JOB SUMMARY

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government. We are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.

Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government, by:

• joining up public sector services
• harnessing the power of AI for the public good
• strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure
• elevating leadership and investing in talent
• funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation
• committing to transparency and driving accountability

We are home to the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI), the world-leading GOV.UK and at the forefront of coordinating the UK’s geospatial strategy and activity. We lead the Government Digital and Data function and champion the work of digital teams across government.
We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.
The Government Digital Service is where talent translates into impact. From your first day, you’ll be working with some of the world’s most highly-skilled digital professionals, all contributing their knowledge to make change on a national scale.
Join us for rewarding work that makes a difference across the UK. You’ll solve some of the nation’s highest-priority digital challenges, helping millions of people access services they need
The Product and Services Directorate forms part of the Product Group in GDS. We are responsible for developing nation scale products for government that seek to reduce burden on citizens. This includes operating and evolving established products within GDS, including developing products like GOV.UK App and GOV.UK AI alongside established products like GOV.UK Pay and GOV.UK Notify. These directly serve citizens and provide “build once” capability to central and local government, assuring consistency for users and cost effectiveness for government.

JOB DESCRIPTION

The Deputy Director, Platform Capabilities will own the live operations, cross-functional leadership, ongoing strategy and iterative delivery of a suite of high performing cross-government platform products. These are GOV.UK Pay, GOV.UK Notify, GOV.UK Forms including Licensing and the national Emergency Alerts product. The Deputy Director will play a critical leadership role within the Products and Services directorate and a proactive role in GDS’s senior leadership team.

As the Deputy Director, Product Capabilities, you will:

• lead a team of over 120 technical and other specialists working across Bristol, London and Manchester offices, delivering on an ambitious and innovative strategy using data, insight and user research to inform your approach
• work across GDS to ensure our platforms form part of a larger coherent ecosystem and strategy for digital services across government
• oversee each product to ensure they are properly maintained by one or more cross-functional teams and are running on supported, highly available and secure technology platforms
• share best practice and ensure collective efficiencies wherever possible; support and guide our cross-government platforms and products to build capability and make digital services so good that people prefer to use them
• line manage members of the senior team, ensuring that clear work and development objectives are set and support the wider work of GDS ensuring the necessary ministerial and senior official buy-in and agreement is obtained.

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)
• 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

For this role we’ll be assessing you against the following Civil Service Behaviours:

• Delivering at pace
• Communicating and influencing
• Managing a quality service
• Leadership
• Making effective decision