good practice and will help you manage your application with us more securely.

The role is based in Cheltenham or Manchester, so you’ll need to live within a commutable distance. Please consider any financial implications and practicalities before submitting an application, as we do not offer relocation costs.

We offer reasonable reimbursement of travel costs for candidates attending in‑person interviews or assessments during the recruitment and vetting process. Full details will be provided with your interview or assessment invitation.

Reimbursement is discretionary and will only be made in line with the Candidate Expenses Policy, as amended from time to time. Candidates must book their own travel using the most economical option and provide original hard-copy receipts for reimbursement.

Please note, you should only submit your application from within the UK. If you are based overseas, you should wait until you visit the UK to apply. Applying from outside the UK will impact our ability to progress your application. You should not discuss your application with anyone other than your partner or a close family member.

Right to withdraw statement:

Please be aware that we reserve the right to bring forward the closing date for this role once a certain number of applications have been received. We encourage you to submit your application as early as possible to avoid disappointment.

Please note, it is this organisation's policy not to provide feedback at any stage of the recruitment process. This may be contrary to the message below.

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

Security

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is developed vetting (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

Open to UK nationals only.

Working for the Civil Service

Please note this Post is NOT regulated by the Civil Service Commission.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.

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

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Contact point for applicants

Salary range

£86,795 - £99,529 per year