Strategic Resourcing and Policy Lead

Job summary

GDS

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government. We are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.

Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government, by:

1. Joining up public sector services
2. Harnessing the power of AI for the public good
3. Strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure
4. Elevating leadership and investing in talent
5. Funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation
6. Committing to transparency and driving accountability

We are home to the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI), the world-leading GOV.UK and at the forefront of coordinating the UK’s geospatial strategy and activity. We lead the Government Digital and Data function and champion the work of digital teams across government.

We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.

The Government Digital Service is where talent translates into impact. From your first day, you’ll be working with some of the world’s most highly-skilled digital professionals, all contributing their knowledge to make change on a national scale.

Join us for rewarding work that makes a difference across the UK. You'll solve some of the nation’s highest-priority digital challenges, helping millions of people access services they need.

Job description

The Role and Our Team

We’re building something bold. Backed by No10 and senior Ministers, CustomerFirst is about leading a new wave of transformation across government, making customer services radically better for citizens, faster for teams, and smarter for the future.

This is not about making incremental changes to existing services, but instead, driving a redesign from the ground up. We want to bring a NewCo approach to the way government designs and operates its contact centres and casework. Inspired by corporate venturing and challenger firms, we are building a new startup style unit within the Government Digital Service to kickstart this transformation.

As Strategic Resourcing and Policy Lead, you will drive innovative approaches to talent acquisition and policy, ensuring CustomerFirst can attract, recruit, and retain exceptional talent at pace.

Person specification

Key Outcomes

Innovative recruitment campaigns launched, with measurable improvements in time-to-hire, candidate experience, and diversity of pipeline.

Pay exemption cases successfully negotiated and approved, enabling differentiated pay for critical roles.

Strong partnerships established with external and internal stakeholders, supporting talent mobility and outreach.

Seamless onboarding and induction experience delivered for all new joiners.

Recruitment and pay policy processes documented, standardised, and continuously improved.

Risks (e.g., conflicts of interest) managed proactively and transparently.

Diversity and inclusion embedded in all resourcing and pay policy activities.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic resourcing: Design and deliver innovative recruitment strategies and campaigns, including employer brand and EVP activation, to attract high-impact talent for transformation programmes. Ensure the EVP is reflected in recruitment campaigns, onboarding, internal communications, and talent development initiatives.

Pay policy and exemptions: Lead the development and management of pay policy, including drafting and negotiating pay exemption cases with DSIT HR, Cabinet Office, HMT, and Ministers. Ensure compliance with Civil Service frameworks and support differentiated pay for critical roles.

Stakeholder engagement: Build and manage partnerships with external organisations (industry, academia, seconding companies, MSPs, recruitment partners) and internal stakeholders (DSIT HR, Pay, Recruitment, ICS) to support recruitment and mobility routes.

Outreach and mobility: Oversee targeted outreach, secondments, loans, and cross-government placements to align recruitment with external partners and internal priorities.

Recruitment operations: Oversee recruitment pipeline tracking, campaign delivery, and onboarding experience, ensuring a seamless and engaging process for candidates and new joiners.

Judgement and governance: Exercise strong judgement in assessing conflicts of interest for professionals brought into CustomerFirst, ensuring integrity and compliance.

Data and insight: Use workforce analytics and market intelligence to inform recruitment strategy, pay policy, and decision-making.

Continuous improvement: Develop and maintain playbooks, templates, and guidance for recruitment, pay policy, and onboarding processes.

Diversity, inclusion, and wellbeing: Champion inclusive recruitment practices and support wellbeing initiatives to ensure CustomerFirst is a favoured place to work.

As a line manager, you will be responsible for working with your members of staff to define their objectives, as well as managing their development and performance.

Essential Criteria

Essential Experience and Skills

Proven experience in strategic resourcing, talent acquisition, and recruitment campaign design in complex environments.

Strong understanding of pay and exemption casework.

Excellent stakeholder engagement and partnership management skills.

Experience with outreach, secondments, and cross-sector mobility routes.

Strong analytical skills, with experience in workforce data and market intelligence.

Sound judgement and governance experience, particularly in managing conflicts of interest.

Commitment to diversity, inclusion, and wellbeing.

Behaviours

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

• Changing and Improving
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Making Effective Decisions
• Delivering at Pace

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £55,403, Department for Science, Innovation & Technology contributes £16,050 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology offers a competitive mix of benefits including:

• A culture of flexible working, such as job sharing, homeworking and compressed hours.
• Automatic enrolment into the Civil Service Pension Scheme, with an employer contribution of 28.97%.
• A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by 1 day per year up to a maximum of 30.
• An extensive range of learning & professional development opportunities, which all staff are actively encouraged to pursue.
• Access to a range of retail, travel and lifestyle employee discounts.

Office attendance

The Department operates a discretionary hybrid working policy, which provides for a combination of working hours from your place of work and from your home in the UK. The current expectation for staff is to attend the office or non-home based location for 40-60% of the time over the accounting period.

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.

As part of the application process you will be asked to complete a CV and personal statement.

Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.

Please use your personal statement (in no more than 500 words) to explain how your skills and experience will enable you to deliver the mission of CustomerFirst as Strategic Resourcing and Policy Lead.

Applications will be sifted on CV and Personal Statement.

In the event of a large number of applicants, applications will be sifted on the personal statement.

Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift, or progressed straight to assessment/interview.

The interview will consist of behaviour questions and interviewees will be asked to deliver a presentation; further details will be provided nearer the time. If successful, you will be invited to meet with the Deputy Director for Talent to assess a cultural fit.

To help you to prepare for your interview, for this campaign behaviour questions will be shared in advance of interview if you are successful at sift stage. These questions should be treated as confidential and should not be shared.

The interview panel may ask you other questions which will not be shared with you in advance, including any follow-up questions, and other elements listed in the job advert, for example, experience, abilities, strengths and technical skills. The panel will be looking for examples of your own work, experience, and ability so do try and avoid using AI written answers without any human oversight.

Sift and interview dates

Sift and interview dates to be confirmed.

Further Information

Existing Civil Servants and applicants from accredited NDPBs are eligible to apply,and can be considered on loan basis (Civil Servants) or secondment (accredited NDPBs). Prior agreement to be released on a loan basis must be obtained before commencing the application process. In the case of Civil Servants, the terms of the loan will be agreed between the home and host department and the Civil Servant. This includes grade on return.

Reasonable Adjustment

We are proud to be a disability confident leader and we welcome applications from disabled candidates and candidates with long-term conditions.

Information about the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) and some examples of adjustments that we offer to disabled candidates and candidates with long-term health conditions during our recruitment process can be found in our DSIT Candidate Guidance. A DSIT Plain Text Version of the guidance is also available.

We encourage candidates to discuss their adjustment needs by emailing the job contact which can be found under the contact point for applicants section.

If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section.

If successful and transferring from another Government Department a criminal record check may be carried out.

New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band.

A location based reserve list of successful candidates will be kept for 12 months. Should another role become available within that period you may be offered this position.

Candidates who meet the minimum benchmark may be placed on a Reserve List for consideration for similar roles, including those at a lower grade. Candidates who narrowly miss the benchmark and are not placed on the Reserve List may still be considered for an offer in a similar role at a lower grade.

Please note terms and conditions are attached. Please take time to read the document to determine how these may affect you.

Any move to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare; for further information visit the Childcare Choices website.

DSIT does not normally offer full home working (i.e. working at home); but we do offer a variety of flexible working options (including occasionally working from home).

DSIT cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign.

DSIT holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify.

In order to process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring Service on your behalf.

However, we recognise in exceptional circumstances some candidates will want to send their completed forms direct. If you will be doing this, please advise Government Recruitment Service of your intention by emailing Pre-EmploymentChecks.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk stating the job reference number in the subject heading.

Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant’s details held on the IFD will be refused employment.

A candidate is not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5 year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government.

Feedback

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.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.The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).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 : Camelia Gamee
• Email : camelia.gamee@dsit.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : dsitresourcing.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Further information

Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. If you feel that your application has not been treated in accordance with the recruitment principles, and wish to make a complaint, then you should contact in the first instance DSITrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk . If you are not satisfied with the response that you receive, then you can contact the Civil Service Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their web pages: Click here to visit Civil Service Commission/Complaints.

Attachments

DSIT T&Cs v1.2 Opens in new window (docx, 179kB)