About the job

Job summary

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is a major Department of State that plays a critical role in UK life. Operating at significant size and scope, we provide services and support to more than 22 million people every year, and are responsible for more than 730 million benefits payments, exceeding £180 billion. DWP has a role to support the most vulnerable people in society. Our departmental aims are to:

• Support those who can work; whilst protecting those that cannot
• Increase saving for, and security in, later life
• Run an effective welfare system.

Digital Group in DWP designs services based on user needs and are driving several major programmes of change where data is a key differentiator. These Change Programmes include Universal Credit, Service Modernisation as well as Fraud, Error and Debt. Our challenge is to best support individual citizens gain financial support needed, prevent fraud, error and debt and maximise their ability to progress all whilst reducing the overall cost to serve.

As we move from heritage systems and on-premise hosting, we are actively delivering the next generation of cloud-based digital services which will be able to accommodate policy changes and everyday operational improvements. With digitally enabled services comes improved data. Data and associated technologies like machine learning or artificial intelligence bring unprecedented opportunities for DWP but at the same time significant responsibilities around the safe and ethical use of that data. 

Against this backdrop, DWP’s ambition is to become a truly data-driven department. We collect and manage a vast array of data; we want to use Advanced Analytics to:

• Improve labour market progression 
• Prevent fraud and error and all forms of failure demand 
• Improve customer experience through high quality digital services.

We are looking for an experienced professional to be the Head of Advanced Analytics and lead this capability within DWP Digital. You will directly manage a mixed disciplinary team of up over 100 staff that will include agile product teams plus data scientists, digital performance analysts, data engineers and software engineers. The role reports directly to Digital’s Director of Data & Analytics, who is also DWP’s Chief Data Officer.

Job description

The successful candidate will have a wide remit to support major change, lead on DWP Strategic Reference Architecture (SRA) and be the domain leader for Artificial Intelligence (AI), including Generative AI, for the department. The post holder will tie these areas together, operating at executive-level across multiple programmes and all areas of Digital to drive forward the analytics agenda.

The DWP Head of Advanced Analytics has a leading voice across Government in this domain due to our progress, experience, and scale in this field.

Supporting Major Change: Data & Analytics (D&A) provide our services and major Change Programmes with the analytics capabilities, insights, and specialist skills to meet critical DWP objectives. This includes the highest priorities for DWP such as labour market progression, Fraud & Error reduction, better customer experience and reduced operating costs. All these need Analytics capabilities that enable the Dept to continuously improve everyday user journeys and maximising their outcomes.

Strategic Capabilities: Analytics is also a key component in the Dept’s Strategic Reference Architecture. D&A product teams are evolving the cloud-based capabilities that enable sophisticated machine learning, faster time to insights and also ways to operationalise analytics into user journeys. This needs leadership to manage competing priorities, onboard more lines of business and lead the roadmap for both performance and risk-related analytics. This ultimately means enabling everyday service design decisions to be data driven, individual customer journeys to be personalised and strategic processes to be optimised.

Responsible AI: We are at a point where technology like AI is moving at a rapid pace. This needs domain leadership to accelerate our adoption but to do so responsibly. This means preserving key principles and ensuring we do not discriminate or disadvantage our customers.  In DWP we are at the forefront of cloud-based AI architectures, Data Science, AI/Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) and in exploring the design and implementation of Large Language Models.  This Head of Advanced Analytics will be a key part of driving this forward for DWP and the UK Government.

This post will tie all the above threads together, operating at an executive level across multiple programmes and all areas of Digital to drive forward the analytics agenda. The role also has a level of managing people and functions as follows:

1. Insight teams – these are dominated by Data Scientists, Digital Performance Analysts or Data Engineers acting as embedded roles within key business teams (IRIS’s counter fraud or IPE’s performance teams) or change programmes (e.g. Universal Credit or Service Modernisation) to support their Analytics needs.
2. DataOps teams – multi-disciplinary teams who are responsible for creating, automating, and enhancing the advanced data pipelines needed by the insight teams or to operationalise analytics. 
3. Product Teams – multi-disciplinary teams responsible for developing cloud-based analytics applications as part of the Strategic Reference Architecture including the core Analytics Service and Risk Engine.

Almost all of this work is done by permanent civil servants, based in our core Digital hub sites (London, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle, Birmingham and Blackpool) with some support from partners. 

 

Person specification

Essential Criteria for the role which will be used to assess your application, alongside Success Profiles;

The successful candidate must demonstrate the following key skills and experience: 

• Experience of leading an Advanced Analytics function in a large and complex organisation, such as financial services or retail
• Evidence of strategic thinking and problem solving in the application of a range of advanced analytics approaches such as supervised and unsupervised machine learning, segmentation and personalisation, graph analytics, natural language processing, process mining, optimisation, and large language models
• A proven record of building, developing, and coaching diverse data teams whether data science, performance analysts or engineering teams
• Strong appreciation of the analytics technology landscape (including cloud services and open-source technologies) allied to a good appreciation of data solutions architecture and related tools and technologies
• A proven track record of building partnerships with senior stakeholders in a matrix organisation. Communicating and presenting with conviction to persuade and influence others of the benefits of data analytics in the face of scrutiny and challenge
• A strong appreciation of risk management relating to data security, data protection and ethics
• A proven track record in successfully managing projects and programmes within agile and waterfall approaches.

Benefits

• An employer pension contribution of up to 27% For further information please click here
• Annual leave rising up to 30 days, (based on your working pattern)
• Generous paid maternity and paternity leave, which is notably more than the statutory minimum offered by many other employers
• Childcare benefits (policy for new employees as of 5 April 2018): The government has introduced the Tax-Free Childcare scheme. Working parents can open an online childcare account and for every £8 they pay in, the government adds £2, up to a maximum of £2000 a year for each child or £4000 for a disabled child. Parents then use the funds to pay for registered childcare. Existing employees may be able to continue to claim childcare vouchers
• Interest-free loans allowing you to spread the cost of an annual travel season ticket or a new bicycle
• Occupational sick pay. 

For further information on why you should join the Civil Service, please click here. 

Things you need to know

Selection process details

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

As part of the assessment process, we ask you to submit a CV and a personal statement of up to 1250 words explaining why you want to work for DWP in this role; how you consider your Personal skills, qualities, and experience providing evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular reference to the essential criteria in the person specification by close Monday 18th March 2024 via 

https://www.gatenbysanderson.com/job/GSe101501.1/Head-of-Advanced-Analytics/

If successful at sift stage, you will be expected to complete a series of assessments, followed by an interview. 

During the selection process you will be assessed on behaviours and experience. 

for further information on the process, please refer to the candidate pack.

At DWP, we value diversity and inclusion and actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including those that are underrepresented in our workforce.

We consider visible and non-visible disabilities, neurodiversity or learning differences, chronic medical conditions, or mental ill health. Examples include dyslexia, epilepsy, autism, chronic fatigue, or schizophrenia.

If you feel that you may need a reasonable adjustment to be made, would like to discuss your requirements in more detail or require a hard copy of the information, or an alternative format e.g. Audio, Braille or large font please contact Toria.Lorman-Connolly@gatenbysanderson.com as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.

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.