Science Director Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), Defra

Animal and Plant Health Agency

Weybridge, UK

Hybrid

Expires: Expiring in 1 month

Management

Full time

£95,000 per year

Job summary

Managing approximately 800 staff across multiple locations, you will act as a visible and credible science leader for the organisation and Science Profession. The Deputy Director for Scientific Services provides strategic leadership for all scientific functions within the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA). This role is accountable for delivering high-quality science that underpins APHA’s mission to protect animal health, plant health, and biosecurity across Great Britain.

As an Executive Board, you provide the collective strategic leadership that drives APHA’s performance, culture, and long-term direction. Together, you ensure the Agency operates with clarity of purpose, aligning its work with APHA’s mission, Defra’s priorities, and the wider objectives of public service. You will play a central role in shaping and sustaining the organisation’s vision, values, and culture, supporting the Chief Executive in leading APHA with integrity, ambition, and a commitment to excellence.

You are collectively responsible for ensuring that APHA is governed effectively. This includes maintaining robust governance arrangements, enabling sound decision making, and ensuring accountability across all areas of the organisation. You oversee the identification and management of strategic and operational risks, ensuring that statutory obligations, regulatory requirements, and internal policies are consistently met.

As stewards of public resources, you provide oversight of financial planning, budgeting, and investment decisions, ensuring that APHA delivers value for money and remains financially sustainable. You scrutinise financial performance and support the Chief Executive in maintaining strong relationships with Defra finance teams and external auditors.

You champion the development of APHA’s people and organisational capability. This includes promoting diversity and inclusion, upholding Civil Service values, and providing strategic oversight of workforce planning, talent development, and succession planning. You monitor organisational health, including staff engagement, wellbeing, and representation, ensuring APHA remains a supportive and high performing place to work.

You represent APHA at the highest levels, engaging with Defra, other government departments, industry bodies, devolved administrations, and international partners. Through this, you help build trust, transparency, and collaboration across the wider Defra group and the sectors APHA serves.

You collectively drive organisational performance, providing constructive challenge to ensure high standards of delivery, continuous improvement, and innovation. You monitor progress against strategic objectives, KPIs, and delivery milestones, identifying where intervention or acceleration is required. You champion a culture of accountability, evidence-based decision making, and results driven leadership, supporting the Chief Executive in embedding performance frameworks that drive excellence across the organisation.

Job description

Key role responsibilities

Scientific leadership: Act as a visible and credible science leader as Head of Profession for Science across APHA, setting direction and ensuring the effective delivery of scientific services across multiple sites and disciplines.
Emergency response: Provide national leadership to science during disease outbreaks and major incidents, directing the rapid mobilisation of people, resources, and capability to support APHA’s emergency response and wider Defra-led operations.
Corporate accountability: Contribute to APHA’s Executive Board collective accountabilities, shaping strategic decisions and ensuring alignment with organisational priorities.

Science Delivery and Research Main duties/responsibilities:

Provide overall strategic leadership to the delivery of all scientific activities within APHA.
Ensure that appropriate overall capability, including skills and facilities supports the delivery of Science within APHA and that there is appropriate use of resources.
Provide leadership that builds a positive culture of performance, learning and engagement.
Exploiting and ensuring commercial and other translational opportunities are captured from R&D projects.
Provide leadership to shape and personally champion APHA's links with academia and to initiate and foster collaboration with other national and international research institutes.
Optimising and focusing APHA’s veterinary public health activities and ensuring complementarity with the work of the PHE and other public health bodies. To exploit and co-ordinate APHA’s interactions with R&D commissioning and grant awarding official bodies.

Strategy and Planning

Applying their scientific skills and expertise to ensure effective long-term planning and delivery of relevant Government programmes and policies and with others, to ensure the effective delivery of agreed public health and animal health and welfare strategies and policies across GB
Contributing to the corporate planning, decision making and performance management and achievement of priorities of APHA as a member of the Board. To work with others within APHA to effectively influence policy in England, Scotland and Wales in light of their professional, operational and delivery expertise.
Provide leadership to the development of new models of scientific delivery which improve value for money and the customer’s experience.

Delivery of Science

Oversee and provide strategic leadership to the capability for the identification and risk assessment of emerging threats and to provide advice to policy makers and the Agency on the management of risk.
Ensuring that all scientific activity carried out or sponsored by the APHA is designed and delivered within professional, safety and policy requirements, and quality assured.
Oversee effective and integrated working arrangements with other organisations to deliver services for our customers and influence end user behaviour to support APHA and policy customer objectives.

Resource and Performance Management

Champion efficiency and value for money.
Providing visible and inspirational leadership to scientists, providing effective coaching and mentoring as necessary.
Champion a comprehensive professional development programme for scientific and associated technical staff in the agency including career paths and a portfolio of development to build operational policy and leadership skills.
Creating an environment in which scientific and technical staff can and do contribute effectively and in which different perspectives are heard and channelled towards achieving the Agency’s objectives.
Lead and build the capability of the new NBC Design Authority, including resourcing, governance, ways of working and engagement with the wider APHA and NBC programme organisations.

Line Management & Professions lead

Lead APHA Science profession
Line management of circa 1000 scientific staff in APHA science directorates and the professional development of all science and science technical staff within APHA.

Key Relationships

APHA CEO and members of the executive committee, non-executive directors other senior budget holders
NBU Programme director & APHA NBC Lead. SRO and other members of the board Government officials and Ministers
Senior representatives at a national level of key stakeholder bodies and other government organisations, BEIS
International Veterinary Institutes, OIE, EFSA, EU (DG SANCO and DG Research) Defra Group Corporate Services
Welsh & Scottish Governments, Key UK Universities and research institutes

Person specification

It is essential that you hold a biological science qualification, or equivalent vet qualification, to at least degree level. Successful track record of managing and delivering a large complex and multidisciplinary portfolio of science.
Experience of managing a large scientific department delivering a broad range of scientific activities, including managing complex estate.
Experience of working cooperatively with corporate areas such as estates, finance and HR to drive performance and enhance efficiency
Strong people leadership skills, with the ability to develop, lead and motivate large teams driving a diverse and inclusive working culture, and driving professional development of scientific staff.
Extensive experience of providing assurance of scientific quality, working to high standards of health and safety, and preparing a corporate body for external scientific review.
Experience of delivering science in the context of informing policy and delivering services.
Experience in shaping and leading strategy and organisational change in a science environment.
Experience of successfully working with a broad range of senior stakeholders and external partners, demonstrating the communications skills, impact and gravitas to effectively challenge assumptions and influence direction in a complex environment.

Desirable Experience

Ideally the successful candidate will have led projects in the area of veterinary disease across a range of different pathogens, including oversight of national and international research laboratories with complex estate, high containment laboratories and animal facilities.

Qualifications

It is essential that you hold a biological science qualification, or equivalent vet qualification, to at least degree level.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £95,000, Animal and Plant Health Agency contributes £27,521 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

As part of the application process, candidates are asked to complete a CV and Personal Statement (no more than 1250 words) on how your relevant skills and experience meet the essential criteria. You will also be asked to complete a separate statement of no more than 250 words for the Desirable criteria where applicable. This is not essential for the role but may be considered by the Vacancy Holder where candidates have the same score at interview. Completed applications must be submitted no later than 23:55pm Tuesday 26th May 2026.

This vacancy is using Success Profiles and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

You will be assessed on the following behaviours throughout the selection process:

Seeing the big picture

Making effective decisions

Leadership

Communicating and influencing

Briefing Call

During the application process you will have an opportunity to join an candidate information session. This briefing session will provide a chance for you to learn more about the role and ask any questions. This will take place on Thursday 7th May 2026 12-12:30pm. (Please note this session will not be recorded).

Join the MS Teams meeting on the link here

Meeting ID: 393 465 480 958 602

Passcode: rn2fG6rQ

Dial in by phone

United Kingdom, City of London

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 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.

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

£95,000 per year