Deputy Director of Digital Delivery

The Deputy Director of Digital Delivery has a broad and challenging set of responsibilities with the purpose of supporting the Department in its journey toward becoming more user and service delivery focused.

You will lead the development of a digital hub in Manchester, helping to grow and support a digital delivery hub in this thriving and dynamic city.

You will lead product development teams to deliver user centred, digital first services that achieve a significant policy outcome for the Department, and which meet all 18 of the Government Digital Service design standards from discovery, alpha and beta to continuous improvement of live services.

You will be adept at delivering complex digital projects, breaking down barriers for your team with the ability to lead strategically whilst working with the teams to unblock delivery, grow high performing team cultures and develop individuals.

You will be core to decisions that build and strengthen a digital first culture; where speed, team, and regular, incremental delivery is the norm, rather than the exception.

You will work in partnership with colleagues across policy, digital, data and technology and other corporate functions to build a sustainable and supportive way of working in which iterative, user centred delivery is widely understood.

You will support the development of leaders across the organisation, by coaching them on what is required to lead a digital first, continuously improving service and ensure that digital products are positioned within the context of an end-to-end service that is aligned to organisational goals.

With colleagues, you will be responsible for the development of specialist digital skills, such as service designers, user researchers, delivery managers, product owners and more.

Key Responsibilities

- Create, lead and develop multidisciplinary teams, ensuring you
have the correct structure and levels of skill to deliver;

- Own the delivery roadmap, working with the service and product
owners backlogs to prioritise delivery;

- Engage with business partners, across the organisation, to gain
buy-in on prioritisation, with agreement on the key performance
metrics which will be impacted;

- Measure and monitor the products and services you develop,
regularly reviewing operational metrics to validate the
effectiveness of your product in meeting user needs;

- Help develop and participate in wider skill development and
recruitment activities such as hackathons, conference events,
university partnerships, etc.;

- Ensure financial good health by carefully managing budgets and
operating costs, to ensure value for money and sustainable delivery;

- Exemplify the Department's 4 key principles:

Be user centred,
Make evidence based decisions,
Empower yourself and others,
Design with data

- Play an active role within the Digital Executive team, and model agile leadership behaviours as a senior Digital leader across the Department;

- Working with your technical leads to ensure the technical aspects of the products and services you develop are flexible, loosely coupled and deliver performance that is appropriate for the users needs and the business;

- Ensure that software can be deployed continuously so that products and services can be iterated easily and frequently;

- Align to the DevOps principles and toolsets with high degrees of automation throughout the development process. Continuous integration, continuous deployment and continuous operational monitoring are baseline goals.

Key Criteria

The successful candidate should be able to demonstrate:

- A proven track record of delivering services and products, including removing any unnecessary barriers to their delivery;

- Recent experience of running and operating live services;

- Proven experience of using agile methods, understanding the fundamental principles behind what these are trying to achieve and why they are valued;

- Technical ownership of projects and products, demonstrating proactive engagement to deliver solutions;

- Proven experience of balancing multiple priorities and dealing with ambiguity, applying both pragmatism and bold direction when appropriate;

- Sound understanding of the digital landscape, open source technologies and modern practices around continuous deployment;

- Excellent leadership and management skills, communicating clear strategy and purpose;

- Experience in leading multi-disciplinary teams, developing and motivating individuals.

Benefits

Pensions

Civil Service pension schemes may be available for successful candidates.

Things you need to know

Security

Successful candidates must pass a disclosure and barring security check.

Successful candidates must pass basic security checks.

Nationality statement

Candidates will be subject to UK immigration requirements as well as Civil Service nationality rules.

If you're applying for a role requiring security clearance please be aware that foreign or dual nationality is not an automatic bar. However certain posts may have restrictions which could affect those who do not have sole British nationality or who have personal connections with certain countries outside the UK.

Selection process details

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

Nationality requirements

Open to UK, Commonwealth and European Economic Area (EEA) and certain non EEA nationals. Further information on whether you are able to apply is available here.

Eligibility

Candidates in their probationary period are eligible to apply for vacancies within this department.

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code 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.

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a guaranteed interview scheme (GIS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.