HR Chief Operating Officer

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Hybrid

Expires: Expiring in less than 3 weeks

Full time

£100,000 per year

Job summary

Defra plays a vital role in protecting and enhancing the environment, supporting food and farming, and driving sustainability. Our people are at the heart of this mission. As HR COO, you will have the opportunity to shape the future of HR in government, delivering services that are modern, inclusive, and digitally enabled and influence policy and practice across a large, complex organisation.

You will also hold a key role in the HR Senior Leadership Team and will report directly to the Chief People Officer operating as their formal deputy, and accountable for the functional delivery of HR, providing strong delivery grip on our critical enabling functions, you will do this with a workforce of around 300 people in HR, whilst having a strong influence on the experience of thousands of employees across Defra.

Job description

Key Responsibilities Include:

Strategic Leadership: Partner with the CPO to deliver a future-ready HR function aligned with Defra’s priorities. Set the vision for operational excellence and lead the evolution of the HR operating model.
Transformation & Innovation: Drive digitalisation, automation, and service redesign to improve customer experience and efficiency. Drive transformation, making a tangible impact on employee experience and organisational performance. Work at the centre of government, collaborating with senior leaders and contributing to cross-government initiatives.
Operational Excellence: Ensure robust governance, compliance, and risk management across all HR services, including recruitment, pay, pensions, casework, and workforce data.
People Leadership: Inspire and develop senior HR leaders, foster a culture of inclusion and high performance, and build capability for the future.
Stakeholder Engagement: Represent HR at senior forums across government, influence policy and practice, and build strong relationships with trade unions and external partners.
Financial Accountability: Manage a delegated budget of c£15–20m and oversee the wider HR budget of c£40m, ensuring value for money and effective resource allocation.

Person specification

We are seeking an exceptional HR leader to join us in this pivotal role that will shape the future of HR delivery, drive transformation, and ensure our services are inclusive, efficient, and digitally enabled. It is therefore important that, through your CV and supporting statement, you give evidence and examples of proven experience of each of the selection criteria.

Essential Criteria

Proven Delivery Excellence in Complex Environments: A sustained track record of leading large-scale, multi-disciplinary HR operations with the highest delivery standards - ensuring robust governance, high-quality services, and measurable performance outcomes across diverse organisational contexts.
Transformational Leadership of HR Services: Demonstrable experience in designing, leading, and embedding major transformation initiatives (including digitisation, operating model redesign, automation, and employee experience improvement), delivering tangible improvements in effectiveness, value for money, and user satisfaction.
Innovation and Continuous Improvement Mindset: Evidence of driving innovation in HR functions - introducing new technologies, modern service models, data-led decision-making, and creative solutions that modernise services and enable future-ready capability.
Collaborative and Influential Leadership: Exceptional skill in building trusted relationships and influencing at the most senior levels, across government, agencies, trade unions, and external partners - balancing assertive delivery grip with inclusive, people-centered leadership that motivates teams and strengthens organisational culture.
Deep HR Functional Expertise and Strategic Insight: Comprehensive understanding of the full HR lifecycle, including workforce planning, casework, employee relations, reward, recruitment, talent, capability building, and people analytics - translating strategic people priorities into operational results that support organisational outcomes

Qualifications

Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), or working towards Fellowship (or equivalent), evidencing deep professional HR expertise.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £100,000, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs 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.

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

To apply for this post please follow the online application process which includes submitting the following documents no later than 23:55 on the 29th March.

A CV (no longer than 2 pages) setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure you have provided reasons for any gaps within the last two years.
A Statement of Suitability (no more than 1250 words) explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience provides evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular reference to the criteria in the person specification.

During the application process you will have an opportunity to join a drop in lunch time session on Thursday 12th March at 12.15pm: Briefing Call Link

This briefing session will provide a chance for you to learn more about the role and ask any questions. The call will take place on and a recording will be made available for anyone unable to attend.

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.

Medical

Successful candidates will be expected to have a medical.

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

Salary range

£100,000 per year