About the job

Job summary

Capability Stewarding is the term used by Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) for ensuring that Defence & Security has access to the Science & Technology (S&T) capabilities they require now and in the future, whether these are within Dstl, or in the external supply base.

S&T Capabilities are comprised of the people with the required skills, knowledge and experience; facilities and licences to practice. The Defence and Security S&T landscape will see in the coming months, significant transformation in response to Dstl Strategy and the Dstl S&T Capability Strategy, and this will require new ambitions for our S&T capabilities to be realised and governance processes transformed.

S&T Capability area supports Dstl’s Chief Science and Technology Officer in leading Dstl’s enterprise level stewardship of S&T capability, ensuring alignment with strategic direction from the Ministry of Defence (MOD) Chief Scientific Advisor and optimisation for defence and security impact now and in the future, while remaining coherent with Dstl’s Strategy. This area influences across all components of capability ensuring these requirements are understood across Dstl and our suppliers.

In conjunction with the S&T Capability team, this role will shape and integrate Dstl’s approach to S&T Capability Stewarding, adopting an enterprise approach, aligned to the MoD S&T Strategy. Working alongside the senior leaders within Dstl and MoD, the successful candidate will ensure the future ambition for the S&T Strategic Capabilities is achieved through understanding the enterprise level view of Dstl’s S&T Capability Health, the key risks associated and assuring that appropriate mitigations are in place to address these.

Dstl recognises the importance of diversity and inclusion as people from diverse backgrounds bring fresh ideas. We are committed to building an inclusive working environment in which each employee fulfils their potential and maximises their contribution.

We particularly welcome female and ethnic minority applicants and those from the LGBTQI community, as they are under-represented within Dstl at these levels.

Job description

In this role you will:

• Work to improve how Dstl manages its S&T Capabilities by optimising our approach and conducting appropriate assurance of Dstl’s related standards, policy and processes, with the engagement of the appropriate stakeholders.
• Identify areas for improvement and simplify processes to use fewer resources. Use technology where possible to increase efficiency.
• Be custodian for our key strategic capability risks, working with the risk owners and our S&T Delivery Committee to ensure our risk picture is current and understood and that we are effectively managing the threats and opportunities that face us.  
• Identification and delivery of improvement activities that will enhance our ability to successfully steward our S&T capabilities.
• Lead aspects of capability stewarding engagement across the wider organisation to enhance understanding of what we do and how it can benefit our people in the delivery of their roles.
• Working with our Capability Leaders and Technology Strategy Leader community, embed a planning framework for our strategic capabilities that is used by Dstl to understand progress against our ambition statements and that can drive action and decision making to overcome key risks.  
• Stewarding in order to ensure that a coherent and integrated set of Management Information is created.
• Coach, mentor and develop other colleagues to support succession planning.
• Lead aspects of engagement with our MoD counterparts to inform and shape our relationship and outputs to them.

Person specification

We are looking for someone who has:

• Experience of planning for future S&T capabilities, including workforce planning; delivery of work and leading teams to deliver analytical outputs.
• Experience of defining, planning and delivering improvement initiatives.
• A proven ability to complete analysis and provide reports to meet tight timescales, in order to meet decision and planning cycles.
• A desire to provide quality and actionable information to leaders within the business.
• Strong communication skills, an ability to easily build and use networks and a proven ability to influence senior leaders.
• An ability to work with unclear connections and requirements but still achieve tangible outputs.
• Ability to build a good understanding of Dstl in order to link the work that is being delivered with other related areas and wider business priorities.
• Experience of change management, with a particular focus on community buy-in, creating a joint vision and delivering through ‘virtual teams’.

Leadership:

As a leader in Defence you will help shape, role model and bring to life the ‘One Defence’ mindset that will enable us to deliver our vision and strategic objectives. Your leadership style must be inspiring, confident and empowering. Working at every level of our organisation to break down silos, unite teams and create a culture that is trusting, collaborative, innovative, diverse and inclusive. Enabling us to deliver with pace and agility through the skills, commitment and empowerment of our employees and military colleagues.

Important Information:

Our work in defence, security and intelligence requires our employees to be UK Nationals who are able to gain a high level of security clearance to undertake the projects we are involved in to protect us from security threats. For this reason, only UK Nationals will be able to apply for this role. If you are an international or dual-national candidate, and you think you have the skills we need, please consider applying to any of our government, security or defence partners.

This role will require full UK security clearance and you should have resided in the UK for the past 5 years. For some roles Developed Vetting will also be required, in this case you should have resided in the UK for the past 10 years.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £44,667, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory contributes £12,060 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 and Experience.

We want you to have your best chance of success in our recruitment process, so If at any stage of the application process you would like help or assistance please contact the Dstl Recruitment Team dstlrecruitment@dstl.gov.uk and we will do all we can to support you.

Sifting take place week commencing 15th January 2024 with successful applicants being invited to attend either an online interview via MS Teams or Face to Face interview at one of our Dstl Sites.

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

Open to UK nationals only.

This job is not open to candidates who hold a dual nationality.

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.