SCS Performance and Talent Lead

Job summary

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UK’s largest producer of official statistics, covering a range of key economic, social and demographic topics. These include measuring changes in the value of the UK economy, estimating the size, geographic distribution and characteristics of the population, and providing indicators of price inflation, employment, earnings, crime and migration.

This role sits within the Skills, Development and Employee Experience (SDEE) team, part of the People and Places Directorate (PPD). The team leads an ambitious programme to ensure ONS has the right skills, leadership and culture to deliver its strategic priorities. This includes strengthening leadership capability, enhancing the colleague experience, and fostering an inclusive, high-performing learning culture.

Job description

As SCS Performance and Talent Lead, you will shape and deliver ONS’s approach to Senior Civil Service (SCS) performance and talent management, aligning with Cabinet Office (CO) frameworks while building a high-performing, future-ready senior leadership community capable of delivering organisational priorities.

Working closely with senior leaders, HR Business Partners and key stakeholders, you will act as a trusted expert to drive effective performance, strengthen talent development, and foster an inclusive leadership culture. You will oversee the SCS talent portfolio, ensuring compliance with Civil Service requirements while tailoring approaches to ONS’s needs.

You will design and deliver leadership and talent interventions – including development, coaching, culture and performance initiatives – aligned with the ONS Strategy, People Plan and wider Civil Service priorities. A key focus will be embedding progressive approaches that enable senior leaders to lead change, improve engagement, and enhance organisational performance.

The role has a strong delivery focus, leading end-to-end programmes from defining outcomes and planning through to implementation and evaluation. You will work flexibly and responsively, adapting priorities to meet evolving business needs.

You will line manage the HEO SCS Performance and Talent Manager, providing clear direction, support and development to ensure successful delivery.

As part of the HR profession, you will join a collaborative and forward-looking community focused on enabling organisational performance through people. The profession offers opportunities to shape strategic people priorities, build networks across government, and continuously develop your expertise in a role that values innovation, collaboration and continuous improvement.

This is a unique opportunity to shape the future of senior leadership at ONS, influencing how we identify, develop and support our most senior talent to deliver for the UK.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the end-to-end delivery of the SCS performance and talent approach, including moderation and CO commissions, ensuring consistency, quality and timeliness.
• Provide high-quality insight, analysis and briefings to senior leaders to inform performance and talent decisions.
• Develop clear guidance, tools and communications to enable effective and consistent implementation of performance and talent processes across ONS.
• Design and deliver executive development activity for the SCS community, including leadership programmes and coaching, aligned to organisational priorities.
• Lead succession planning activity to build organisational resilience and a strong pipeline of future senior leaders, ensuring critical roles are identified and supported with targeted development.
• Build leadership capability by supporting and challenging senior stakeholders to drive meaningful performance management and talent development conversations.
• Work collaboratively across HR, the business and wider Civil Service networks to align approaches, share best practice and continuously improve SCS talent and performance activity.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

• Proven ability to build and maintain strong collaborative relationships across teams, the organisation, and with external stakeholders particularly at senior levels to drive engagement and deliver people-focused outcomes.
• Strong communication skills (written and verbal), with experience of producing clear, high-quality briefings and recommendations that influence decisions at senior levels.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to interpret complex data and insights to inform strategic direction and support evidence-based decision-making.
• Highly organised and proactive, with the ability to prioritise and deliver multiple, competing workstreams in a fast-paced environment.
• Resilient and adaptable, with experience of navigating ambiguity and complexity to deliver practical, outcome-focused solutions that balance organisational priorities with colleague experience.
• Experience of delivering people, talent, or organisational development activity, with an understanding of how to drive performance, capability and engagement in a complex organisation.

Qualifications

CIPD Level 5 (or equivalent experience) or willingness to work towards.

Behaviours

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

• Communicating and Influencing
• Working Together
• Making Effective Decisions
• Delivering at Pace

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £41,985, Office for National Statistics contributes £12,163 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

The Office for National Statistics is part of the Civil Service, and as such we share a number of key benefits with other departments, whilst also having our own unique offerings to support our valued colleagues across the organisation.

Whether you are hearing about us for the first time or already know a bit about our organisation, we hope that our careers site will give you a great insight into the benefits and facilities available to our colleagues, and our fantastic working culture.

Inclusion & Accessibility

At ONS we are always looking to attract the very best people from the widest possible talent pool, and we are proud to be an inclusive, equal opportunities employer. As a Disability Confident Leader we’re committed to ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly throughout the recruitment process.

As part of our application process, you will be prompted to provide details of any reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process that you need. If you would like to discuss any reasonable adjustments before applying, please contact the recruitment team in the first instance.

If you would like an accessible version of any of the attachments or recruitment documents below or linked to in this advert, please contact the recruitment team who will be happy to assist.

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.

Security Clearance

For ONS the requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for 3 consecutive years immediately prior to applying and the department will consider eligibility by exception on a case-by-case basis. You will be asked to provide information regarding your UK residency during your application, and failure to provide this will result in your application being rejected.

At the point of SC application, you will need to provide or give access to the following evidence:

• Departmental or company records (personnel files, staff reports, sick leave reports and security records)
• UK criminal records covering both spent and unspent criminal records
• Your credit and financial history with a credit reference agency
• Security Services records

ONS are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role. Applicants are expected to hold a valid right to work in the UK when employment commences. If you are applying on a time-limited visa, this will need to be valid for at least 18 months at point of application.

Application process:

Number of Stages: 2 stage process

Stage 1: Application

Stage 2: Interview

Stage 1 – Application (2 steps)

Application Step 1: Online Civil Service Judgement Test.

Upon submission of Part 1 of your application form you will be sent an invitation to complete an online Civil Service Judgement test. There will be full instructions on how to complete the test including an opportunity to practice before undertaking the actual test. The test is not time limited. If you fail the test your application will not proceed to the next stage.

Application Step 2: Submission of Job History and Personal Statement.

If you pass the online judgement test for this vacancy, you will be invited to complete the final step of your application, this is where you will be required to provide information such as your work history and personal statement.

For your personal statement you are required to provide evidence for each essential skill criterion listed in the person specification. As these criteria are scored, it is advisable to give clear examples for each one, including the impact of your actions, ideally utilising the STAR technique (Situation, Task, Action, Result).

The maximum word count allowed is 1250, which should not be exceeded.

Please note that Success Profiles Behaviour examples are not required at this stage of the application process.

When a high volume of applications are received, the sift pass mark may be adjusted. Candidates will be invited to interview based on their merit order, with those achieving the highest scores being prioritised. Applicants who score below the adjusted pass mark but still pass will be placed on hold and may be invited to interview at a later date.

Stage 2 – Interview

If invited to interview, you will be assessed using techniques aligned with the Civil Service Success Profiles framework, covering all behaviours listed in the job advert.

You will be required to provide a 5 minute presentation at interview. The presentation topic will be emailed to candidates who have passed the initial online application stage, 1 week prior to interview. This presentation will assess candidates against the Success Profiles Behaviour - Communicating and Influencing.

Interviews will be conducted online via Microsoft Teams.

A reserve list may be held for a period up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made.

Sift - From 22nd July.

Interviews – 30th - 31st July.

Dates are subject to change.

For the full terms and conditions of the post, please see attachment below.

Please note that all campaigns may be subject to withdrawal at any stage if the internal resource position changes.

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 : Ross May
• Email : Ross.May@ons.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : scs.recruitment@ons.gov.uk

Further information

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, in the first instance, you should contact recruitment.complaints@ons.gov.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission

Attachments

2721 Advert 1B Permanent - ONS National v1-00 Opens in new window (pdf, 83kB)Role1_Standard_Requirements Opens in new window (pdf, 76kB)