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Job summary

About the Directorate

Do you care about the safety of products and want to protect people and places? Is your passion to empower consumers to make good and informed choices? Can we use your skills, knowledge and experience to enable UK business to thrive? If the answer is yes, then we would like to hear from you! ​

We are the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS), part of the Comptetition, Markets and Regulatory Reform Group in the Department for Business and Trade. We are here to make regulation work to deliver real world impact. Regulation is a powerful Government tool to address market failures, influence behaviour and promote positive action. Designed and delivered well, regulation can be an enabler of growth, innovation and productivity. ​

Our Mission is to be a trusted product regulator for the UK. Our goal is to be leader of good regulatory practice and a champion of local regulation. ​

About the Role

This is a critical senior leadership role within OPSS, responsible for shaping how the organisation understands, engages and delivers for businesses and consumers. The role will ensure business and consumer perspectives are central to how OPSS understands markets and sectors, designs interventions tailored to different audiences and changes behaviour in support of better regulatory outcomes.​​

You will lead the organisation in embedding a deep understanding of business environments, consumer behaviour and public expectations into decision-making. You will ensure OPSS takes an evidence-led, practical and proportionate approach that delivers real-world impact for businesses and consumers.​​

As a senior leader, you will play a central role in setting direction, strengthening delivery and building trust in OPSS as a visible, credible and effective regulator.​

Job description

Key Responsibilities

Embedding Business and Consumer Focus​

You will ensure that business and consumer perspectives are systematically embedded across OPSS activity, from operational design through to delivery and evaluation. This will include strengthening the evidence base on business experience and consumer outcomes, championing approaches that reflect real-world behaviours, risks and incentives, and ensuring insight shapes practical decisions across the organisation.​

Driving Practical and Deliverable Outcomes​

You will identify barriers faced by businesses and consumers and drive solutions that improve outcomes and impact. The role will shape interventions that support growth, innovation and consumer confidence, ensuring OPSS delivery is practical for business, meaningful for consumers and consistent with its wider mission.​

You will provide senior leadership for consumer delivery activity, including work with community groups and partners to improve reach, understanding and impact. This will include overseeing targeted grants and partnership activity that help consumer protection messages reach those who need them most, alongside information and awareness campaigns that support safer choices and stronger consumer confidence.​

Leading a Step Change in Insight and Understanding​

You will build organisational capability in market insight, consumer understanding and behavioural approaches, ensuring insight is translated into clear decisions and measurable outcomes. The role will strengthen how OPSS captures and uses intelligence from across the system, turning evidence into practical delivery choices and helping the organisation understand what works for different business and consumer audiences.

Influencing Across the System​

You will build and maintain strong relationships with business leaders, consumer groups, regulators and partners, influencing senior stakeholders across government and externally to improve coherence and outcomes. You will represent OPSS with authority and credibility, building trust across complex stakeholder groups and ensuring the organisation’s voice is clear, evidence-led and connected to the needs of those it serves.​

Leadership and Delivery​

You will lead multidisciplinary teams, of approximately 30-40 colleagues across business and consumer engagement functions, creating a high-performing, inclusive and resilient culture. The role will set clear direction and priorities, ensure delivery against organisational objectives, and contribute to wider OPSS performance, development and reputation as part of the senior leadership team.​

Building Confidence in the System​

You will strengthen confidence in the UK’s product regulatory system by ensuring it works effectively for businesses and consumers. The role will support OPSS’s reputation as a trusted, credible and business-aware regulator that delivers meaningful consumer protection, while building wider public awareness and trust in the OPSS brand through clear communications, accessible digital tools and visible delivery.​

You will also strengthen OPSS’s public-facing presence through GOV.UK and other digital channels, ensuring consumers, businesses and partners can access clear, timely and trusted information. This will help position OPSS as a modern regulator that is visible, responsive and recognised for protecting consumers and supporting confident markets.​

Person specification

Essential Criteria

• Significant senior leadership experience delivering results in complex, high consumer or business facing environments​
• Proven ability to embed business, consumer or audience insight into strategy, delivery, regulation or service improvement​
• Proven experience designing and delivering strategic messages, a strong grasp of channels: digital, media, social, content (including GOV.UK or equivalent platforms) and an ability to translate complex issues into clear, accessible content​
• Ability to build trust, credibility and effective relationships with senior internal and external stakeholders​
• Track record of leading high-performing, multidisciplinary teams and building an inclusive delivery culture ​
• Adept at strategic thinking with a strong focus on delivery, evidence and real-world impact

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £86,000, Department for Business and Trade contributes £24,914 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).

• 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

How to apply​​​

Please follow the online instructions on the Civil Service Jobs website to apply for this role. Applications must be submitted no later than 23:55 on 09/08/2026. ​

You will be asked to upload the two documents outlined below. It is essential you add your full name to both documents:​​

• A CV setting out your career history, highlighting specific responsibilities and achievements that are relevant for this role. Please provide reasons for any gaps within the last two years.​​​

• A Supporting Statement of around two pages of A4, providing examples of how your experience meets the essential criteria.​​​

Failure to submit both documents will mean the panel only have limited information on which to assess your application against the criteria in the person specification. ​​​

If you encounter any issues or are unable to apply online please contact SCSRecruitment@businessandtrade.gov.uk in the first instance​.

DBT now host Senior Civil Service (SCS) Candidate Support sessions for those wanting to learn more about the application and recruitment processes for SCS roles within DBT, if you are interested, please register for a session here - Candidate Support Sessions

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.

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 : SCS Recruitment Team
• Email : scsrecruitment@businessandtrade.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : scsrecruitment@businessandtrade.gov.uk

Further information

Our recruitment process is underpinned by the principle of appointment on the basis of fair and open competition and appointment on merit, as outlined in the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles. If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with these principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should in the first instance contact DBT by email at SCSRecruitment@businessandtrade.gov.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive, you can contact the Civil Service Commission, which regulates all Civil Service recruitment. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their web pages: Civil Service Commission Complaints​

Attachments

Deputy Director, Business and Consumer Engagement - Candidate Pack Opens in new window (pdf, 6578kB)Deputy Director, Business and Consumer Engagement Domestic Accessible Candidate Pack Opens in new window (docx, 151kB)