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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

As Deputy Director of Legal, you will advise the CEO directly, report to a Deputy CEO, and ensure OPSS operates within an effective legal and regulatory framework. As head of the legal profession within OPSS and a member of the Leadership Team, you will shape regulatory policy and practice, provide trusted legal advice on strategic and operational matters, and lead a high-performing legal function supporting all OPSS regulatory activities, drawing on external legal expertise where required. You may also lead additional specialist teams as needed.

Candidate Information Call

The current role holder, Laura Majithia for this position, will be hosting a virtual call for any interested applicants to discuss the role and answer any questions. Please note this is not part of the formal assessment process.

This will be held via Microsoft Teams on Wednesday 29th July at 14:00 (UK time).

Please click Here for the meeting link.

If you would like to join without your full name being displayed in the meeting, please ensure you access the link on a personal device and select 'Join without signing in'.

Job description

Key Responsibilities

Act as OPSS’s principal legal adviser across regulatory and operational matters.
Provide risk-based, solution-focused legal advice to the CEO, Deputy CEOs and OPSS Boards on strategic and regulatory issues.
Ensure OPSS policies and practices are legally robust and capable of withstanding scrutiny and challenge.
Lead and develop a high-performing geographically dispersed legal team, including several Grade 6 Senior Lawyers.
Build effective partnerships with the Government Legal Department to deliver seamless legal support.
Provide senior legal oversight of enforcement and prosecution cases, including instructing external Counsel where appropriate.
Lead a best-practice approach to data acquisition, processing and sharing, including identifying opportunities to streamline information sharing within legal constraints.
Oversee the operation of the Primary Authority determinations procedures.
Contribute to the leadership, strategy and culture of OPSS as a member of the Leadership Team.

We expect all our senior leaders to be:

Inspiring – championing our work, purpose and future direction.
Confident – building trusted relationships and engaging effectively with others.
Empowering – creating an inclusive environment where people can thrive and deliver their best.

As a departmental office with both policy and delivery responsibilities, we are committed to fostering a supportive, inclusive and diverse culture that values our people, recognises their contributions and ensures everyone feels respected, supported and able to succeed, while reflecting OPSS's distinct role and maintaining close engagement with the wider department.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

To be successful in this role, you will be an outstanding lawyer and leader, able to demonstrate:

Qualification as a lawyer, with substantial experience in public, regulatory or other relevant areas of the law, including experience of working within complex regulatory frameworks.
Strong legal judgement and the ability to quickly develop expertise in new and complex subject areas.
The ability to build trusted and influential relationships at CEO, Board and senior stakeholder level, working effectively across organisational boundaries and with differing perspectives.
Excellent communication skills, with the ability to convey complex legal advice clearly and persuasively to both specialist and non-specialist audiences.
A proven track record of leading high-performing teams, delivering long-term strategic outcomes, and fostering an inclusive and engaged culture.
Experience advising on regulatory compliance with ability to drive continuous improvement and work collaboratively across organisation and professional boundaries, including with legal colleagues, Government Legal Department partners and other key stakeholders.

Desirable criteria:

Experience of product safety law.

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 - Legal - OPSS - Candidate Pack Opens in new window (pdf, 6396kB)Deputy Director- Legal - OPSS Domestic Accessible Candidate Pack Opens in new window (docx, 152kB)

Salary range

£86,000 - £117,800 per year