Head of Estate Strategy, Management and Planning

Job summary

The Home Office (HO) works to build a safe, fair and prosperous UK. We achieve this through our work on counter-terrorism, policing, crime, drugs policy, immigration and passports.

The Chief Operating Officer Group works closely with the Home Office’s policy and operational commands to enable us together to deliver the department’s priorities. The group is comprised of different teams and professional functions, including Commercial, Communications, Finance, People, Portfolio and Project Delivery, Private Office, Property and Security.

Home Office Property Services (HOPS) are responsible for providing expert property services to the department. The estate comprises of a large, varied portfolio, with mixed use assets, including corporate, warehousing, short-term holding, and public facing facilities. Our teams work with a range of stakeholders within the business and across The Government and Public bodies to establish long-term estate strategies and plans, to achieve business and political priorities, in line with the Government Property Strategy of smaller, better, greener.

Job description

HOPS receive over 500 estate service requests a year, holding a budget of C.£220m for estate projects, including refurbishments, new space, and life cycle improvements. You will be responsible for leading and overseeing the planning of projects to the point of construction, creating regional portfolio plans, engaging regularly with other government departments (OGDs), service providers and senior business leads to deliver business objectives with a strategic lens.

You will assist other senior managers across the property function and business, to develop and implement strategy and provide direction for the team ensuring resources are managed appropriately.

You will need to hold and continue to develop a sound understanding of both Property and Project functional areas, the Home Office's business operations, strategies and priorities, Ministerial imperatives and wider Government Property Strategy, National Property Controls and any associated legislation.

Responsibilities

Duties include but are not limited to:

• Leading and effectively managing a national estates management, strategy and planning team, ensuring colleagues remain motivated and successful in delivering tasks across the country, supporting them with coaching, escalations and development/ professionalisation opportunities, when required.
• Being directly accountable for the delivery and management of Home Office estates management, property transactions, strategy and planning programmes, including engaging with senior stakeholders, OGDs and suppliers to ensure our strategy, business needs and timescales are being supported, in addition to managing and challenging expectations.
• Working with other business areas to understand and determine their strategies, priorities and link them with the wider estate’s strategy, including workforce planning, new initiatives, and requirements.
• Ensuring the effective planning of projects through stakeholder consultation, design and consents before handing over to the delivery team.
• Communicating the Home Office Estate Strategy to OGDs including GPA, OGP and senior stakeholders within the business to ensure alignment with The Government Property Strategy, Cabinet Office controls and Home Office wider workplace and business strategies.
• Leading and networking through strategic engagement with OGDs Estate Teams, The GPA and OGP to ensure they are aware of HO business requirements and ambitions, to develop efficient solutions and opportunities to collaborate in the wider public estate.
• Representing HOPS at senior business boards and OGD events, ensuring HOPS requirements are represented, considered, and shared ensuring future portfolio plans and pipelines are resourced appropriately.
• Ensure investment within the estate for both RDEL and CDEL, is in line with qualitative and quantitative data sources, HOPS future estate strategies and The Government Property Strategy.

Additionally you should be willing to be an active member of the Government Property Profession.

Working pattern

Due to the business requirements of this role, it is only available on a full-time basis.

Travel

The role will involve regular travel to Home Office sites nationally as necessary to visit regional sites, suppliers and engage in customer forums and team meetings. Some HO sites can not be readily accessed via public transport therefore holding a full valid UK manual or automatic driving licence would be preferable.

Person specification

Essential criteria

You must be able to demonstrate

• Highly developed leadership skills, including direction setting, motivation and change management for both staff and suppliers. People management including mentoring, motivating and development of high performing teams.
• Experience and knowledge of working in the property sector, ideally within a large portfolio of assets.
• Tenacity and drive, with a proven ability to resolve problems swiftly and proactively. Ability to exercise good judgement to analyse situations and develop new approaches, factoring in awareness of the estates strategy, and a thorough understanding of customer requirements.
• A commitment to the organisation’s values and behaviours, equal opportunities and diversity, service regulatory frameworks and requirements, responsibilities under Health and Safety, risk management and security, environmental sustainability and protection of information.
• The ability to understand and interpret complex datasets and quickly identify performance issues and explain both concisely and clearly to stakeholders.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills, using these to manage a variety of stakeholders, demonstrating the ability to mitigate between different agendas, resolve conflict and achieve positive outcomes.

Desirable criteria

• Experience and/or professional qualifications as a property surveyor or asset management.
• Developed knowledge and experience of working in a large property portfolio.

Qualifications

Hold Accreditation at Chartered, Certified or Fellow grade (RICS, IWFM, CIOB, CEng, CEnv, RTPI, RIBA)

Behaviours

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

• Leadership
• Delivering at Pace
• Communicating and Influencing
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Making Effective Decisions

We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:

• Leadership

Benefits

• 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%
• Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working. This is a non-contractual arrangement where all employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in an office.

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 and Experience.

This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, drives up performance and improves diversity and inclusivity.

We will endeavour to conduct the selection process in line with the dates indicated below, but cannot guarantee that these will not, where necessary, be revised.

1. Application – by 26th June 2026.

As part of the application process, you will be asked to complete:

• a CV.
• Personal Statement (maximum 750 words).
• Evidence of the Behaviour Leadership (maximum of 250 words).

Your CV should consist of your career history, qualifications and skills/experience, including any key achievements in each role. Your CV will be scored against the experience required for the role as noted within the essential criteria.

The Personal Statement should be aligned to and demonstrate how you meet the skills and experience set out in the essential criteria, detailed in the job description.

For guidance and information on how to construct your application (CV, Personal Statement and Behaviours), you are encouraged to visit Civil Service Careers website.

2. Sift – 30th June 2026.

The sift will be held on the Personal Statement, CV, and the Behaviour Leadership.

Should a high volume of applications be received, an initial sift will be conducted on the Lead Behaviour. Candidates who pass the initial sift will then be progressed to a full sift that will consist of all the remaining elements submitted (Personal Statement and CV). Candidates who fail to meet the minimum pass score for the initial sift will not have their remaining submitted elements scored and will only receive a sift score for that assessed at the initial sift.

3. Interview – 21st July 2026.

If you are successful at sift stage, you will be invited to an interview that will be Behaviour based questions. All Behaviours listed in the selection process will be scored at the interview.

The interview will take place via MS Teams.

For guidance and information on what to expect and how to prepare for an interview, you are encouraged to visit Civil Service Careers.

Problems during the application process

If you experience problems accessing this advert, or you think you’ve made a mistake on an initial application, please contact hocandidates.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk, including the vacancy reference, at least two working days before the vacancy closes. Further information can be found on our website.

Do not create or attempt to submit another application, online test or use a different Civil Service Jobs account to proceed as this would be in violation of the candidate declaration.

Further information

Location preferences

You can select up to threelocations in order of preference. Please ensure that these are locations you are prepared to travel to. If you are offered a role at one of your preferred locations and you decline, your application will be withdrawn.

Reserve list

A reserve list may be held for a period of up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made. There is no guarantee that being held on a reserve list will lead to a job offer. Further information can be found on our website.

Reserve lists will be held for each location. Candidates will be appointed in merit order by location.

Breaking Tied Scores

The behaviours have been ranked in order of importance to enable us to differentiate between candidates with tied interview scores.

Standards

All Civil Servants are expected to comply with the Civil Service Code, and its core values of integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality.

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

For further information on the Disclosure Scotland confidential checking service telephone: the Disclosure Scotland Helpline on 0870 609 6006 and ask to speak to the operations manager in confidence, or email Info@disclosurescotland.co.uk.

Reasonable Adjustments

If a person with disabilities is at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes.

If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should:

• Contact Government Recruitment Service via HOrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs

• Complete the “Assistance Required” section in the “Additional Requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you're deaf, a language service professional

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

Additional Security Checks

As well as successfully obtaining UK Security Vetting clearance, candidates will be subject to a range of additional checks. The range of checks carried out will depend on whether you are a current Home Office employee, existing civil servant or an external new entrant as well as the role requirements. The level of Criminal Record Check required for this role is Basic. Further details are included in the Notes to Candidates.

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.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 : Home Office Resourcing Centre
• Email : HORCCampaignTeamCorporateEnablers@homeoffice.gov.uk

Recruitment team

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

Further information

If you feel that your application has not been treated in accordance with the Civil Service Recruitment Principles. and you wish to make a complaint, then contact the Government Recruitment Service via HOrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response that you receive, then you can contact the Civil Service Commission.

Attachments

Candidate_Information_v17_April_2026 Opens in new window (pdf, 207kB)2025-11-17 Pre-employment Checking - Document Requirements (V17) Opens in new window (pdf, 231kB)