About the job

Job summary

This role plays a pivotal role in developing pay strategies and implementing initiatives that will support Defence to meet its strategic objectives through attracting, motivating and retaining talented individuals. You will be joining us at a critical time as we launch a new Defence Civilian Reward Strategy and are focusing on modernising and simplifying the reward landscape, implementing digital solutions to pay initiatives, and expanding our total reward offer. You will lead a team of 6 to deliver this ambitious agenda.

This is an exciting opportunity to join as we are embarking on improvements to our wider offer, and to how we work. There are opportunities to bring innovative ideas to shape the future of Civilian pay and reward in Defence. The successful applicant will have a significant degree of autonomy to deliver.

This position is advertised at 37 hours per week.

Job description

In this role, you will:

• Lead on the development and implementation of innovative reward initiatives under the new Civilian Reward Strategy, aligned to Defence objectives, such as the development of capability-based pay for scarce skills,
• Lead on the overall pay framework in Defence and annual pay reviews, using a broad evidence-based to design and implement changes to Defence pay arrangements,
• Review, improve and oversee the MOD Pay Policy by benchmarking arrangements across the wider Civil Service and external market, and make sure the policy supports Defence to achieve its objectives through incentivising employees appropriately,
• Work with a range of stakeholders not limited to senior stakeholders up to the Permanent Under-Secretary, senior business stakeholders, Cabinet Office, HM Treasury, the Armed Forces Remuneration Team, and Defence’s Arm’s Length Bodies, and
• Provide leadership to a team of 6 reward experts, as well as broader leadership across the wider Civilian Reward Team, to make sure the team deliver high quality outcomes across the challenging agenda. You will achieve this by supporting work and resource planning for the team, building capability and nurturing talent, and creating an inclusive working environment which harnesses diversity of thought.

Person specification

We are looking for an experienced senior HR professional who holds CIPD level 7 or committed to working towards this.

Applicants must have a strong working knowledge of pay and reward practices, and ideally an understanding of how pay works in the Civil Service. Applicants need to be able to develop, model and implement pay and reward strategies, and therefore a strong ability to use data insights to find solutions to complex problems is essential.

This role will work with some of the more senior leaders in the organisation on complex issues, so applicants will need strong communication and influencing skills, and an ability to explain complex issues succinctly both verbally and in written advice.

This role has a high degree of autonomy and direct for a team of 6 so you will need to have line management and leadership experience, be highly organised, and be able to use your own initiative to drive forward the work of your team.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £57,670, Ministry of Defence contributes £15,570 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours.

We will assess you against these behaviours at Application and Interview:

• Making effective decisions
• Communicating and Influencing
• Leadership
• Changing and Improving

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. If you need to advise us that you need additional help or reasonable adjustments for the recruitment process, please contact: DBSCivPers-Resourcingteam3@mod.gov.uk 

As a result of the changes to the UK immigration rules which came into effect on 1 January 2021, the Ministry of Defence will only offer sponsorship for a skilled worker visa under the points based system, where a role has been deemed to be business critical.

The role currently being advertised has not been assessed as business critical and is therefore NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points based system. Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn.

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.