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Job summary

Do you enjoy shaping change that delivers meaningful, long‑term benefits? Are you motivated by supporting people to navigate change with clarity, confidence, and purpose? If so, this role offers an excellent opportunity to make a real impact.

Business Surveys is going through a significant period of change as we continue to improve the way we design, deliver and support business survey operations. This role sits within Business Surveys Change team and will help ensure that change is well planned, clearly communicated and successfully embedded across teams, services and stakeholders.

The Change Manager plays a key role in preparing the organisation for the successful adoption of change, ensuring that new ways of working are understood, embedded, and deliver measurable benefits. Acting as the bridge between delivery teams and business users, you will support the planning and implementation of change to enable a smooth transition into business-as-usual.

Job description

As a Change Manager, you will play a key role in preparing the business for new ways of working, helping colleagues understand what is changing, why it matters and what support is needed to make the change successful. You will work closely with project teams, operational colleagues, subject matter experts and senior stakeholders to assess change impacts, support business readiness, develop engagement activity and contribute to benefits realisation.

You will help translate complex programme and project activity into practical plans that support adoption across Business Surveys. This will include developing and maintaining change plans, supporting communications, identifying risks and readiness issues, and making sure that people affected by change are engaged early and appropriately. The work will be varied and may involve supporting multiple change initiatives at different stages of the lifecycle, from planning through to implementation and embedding.

The successful candidate will be confident working in a busy and sometimes ambiguous environment, able to build trusted relationships and comfortable using evidence, insight and feedback to shape delivery. You will need to be organised, proactive and able to communicate clearly with different audiences, balancing structure and pace with the practical needs of teams delivering critical statistical outputs.

This is an opportunity to contribute to meaningful change in a high-profile area of ONS, supporting improvements that help Business Surveys continue to deliver trusted, high-quality data for decision makers, businesses and the public.

Key Responsibilities

• Leadership & Delivery - Leads business change activities and collaborates with the project team to achieve the benefits and outcomes outlined in the business case. Champions best practices and provides expert advice to team members and the project community. Assesses and understands the impact on stakeholders to enhance their adoption of the change.
• Business Case - Assists the Project Manager in preparing and updating the change management elements of the business case.
• Change Products - Supports the Project Manager in creating the required business change products. Leads engagement with key contacts and ensures products are fit for purpose.
• Change Planning - Establishes and maintains the change plan for a specific area of responsibility.
• Business Readiness - Identifies, qualifies, and updates business readiness criteria across areas of responsibility before implementation. Supports tracking to determine ‘approve/refuse’ for go-live decisions.
• Benefits Management - Supports the Benefits Manager, Project Manager, and stakeholders in identifying and leveraging benefits. Incorporates benefits management into all change activities.
• Change Communication - Works with the Stakeholder Manager and Project Manager to create and maintain a communications plan related to change messaging. Provides content for communications across areas of responsibility.
• Stakeholder Management - Identifies and classifies stakeholders, ensuring their inclusion in the stakeholder engagement plan. Serves as the point of contact for a larger pool of more senior stakeholders.
• Guidance & Support - Provides direction and guidance to the team. Leads change activities across areas of responsibility.
• Digital & Data - Collects and shares data in line with data standards. Uses digital tools to manage change initiatives effectively, ensuring that data analytics support the identification and tracking of change impacts and the adoption of new ways of working.

Person specification

Essential Criteria:

• Experience of leading or supporting business change or transformation activity, with an ability to understand business perspectives and align change activity to wider strategy.
• Practical experience of applying business change approaches, frameworks, methodologies or models to support successful implementation and adoption.
• Ability to assess the impact of change on people, processes, stakeholders and operational areas, using evidence and insight to support readiness, implementation and embedding.
• Experience of delivering work to agreed timelines managing competing priorities in a busy or changing environment.
• Ability to develop clear, creative and effective communications for different audiences, creating a strong narrative that supports understanding, engagement and adoption of change.
• Well-developed stakeholder management skills and experience of successfully building relationships and networks with a diverse range of people to achieve collaboration, develop common goals, and deliver significant business change outcomes.
• Ability to provide constructive challenge, guidance and support to colleagues and promote good change management practice.

Behaviours

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

• Leadership
• Delivering at Pace
• Communicating and Influencing

Technical skills

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

• Business Change and Implementation- Practitioner : Project Delivery Capability Framework
• Stakeholder Engagement- Working : Project Delivery Capability Framework

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, Experience and Technical skills.

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.

If you are unsure that you meet the eligibility above, please read the information available on Gov.uk on this link, or contact the recruitment email on the advert before applying to discuss, as failure to meet the residency requirements will result in your security clearance application being rejected and any offer of employment being withdrawn.

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.

Visa Sponsorship

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.

To work at the ONS, candidates must meet both UK right to work and security clearance requirements.

Application Process

Number of Stages: 3 stage process

Stage 1: Civil Service Judgement Test

Stage 2: Application

Stage 3: Interview

Stage 1 - Civil Service Online Tests

Upon submission of Part 1 your application form you will be sent an invitation to complete the Civil Service Judgement online tests.

There will be full instructions on how to complete each test including an opportunity to practice before undertaking the actual test. These tests are not time limited.

If you pass a test, you will then receive a further invite to complete each subsequent test if there is more than one for this vacancy. If you fail a test your application will not proceed to the next stage.

If you pass all tests for this vacancy, you will be invited to complete the final stage of your application, this is where you will provide information such as your work history. Skills and experience and Personal Statement.

Stage 2 – Application

The assessment process at the application stage will be based on your work history, skills, experience and personal statement. It is important that your application is tailored to highlight the skills, knowledge, and experience relevant to the role.

For your personal statement you are required to answer the questions below using up to 500 words on each answer. As these responses to the questions are scored, we would recommend that you give clear examples for each including the impact of your actions.

1) Thinking about a time you have successfully implemented a change. What change methodology or framework did you use, how did you apply it in practice, and how did it help you achieve a successful outcome?

2) Describe your personal approach to building and managing stakeholder relationships during change. What has worked well for you in the past, and how has your approach led to successful outcomes?

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 may be placed on hold and may be invited to interview at a later date.

Stage 3 – 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.

Interviews will be carried out via Microsoft Teams.

Our main locations are Newport (South Wales), Darlington and Titchfield.

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

Important Dates:

The closing date for the role is 10/08/2026 at 23:55. Please note, both the Civil Service Judgement test and written application (work history, skills, experience and personal statement) will need to be completed by this deadline.

The Sift will be conducted from Wednesday 12th August

Interviews will be conducted from Tuesday 1st September

Dates are subject to change.

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

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 : Rhys Sayer
• Email : Recruitmentoperations@ons.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : Recruitmentoperations@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 (2) Opens in new window (pdf, 83kB)Role1_Standard_Requirements (1) Opens in new window (pdf, 76kB)