This advert is for 2 different Director Roles within Home Office (HO) Digital.
Role 1: Regular Migration and Immigration & Citizenship Services.
Role 2: Illegal Migration, Borders, Compliance and Enforcement. Please state your preference within your application.
Job overview
The Director for Regular Migration and Immigration & Citizenship is responsible for leading strategic digital product teams that deliver Regular Migration and Immigration & Citizenship Group digital services, including the Atlas caseworking system underpinning all Migration & Borders services, Access UK migrant application services, Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), eVisas, UK Passports, and Crossing the Border Digital (including the next generation of egates, intelligent border and contactless border).
This role is responsible for delivering strategic GMPP digital-enabled outcomes, including those for the Future Borders Immigration System (FBIS), Caseworking Capability, the cross-government Digital Identity Programme, and Passports and Civil Registration. This role operates in partnership with the PB2 Director for Illegal Migration, Borders, Compliance andEnforcement, and both roles share responsibility for the portfolio's £700m annual investment.
Key responsibilities include
- Operate as a principal digital adviser to Migration and Borders senior leadership, including the DG and wider SCS cohort, shaping strategic direction through bringing thought leadership on the latest trends, navigating competing priorities, and resolving complex issues across a high-profile operational environment.
- Provide executive leadership for digital product management across Regular Migration and Customer Services, setting vision strategic direction and investment priorities to align organisational objectives, user outcomes, and delivery performance at scale.
- Build organisational capability and high performance by championing a product-centric culture, coaching senior leaders, strengthening internal expertise, and leveraging supplier capability to deliver sustainable, system-wide impact.
- Lead operational excellence across live services, including incident management, service recovery, SLA performance, cyber resilience and service reliability, while embedding a strong culture of ownership and accountability.
- Lead and develop a senior leadership cadre of SCS PB1 Delivery and Product Directors and functional heads, providing visible, cross-cutting leadership that builds organisational resilience, strengthens capability, and sustains high performance.
- Hold financial accountability for a £375m Migration and Borders Digital annual investment in delivery and live services, ensuring robust financial stewardship, transparent reporting, value realisation, commercial discipline and effective strategic supplier management
- Provide executive oversight of commercial, contractual, and supplier relationships for third-party delivery and resourcing, securing performance, innovation, and strategic value across major procurements and delivery partnerships.
- Represent digital at senior programme boards and maintain direct accountability to Ministers and Director General leadership for the delivery of strategic, digital-enabled outcomes across Migration and Borders.
The Director for Illegal Migration, Borders, Compliance and Enforcement is responsible for leading strategic digital product teams that deliver digital services that enable Illegal Migration, Asylum, Border Force, Immigration Enforcement, Border Security Command, Crossing the Border outcomes. This role operates in partnership with the PB2 Director for Regular Migration and Immigration & Citizenship Services, and both roles share responsibility for the portfolio's £700m annual investment.
Key responsibilities include:
- Operate as a principal digital adviser to Migration and Borders senior leadership, including the DG and wider SCS cohort, shapingstrategic direction through bringing thought leadership on the latest trends, navigating competing priorities, and resolving complexissues across a high-profile operational environment.
- Provide executive leadership for digital product management across Illegal Migration. Borders, Compliance and Enforcement,setting vision, strategic direction and investment priorities to align organisational objectives, user outcomes, and deliveryperformance at scale.
- Build organisational capability and high performance by championing a product-centric culture, coaching senior leaders,strengthening internal expertise, and leveraging supplier capability to deliver sustainable, system-wide impact.
- Lead operational excellence across live services, including incident management, service recovery, SLA performance, cyberresilience and service reliability, while embedding a strong culture of ownership and accountability.
- Lead and develop a senior leadership cadre of SCS PB1 Delivery and Product Directors and functional heads, providing visible,cross-cutting leadership that builds organisational resilience, strengthens capability, and sustains high performance.
- Hold financial accountability for £375m Migration and Borders Digital annual investment in delivery and live services, ensuringrobust financial stewardship, transparent reporting, value realisation, commercial discipline and effective strategic suppliermanagement
- Provide executive oversight of commercial, contractual, and supplier relationships for third-party delivery and resourcing, securingperformance, innovation, and strategic value across major procurements and delivery partnerships.
- Represent digital at senior programme boards and maintain direct accountability to Ministers and Director General leadership forthe delivery of strategic, digital-enabled outcomes across Migration and Borders.
Person specification
Essential Criteria for both roles
The successful candidate will need to demonstrate their knowledge, experience, capability and behavioural approach to a high standard against the following key criteria:
- Proven experience of delivering large scale, digital transformation, strategic digital product leadership and accountability for live digital services with demonstrable ability to balance service reliability, cyber resilience and delivery of new capabilities.
- The ability to build high trust relationships with very senior customers and stakeholders, bridging technical and non-technical divides, with the confidence and credibility to challenge where necessary.
- Experience in leading strategic digital product teams with the ability to inspire and empower colleagues to innovating and deliver high-quality, user-centred services ensuring alignment with organisational goals and ministerial priorities.
- Strong financial management skills with experience in managing substantial budgets (>£50mper annum).
- Proven expertise in managing suppliers and contracts (>£50m per annum), with a strong track record of driving supplier performance and achieving substantial cost savings.
Benefits
Alongside your salary of £120,000, Home Office contributes £34,764 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.
- 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%
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
- A CV - setting out your career history, highlighting specific responsibilities and achievements that are relevant for this role, including details where budgets and numbers of people managed, relevant achievements in recent posts, together with reasons for any gaps within the last two years;
- A Statement of Suitability – (limited to 1,250 words) explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience, provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular reference to the essential criteria in the person specification.
- You will need to confirm which of the role(s) you are applying for in your application.
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 the Civil 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
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Contact point for applicants
Job contact
Recruitment team
Attachments
Candidate Pack - 2 x Director Roles - HO Digital - Opens in new window (pdf - 418kB)
