About the job

Job summary

Please note the locations of both roles when selecting your location preference:

• X1 Deputy Director Operational Delivery Head of Work, Study, Marriage & Family and Ukraine visas, UK Visas and Immigration – Sheffield only  
  
  
• X2 Deputy Director Head of Operational Delivery, Asylum and Human Rights Operations  – Manchester, Newcastle, Durham, Leeds, Liverpool, Stoke, Sheffield, Solihull, Cardiff

Drive the highest levels of customer service to individuals and businesses navigating the UK’s visas and immigration system.

The work of the Home Office impacts on every person living, working and visiting the United Kingdom. With oversight of everything from passports to counter-terrorism, our responsibilities are far-reaching, but can be condensed down to this – we must keep our citizens safe and enable the country’s economy to prosper. Sitting within the Migration and Borders System, The Customer Services Group (CSG) is at the heart of this work. With oversight of visas and the immigration system, we share the Home Office’s vision of ensuring everyone in the UK is safe, and protecting people’s rights and liberties. Furthermore, we also maintain a strict licensing regime relating to organisations who employ overseas nationals and sponsor foreign students. This work is varied and deeply interesting, and as such, these roles present a fascinating chance in which to further your career.  

We now have a number of Deputy Director operational posts within the CSG, all with the primary aim of supporting customers and ensuring they receive a high-quality end-to-end experience.

Job description

Regardless of which role you take on, you will champion a collaborative and efficient approach to meeting goals by managing and mentoring a team (numbering several hundred staff) across multiple locations. Setting a clear strategic direction, your team will handle a huge volume of applications in your designated area each year, so you will see to it that performance data and insight are being used to inform operational decisions, and drive improvements wherever possible. You will also use your insights to advise Directors, Ministers, Special Advisors and key stakeholders on risks and emerging issues, so this is demanding yet exciting work. Fostering a great culture amongst your teams, you will lead by example when building relationships with partners across the Home Office, the wider government and third sector organisations. Crucially, you will share our determination to build a workforce who are representative of the people that we serve, so you will nurture truly supportive workplaces in which everyone is able to thrive and achieve their professional goals.  

To excel in these roles, you will be keen to build strong working relationships with partners across the migration and borders system, so you will have exceptional communication skills. Unphased by the high-profile nature of the work, you will be comfortable handling political and media scrutiny, and you will relish the opportunity to provide verbal and written briefings for senior stakeholders. As such, you will be comfortable commissioning work that will lead to enhanced value-for-money and a better customer experience.

Bringing a resilient and innovative approach to every challenge, you will be capable of constructively challenging when needed, and you will see to it that we are meeting our statutory requirements. With a background in leading large teams and complex operations, you will have experience of driving continuous improvements in performance and transformational change to business processes and systems. With well-developed strategic skills, it would be helpful if you have an understanding of the immigration system.

And while job satisfaction is undoubtedly a vital part of what we can offer you, you can also expect a competitive benefits package that includes a Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 27%. Flexible working options will be considered, and you can adopt a hybrid model as long as you spend at least 60% of your time in the office.  

In short, we want you to be as passionate about our mission as we are. So if you value the importance of great customer service, and you would enjoy leading large teams in conducting nationally-important work, we would be delighted to receive your application. 

For further information about this exciting opportunity, please refer to the candidate pack attached at the bottom of the page.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

The successful candidate will need to demonstrate their knowledge, experience, capability and behavioural approach to a high standard against the following key criteria: 

• A leader with a record of leading diverse teams, you will have a proven ability to set a strong direction; drive continuous improvements in performance; convey a persuasive future vision at all levels of an organisation; encourage and motivate teams; drive high performance; and develop, attract and retain talent.
• A proven track record of running large scale and complex operations, aligning functions and resources and deploying people and skills optimally to achieve strategic priorities.
• A demonstrable commitment to fostering supportive and inclusive working cultures, encouraging diversity and building cohesive working environments.
• A clear record of success in enabling the delivery of transformational change to business processes and systems which delivers service improvements and cost savings, including through the utilisation of digital and data.
• Demonstrate the ability to work highly collaboratively with a range of key stakeholders including the private sector to inform, shape, influence and deliver business needs, both internally, externally, and internationally.
• Ability to influence at senior levels, including working with Ministers and senior stakeholders – internal and external.

Desirable Criteria 

• An understanding of the immigration system is desirable.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £75,000, Home Office contributes £20,250 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

Online Application        

Please follow the Job Advert instructions on the Civil Service Jobs website to apply online, no later than 23:55hrs on Friday 12th April 2024.

Provide some basic personal information;

1. 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;
2. A Statement of Suitability – (limited to 1250 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. 
3. Diversity Monitoring - as part of the online application process, you will be asked a number of diversity-related questions. If you do not wish to provide a declaration on any of the characteristics, you will have the option to select 'prefer not to say'. See the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy: 2022 to 2025 (HTML) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) for more information.

It is essential that in your written application you give evidence, using examples, of proven experience. These responses will be developed and discussed with candidates invited for interview.

Failure to submit both a CV and Supporting Statement will mean the panel only have limited information on which to assess your application against the criteria in the person specification.

For further information on SCS careers and the application process, please see below:

Home Office SCS Further Information 

Home Office Senior Leaders - Home Office Careers 

Home Office SCS Application Process 

Applying for Senior Civil Service vacancies - Home Office Careers

 

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.