Principle Private Secretary to Permanent Under Secretary

Ministry of Defence

Whitehall, London SW1, UK

On-Site

Expires: Expiring in less than 4 weeks

Political

Full time

£81,000 per year

Job summary

A high profile and challenging role, you will be the lynchpin between the Permanent Under Secretary (PUS) and the Department, leading the Private Office team and advising PUS on some of the biggest decisions facing Defence. You will be supporting on a whole range of Defence activity, working closely with Senior Officials and Ministers building trust and credibility.

The role will report to the Permanent Under Secretary.

Dominic Wilson, Director General Transformation, will be offering an online Q&A session on Wednesday 18th March at 11:00 – 11:30 to provide an overview of the role and welcome any questions you may have. Candidates can access the meeting by clicking here. Please note this is not part of the formal assessment process. If you have any issues accessing the session, please contact: Transformation-DG-GroupMailbox@mod.gov.uk.

Job description

Leading the Permanent Under Secretary’s private office, fostering a culture where everyone feels valued, respected, and empowered to do their best.
Cultivating strong, constructive relationships with key stakeholders, including No.10, the Cabinet Office and Ministerial Offices, and build effective networks across MOD and the wider Civil Service to enable alignment, influence and high‑quality delivery.
Providing oversight, support, challenge and clear, strategic advice to the Permanent Under Secretary and other senior leaders to deliver priorities and a Defence department that is more agile, more efficient and better equipped to respond to complex security challenges.
Coordinating Senior Civil Servant management, engaging daily with the Department’s senior leadership team to manage departmental outputs, performance activity and appointments.
Working with the Board Secretariat to shape and align the forward agenda with the Permanent Secretary’s priorities.

Person specification

The successful candidate must be able to provide specific examples that demonstrate their experience and skills against the following essential criteria:

Resilient and effective communicator who can lead across boundaries and inspire high performing teams to achieve stretching goals in fast paced, challenging environments.
Ability to build trusted, influential relationships with senior stakeholders across the department, wider government and external partners with the confidence and tact to constructively challenge without putting those relationships at risk.
Strong political judgement, with the ability to quickly analyse and distil complex issues, take a whole system view and develop clear, pragmatic solutions.
Strong organisational judgement, ability to prioritise a high-volume, fast-moving workload while navigating competing priorities and complex challenges with clarity, strategic awareness and political astuteness.
Ability to identify and monitor emerging developments and assess their potential impact on Ministers and senior stakeholders.
Good knowledge and experience of Defence and/or National Security.

Desirable criteria may be used in the event of a strong field of candidates when there is a need to distinguish between candidates. This will be as a second sift, after the essential criteria has been considered:

Experience of working in or leading a private office environment

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £81,000, Ministry of Defence contributes £23,465 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, you will need to complete the online application process no later than 23:55 on 29th March 2026 and will involve providing the two documents outlined below via the Civil Service Jobs portal:

A CV (no more 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 Personal Statement (no more than 2 pages) providing tangible examples that demonstrate how you meet the essential criteria for the role.

External candidates who join the MOD and are new to the Civil Service will be subject to a six-month probation period.

For further information about the role and full application process, please refer to the candidate pack attached below. If you wish to receive any material in a different format for accessibility, then please contact People-CivHR-SCSCandidateSupport@mod.gov.uk.

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

£81,000 per year