Home Office Intelligence – Borders

Home Office

Hybrid

Expires: Expiring in less than 3 weeks

Management

Flexible

£86,000 - £96,000 per year

Job summary

Why this role matters

Home Office Intelligence (HOI) provides intelligence support across a wide range of operational threats. Its core focus is illegal migration and organised immigration crime, illicit commodities, serious and organised crime and support to the wider National Security mission. Our core customers are the Border Security Command (BSC), Border Force (BF), Immigration Enforcement (IE) and Immigration and Citizenship Services (ICS) inside HO and our core external operational partners are the NCA, HMRC, Counter Terrorist Police (CTP) and Territorial Police

The HOI Borders team is focused on the highest harm and highest threat commodities and people in line with the Border Force Control Strategy. We seek to ensure our intelligence generates the highest impact possible by enabling interventions where they matter most, whether at the UK border, inland or upstream.

The HOI Borders Deputy Director provides strategic leadership of our Border Focused business and leads our relationship with Border Force on both people and goods. More widely you will lead engagement with Home Office Public Safety Group (PSG) and Homeland Security Group (HSG) on Serious Organised Crime (SOC) and National Security threats. You will set the direction of the business and engage with partners to deliver on shared outcomes. You will also lead our relationship with wider HMG on Border Threats including HMRC, Dept for Transport (DfT) and Dept for Business and Trade (DBT). You will lead our operational partnership with NCA and Territorial Police on SOC threats such as Drugs and Lethal Firearms.

Job description

Key accountabilities

You will:

Leading HO Intelligence and working as part of a leadership team that delivers across a wide range of Border and Immigration threats. You are responsible for leading a command of c.800 people
Management and oversight responsibilities of a budget of over £55 million. Delivering within this budget and seeking to exploit and promote efficiency savings and increased automation in a challenging SR period.
Providing leadership to the Directorate, with the ability to take well-judged risks and to make decisions in a timely manner.
Contributing to wider Departmental delivery, policy making, technological and business change programmes at the strategic and operational level
Delivering key intelligence requirements to support Border Security Command and Border Force Operations.
Leading engagement with key partners across the SOC, Immigration and National Security systems to build, maintain and enhance partnerships and intelligence and operational collaboration. Improving performance against key threats. Working with the HOI Immigration lead to support wider Border Security priorities and the Border Security Command
Managing corporate support: risk, assurance and governance oversight of all Directorate activities as well as own budget and performance metrics.
Leading the HO Intelligence Profession and leading the improvement of HOI as a professional intelligence agency with a focus on building a more agile and interoperable workforce and supporting it through better capabilities and tools.
To actively demonstrate through their actions at work, inclusivity based on race or ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, religious beliefs, different abilities or disability, and diversity of thought.

Key stakeholder relationships

Will include:

HOI Leadership team
Border Force Board members and the Border Force Senior Leadership Team
Border Security Command senior leadership and BSC Maritime and Small Boats Operations
Wider HO Policy Missions including HSG and PSG
Partner organisations in Intelligence and Policing including National Crime Agency (NCA), HMRC, Counter Terrorist Policing (CTP), NPCC (National Police Chiefs Council), and UK Intelligence Community (UKIC)
Ministers and Senior Civil Servants across Whitehall and overseas
System owners across the Home Office and beyond including but not limited to Homeland Security, HMRC, DBT, DFT and Defra.
Home Office Capabilities & Resources - including Finance, HR, and HO Digital

Person specification

Essential Criteria

The successful candidate will need to demonstrate:

Senior Intelligence Experience – Experience of working at senior level in an intelligence environment.

Capability Development – Demonstrable experience in building a platform of capabilities and skills to drive improvements in gathering and exploiting information, intelligence and data to practical and strategic effect.

Leadership and Change Management – Strong leadership skills with the ability to inspire and empower colleagues to deliver against a landscape of technical and organisational change.

Stakeholder Engagement – Excellent interpersonal and stakeholder skills, with the willingness and ability to maintain strong working relationships with a wide range of senior stakeholders across Government, maintaining support for a demanding agenda amidst competing pressures.

Operational Leadership and Decision-Making – Ability to provide constructive challenge across a complex delivery landscape, set priorities for large and diverse teams, and effectively manage risk and competing demands.

Business Change and Transformation – Experience of leading successful business change and transformation within an operational environment.

Security Clearance – Holds Developed Vetting (DV) with Strap Clearance, or demonstrates willingness to obtain these at the earliest opportunity.

Desirable Criteria

The successful candidate may also demonstrate:

Multi-Agency Leadership – Experience of leading within a multi-agency environment, effectively coordinating across organisational boundaries to deliver shared objectives.

Data Exploitation and Intelligence Insight – Understanding of the exploitation of bulk data to identify threats and risks, and the ability to derive actionable intelligence insights from data to deliver practical operational outcomes.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £86,000, Home Office contributes £24,914 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

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

Please follow the Job Advert instructions on the Civil Service Jobs website to apply online by 23:55hrs on Sunday 5th July 2026.

You will be asked to provide:

A CV – (limited to 1250 words) 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 – (3 pages max) 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.

For more information on how to write a personal statement, click here.

Guidance on the use of AI

Please review the guidance Artificial intelligence and recruitment to understand the acceptable use of AI for your application.

Before you submit an application, we will ask you to confirm the information you provide is true and accurate. More details about this will be provided in the application form and we may reject applications where AI is used inappropriately at any stage of the process.

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 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

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

Salary range

£86,000 - £96,000 per year