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To apply for this role you will need to submit a CV and statement of suitability. These need to be merged into one document. When submitting your application Applied will ask you to upload a CV, when doing this you should upload your merged document of your CV and statement of suitability. There are further details in the Selection Process section further below in this advert.

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If those don't work please email scs.recruitment@communities.gov.uk with your application and/or CV before the submission deadline. Any applications received after the deadline may not be considered.

To deliver on our ambitious agenda, the Strategy and Communications Group plays a central role in shaping how the department operates, ensuring ministerial priorities are delivered with energy, focus, and impact.​

We are looking for a dynamic and strategic leader to join the Group as Director of Departmental Strategy. This high-profile role is at the heart of departmental decision-making, ensuring MHCLG is focused on what matters most, and delivering on its priorities with pace and purpose.​

As Director, you will lead a high-performing team responsible for setting the strategic direction of the department and ensuring that ministerial ambitions are translated into clear, deliverable actions. You will play a central role in aligning policy, people, and resources, working across teams to ensure delivery structures are in place and government objectives are met at pace.​

You will oversee the department’s engagement in major cross-government processes such as the Legislative Programme and fiscal events, ensuring these are well-planned, effectively managed, and strategically aligned. You will champion the delivery of the DPM’s top priorities, including reporting on the progress of priorities from announcement to real-world outcomes. You will lead on strengthening the department’s governance and central operations, ensuring it is well-run, accountable, and equipped to respond to fast-moving priorities.​

This is a highly visible and fast-paced role that involves working closely with Ministers, the Executive Team, and senior leaders across Whitehall. It requires outstanding leadership, excellent political judgement, and the ability to operate with confidence and credibility at the highest levels of government.​

If you are a strategic thinker, an influential communicator, and passionate about shaping how government delivers for the public, we encourage you to apply. This is a rare opportunity to lead across some of the most important agendas in government and play a key role in driving national priorities forward.

As Director of Departmental Strategy, you will play a central role in ensuring the department operates effectively and remains focused on ministerial and executive priorities. While the role will evolve over time, your key responsibilities will include:​

• Setting strategic direction – Shaping and driving the department’s strategy, ensuring ministerial priorities are clear, coherent, and resourced to deliver.​ ​

• Driving delivery – Strengthening the department’s delivery systems and architecture, improving grip and coordination on key government missions.​ ​

• Leading major processes – Overseeing the Legislative Programme and fiscal events, ensuring these are well planned, aligned, and delivered at pace.​ ​

• Advising senior leaders – Providing trusted insight and challenge to Ministers and the Executive Team to support effective decision-making.​ ​

• Strengthening governance – Ensuring the department is well-run and accountable, leading core governance functions and supporting senior civil servants.​ ​

• Overseeing operations – Leading central teams covering public appointments, propriety and ethics, departmental boards, and knowledge management.​ ​

• Supporting Ministers – Ensuring private office, correspondence, and parliamentary teams deliver high-quality advice and effective ministerial support.​

This is a high-profile and demanding Director role at the heart of the department’s priorities. Ministers and the Executive Team must have full confidence that the department is operating with ambition, strategic foresight, and the ability to deliver results across government. The successful candidate will play a pivotal role in ensuring this happens.​

This role requires someone who is a confident collaborator and influencer, able to operate across a broad and complex portfolio. You will bring sound judgement and the ability to draw on expertise from inside and outside government to shape advice. You will have proven experience engaging effectively at senior levels, including with Ministers, senior officials, and executive stakeholders, and will be comfortable working across departmental and organisational boundaries.​

You will be a credible communicator with the ability to manage a wide range of relationships and perspectives, internally within the department and externally with key partners across Whitehall, local government, and beyond. You will have a strong track record of leading complex programmes of work, underpinned by analytical rigour and clear, evidence-based planning. You will also be willing to challenge constructively and think creatively to drive innovation and improvement.​

As a senior and inspirational leader, you will empower, motivate, and develop high-performing teams, creating a culture that is inclusive, ambitious, and focused on delivery. You will be resilient under pressure, able to lead through uncertainty, and bring clarity to fast-moving issues.​

You will embody the values of integrity, objectivity, and impartiality, demonstrating a strong commitment to public service and the Civil Service Code. As a visible role model, you will uphold the highest standards of leadership and accountability.

Essential Criteria:

• Exceptional leadership – An inspiring, confident, and empowering leader with a track record of delivering complex change, setting strategic direction, and leading through uncertainty and transformation. You enhance innovation, inclusivity, and a high-performance culture within your teams.​

• Strong communication and influence – The ability to quickly establish credibility with senior stakeholders, including ministers and executive leaders. You can build trusted relationships, influence decision-making at the highest levels, and ensure ministerial priorities are effectively implemented across the department.​

• Strategic thinking and delivery – A proven ability to translate strategic priorities into tangible action, identify risks and opportunities beyond departmental boundaries, and drive delivery at pace in a complex, fast-moving environment.​

• Agility and innovation – A mindset that embraces change and new ways of working, with the ability to adapt to shifting priorities while maintaining focus, composure, and high performance.​

• Sound judgement and political awareness – The ability to provide robust, evidence-based advice to ministers and senior officials, with a strong understanding of the wider political and policy landscape. You can balance competing interests and make decisions with integrity, impartiality, and strategic foresight.​

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £100,000, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government contributes £28,970 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%

Things you need to know

How to apply​

​

Please click the Be Applied link to provide the required information and complete your application through the Be Applied website by 23:55 on Sunday 21st September 2025.​

You will be asked to enter some personal details, upload your CV and to provide your responses to the role’s advertised essential criteria. ​​​

When prompted to upload your CV, please upload a single document consisting of: ​​​

• a CV (including the names of 2 referees and your current remuneration) setting out your career history, with key responsibilities, achievements and your academic qualifications, specifying subject and degree level achieved. Please ensure you have provided reasons for any gaps within the last two years. ​(max. 2 pages or 1000 words)​

• a statement of suitability explaining how your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular referenceto the essential criteria provided in the person specification. (max. 2 pages or 1000 words)​​​

Please remember to save these two items in one document. Both items will be assessed to determine sift outcomes.​​

Please note that only completed applications through the Be Applied route will be considered and that any further progress updates will be sent through Be Applied. For an informal discussion about the role, please contact the Recruitment team by emailing scs.recruitment@communities.gov.uk. 

The selection panel will be made up of:​

• Stephen Cohen, Civil Service Commissioner and chair​

• Brendan Threlfall, MHCLG Director General and hiring manager​

• Manuela Solera-Deuchar, MHCLG Director

Selection process and assessments​

During sifting, both your CV and Statement of Suitability will be assessed against the role’s Essential Criteria. These Essential Criteria will also be used to form the basis of the panel’s questions in your final interview. ​​

If a role lists Desirable Criteria, these will only be used to determine the merit order of candidates who rank evenly when assessed against the Essential Criteria. ​

Candidates that are shortlisted may be invited to attend a staff engagement panel. ​

At MHCLG we hold staff engagement panels as an integral part of the recruitment process for Senior Civil Servants (SCS) – they are designed to help us build up a rounded picture of each candidate and give us an insight into how you might engage and interact with your team should you be successful. The purpose of the session is to help us assess your engagement and communication skills and is not about testing your subject knowledge or expertise for this particular role. Feedback from the session is passed onto the selection panel for consideration alongside the final interview.​

Shortlisted candidates may also be invited to a meeting with a Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister, and/or other senior stakeholders. This is not a formal part of the selection process but an informal chance for candidates to find out more about the role and the organisation.​

Shortlisted candidates may also be invited to give a short presentation or complete an exercise at the beginning of their final interview. Further details will be provided to shortlisted candidates when invited to interview. ​

Full details of the assessment process will be provided to shortlisted candidates at the earliest opportunity.​

All of the evidence presented as part of the process will be considered in the final assessment.​

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

Contract

This is a permanent appointment. This role is full-time and issuitable for a job share. MHCLG encourages flexible working. 

Location​

Bristol, Darlington, London, Manchester and Wolverhampton. ​

During the application process you will be asked to express a location preference, from the advertised locations. Any offer made will be based on that specific location. ​Please note that, as your normal work location, costs cannot be claimed for travel to and from your base office location.

Salary​

For external appointments, remuneration for this role will be circa £100,000 p.a. plus a bonus opportunity depending on performance (within the normal Civil Service pay arrangements) and attractive pension.  ​

For existing civil servants, the usual policy on level transfer and promotion will apply and is non-negotiable. If appointed on promotion you would get the higher of 10% uplift or the new minimum for SCSPB2. Please also note that, if successful, any existing specialist allowances you currently receive will not automatically transfer or be retained upon moving to this role.​

Future pay awards will normally be made in line with current SCS performance-related pay arrangements.

Reserve List  

In the event that we identify more appointable candidates than we currently have posts available, we will hold applicant details in a reserve list for a period of 12 months from which further appointments can be made. Candidates placed on a reserve list will be informed of this.

​Near Miss Offers​ 

Please note that near miss offers may be made at the lower grade to candidates who do not meet the grade criteria for this campaign.

Security Clearance 

In addition to the Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS), all Senior Civil Service staff are required to have at least Security Clearance (SC) prior to starting the role.

For more details of vetting levels and requirements please refer to the Cabinet Office HMG Personnel Security Controls.

Complaints Process 

Please see candidate pack slide 23 for details. 

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.

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.

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)

This vacancy is open to all Civil Service employees and employees of accredited non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) who were appointed on merit following a fair and open competition; or were appointed to a permanent post through an exception in the Civil Service Commissioners' rules.

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.

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

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Job contact :

• Name : SCS Recruitment

• Email : scs.recruitment@communities.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : scs.recruitment@communities.gov.uk