Job summary Great technology starts with great leadership, and at Ofgem, were looking for a people-first Head of Development to deliver development practice across our digital portfolio. Ofgem is Great Britains independent energy regulator. Were at the forefront of change across the sector, driving toward Net Zero whilst protecting consumers, especially vulnerable people. Were offering a permanent opportunity within our Digital Delivery portfolio, where youll be the vital piece of the digital puzzle that brings together our development teams and our digital stack. You'll be leading a team of exceptional Technical Leads who oversee around 45 development staff, and ensuring the digital culture is focused on innovation, collaboration and high-quality delivery. This is a chance to influence our digital teams from the inside, improving engineering standards and delivery approaches, supporting the use of new tech, tools and AI, and creating an environment where everyone feels empowered to deliver their best work. The key focus of the role is people, not technical prowess, so you'll be building trust and psychological safety, having honest, constructive conversations that improve performance and drive standards, and solving problems and making decisions in ambiguous situations. Youll bring significant leadership experience leading software development teams through other technical leaders, with a strong track record of coaching, performance management and building high-performing, supportive cultures. Alongside experience of driving technology adoption and change and delivering engineering standards, youll have credibility, judgement and exceptional communication skills with the ability to engage confidently at all levels and with both technical and non-technical stakeholders. In return, youll have the opportunity to shape a supportive and high-performing development environment within a major national organisation undergoing significant digital evolution. Youll play a central role in building capability across the practice, supporting technical leaders and helping create a culture where people feel trusted, empowered and able to deliver their best work. We have a critical purpose to drive the digital performance of the energy sector. Join us and help build the leadership, culture and development capability that will enable Ofgem to deliver on that mission. Read on and find out more. Job description Key Responsibilities Lead, develop and inspire: Provide clear direction, coaching and performance management for 68 Technical Leads and creating strong career pathways for developers across the portfolio. Enhance engineering standards and ways of working: (e.g., SDLC, coding standards, branching/release strategy, security and quality gates), ensuring consistent delivery across multiple teams and suppliers. Provide leadership across the portfolio SLT: Influencing investment decisions, and ensuring development capability aligns to scheme priorities and wider organisational objectives. Operational planning: Understand team strengths and gaps, allocate resources to projects, support prioritisation/scheduling, and manage dependencies across products and delivery streams. Supporting supplier relationship management: Contributing to contract management, assuring quality of partner delivery, and embedding agreed standards and governance. Drive continuous improvement through actionable metrics and feedback loops (e.g., DORA, defect trends, lead time, deployment frequency, service health), using insight to remove bottlenecks and raise performance. Support effective delivery governance by working closely with Product, Delivery, Architecture, Security and Service Management teams to manage risk, assure outcomes, and communicate progress and issues clearly to senior non-technical stakeholders. Lead the strategic adoption of AI-enabled engineering : Working closely with our Innovation lead to define where AI tooling adds value, establish safe/approved usage patterns, upskill teams, and evolve ways of working to improve developer productivity and quality (e.g., assisted coding, test generation, documentation, code review support). Build and sustain a healthy engineering culture that supports inclusion, wellbeing, knowledge sharing and high performance, including contributing to hiring, onboarding, and succession planning for critical roles. What you will NOT be responsible for Being the day-to-day individual contributor for coding, feature delivery, or fixing production issues (you will support teams to resolve issues, but delivery is owned by the relevant product teams and technical leads). Owning all low-level solution design decisions for every product (you will set direction and assure standards while empowering Technical Leads and teams to design and implement solutions). Line managing every developer in the portfolio (you will line manage Technical Leads and lead the practice through them, providing matrix leadership and community support to delivery teams). Key Outputs and Deliverables A clear, communicated development practice strategy and operating model, including standards, governance and ways of working. Improved consistency and quality across teams evidenced by measurable engineering metrics (e.g., lead time, deployment frequency, defect escape rate, incident trends, velocity, burndown). A high-performing leadership layer across development, with strong Technical Leads, clear expectations, effective 1:1s, feedback, performance management and development plans. Effective resource planning and allocation across priority schemes and products, with transparent capacity, skills coverage, and mitigation plans for gaps. An agreed AI-enabled engineering roadmap (tools, guardrails, training, and adoption measures) that demonstrably improves developer experience, productivity, and quality. Trusted relationships with senior stakeholders, with clear, timely communication of delivery health, risks, and trade-offs, and evidence of issues being addressed at pace. Person specification Essential Criteria Significant people leadership experience, leading software development teams through other leaders (e.g., Engineering Managers/Tech Leads), with a strong track record of coaching, performance management and building high-performing, supportive cultures. (Lead Criteria) Evidence of driving technology change and adoption (for example, introducing new tooling, automation or AI-assisted engineering practices) with appropriate governance, learning and measurable benefits. Proven ability to set and embed engineering standards and improve consistency across multiple teams (including quality, security, testing and release practices). Demonstrable experience of operational leadership in a technology function, including prioritisation, capacity/resource planning, dependency management and working across multi-disciplinary teams. Experience working with partners/suppliers (e.g., co-sourcing, consultancies) and contributing to contract and performance management to assure quality outcomes. Behaviours We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process: Seeing the Big Picture Leadership Delivering at Pace Technical skills We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process: You will also be asked to complete a presentation during your interview. Details of the presentation will be provided in your invitation to interview. Benefits Alongside your salary of 63,443, OFGEM contributes 18,379 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides. Ofgem can offer you a comprehensive and competitive benefits package which includes; 30 days annual leave after 2 years; Excellent training and development opportunities; The opportunity to join the generous Civil Service pension which also includes a valuable range of benefits; Hybrid working (currently 1 day a week in the office but is in review), flexible working hours and family friendly policies. Plus lots of other benefits including clean and bright offices based centrally, engaged networks and teams and an opportunity to contribute to our ambitious and important targets of establishing a Net Zero energy system by 2050. This exciting blend of professional challenge and personal reward identifies career opportunities at Ofgem as something to get excited about. Things you need to know Artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use. Selection process details This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills. When you press the Apply now button, you will be asked to complete personal details (not seen by the sift panel), your career history and qualifications. You will then be asked to provide a 1250 word personal statement evidencing how you meet the essential skills and capabilities listed in the role profile. Please ensure you demonstrate clearly, within your supporting statement, how you meet each of the criteria listed in the role profile. In the event of receiving a large number of applications, an initial sift may take place on just the lead criteria indicated in the essential criteria. The personal information we have collected from you will be shared with Cifas who will use it to prevent fraud, other unlawful or dishonest conduct, malpractice, and other seriously improper conduct. If any of these are detected, you could be refused certain services or employment. Your personal information will also be used to verify your identity. Further details of how your information will be used by us and Cifas, and your data protection rights, can be found by [ https://www.cifas.org.uk/fpn ]. At Ofgem, we expect our staff to carry out their roles with honesty, fairness and openness. They should follow the Civil Service code and be free from any influence or bias. We are committed to making sure interests are recognised, declared and managed appropriately so that we can fulfil our duties as an energy regulator. Our Conflicts of Interest policy outlines the types of interests Ofgem staff must declare before onboarding, and the rules they must follow throughout employment so that we can clearly demonstrate that our decisions are not influenced by private interests. Please note, this role is being recruited to in Ofgem. During 2027, it is expected that this role will move department as part of the Warm Homes Plan. The home department or organisation will be confirmed during 2026. The move between departments will be managed in line with the relevant staff transfer regulations. Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment. Security Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. 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. Diversity and Inclusion The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window). Apply and further information This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative. The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window). Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records. Contact point for applicants Job contact : Name : Lewis Buckey Email : recruitment@ofgem.gov.uk Recruitment team Email : recruitment@ofgem.gov.uk Further information Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commissions Recruitment Principles. You have the right to complain if you feel there has been a breach of these Recruitment Principles. In the first instance, you should raise the matter directly via recruitment@ofgem.gov.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response, you may bring your complaint to the Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission, please visit their website. Attachments Head of Development, Digital Delivery - Role Profile Opens in new window (pdf, 111kB) Head of Development, Digital Delivery - Candidate Pack Opens in new window (pdf, 1390kB) Terms and Conditions Apr25 Opens in new window (pdf, 335kB) Apply now