Director of Digital and Data
Location: Flexible across England | Salary: £81,000 + Benefits | Type: Permanent
Nature sits at the heart of our nation’s prosperity, it is essential national infrastructure. It supports economic growth, improves our health and wellbeing, and strengthens our resilience in a rapidly changing world. Natural England’s mission is to recover nature for health, wealth and security advising government, protecting our natural environment, enabling public access, and ensuring nature conservation and regulatory services are delivered effectively across the country.
To deliver on this mission at scale, digital and data are fundamental. Our statutory services, our organisational reforms, our regulatory responsibilities, and our leadership of nature recovery all depend on high‑quality digital systems, strong data foundations and modern, user‑centred services.
We are already on an ambitious transformation journey. We have established new governance and assurance processes, brought together a unified digital and data directorate, and built a development pipeline of significant programmes. We are now transforming Natural England into a truly digitally‑enabled organisation and this new role will spearhead that change, driving it further and faster.
The Opportunity
Reporting to the Chief Scientist, you will play a strategic and highly visible role in shaping and delivering our Destination Digital strategy. You will lead a team of around 50 specialists, setting the direction for digital and data across the organisation, embedding modern ways of working and ensuring solutions deliver sustained, measurable benefits for nature.
You will work closely with colleagues across Natural England, the DEFRA group and cross‑government partners, strengthening relationships, influencing decisions and ensuring digital and data services are delivered in better, simpler and more effective ways.
You will champion innovation, draw on expertise from public and private sectors, and push forward the adoption of leading‑edge technologies where they can deliver genuine value. Above all, you will be a leader for a team of committed digital and data professionals (and for the wider Natural England workforce) who share a deep passion for improving outcomes for communities, the environment and the nation.
What You Will Bring
Essential criteria: To be successful, you will be/bring:
* A visible, inclusive and credible leader, trusted at executive, organisational and partner levels. You inspire and mobilise others, embed cultural change and build a sustained continuous‑improvement mindset.
* Proven experience leading enterprise‑wide digital and data transformation, with end‑to‑end ownership for modernising services, operating models and ways of working, ensuring solutions are adopted, embedded and deliver lasting organisational value.
* Strong portfolio and delivery leadership, with a track record of managing large‑scale digital and data programmes on time and within budget, supported by robust governance and assurance.
* Deep digital and data expertise, applying strategic insight across digital technologies, data management, cybersecurity and IT infrastructure.
* Organisational and people leadership, guiding multidisciplinary teams through complexity and uncertainty, maintaining momentum and delivering at pace.
* A highly effective relationship‑builder, able to establish credibility, influence decisions based on risk and strategic priorities, and align diverse stakeholders across a complex partner ecosystem.
This is a unique and exciting opportunity to make a lasting difference transforming how a national organisation operates and enabling our people to deliver better outcomes for nature, now and for the future.
If you are motivated by our mission and inspired by our ambition, we would love to hear from you.
To apply for this post, you will need to complete the online application process no later than 09:00 on Monday 16 March 2026. All applications must be submitted using the link by clicking Apply on website.
How To Apply
When applying, please ensure that you provide the following information.
* Your CV (pdf)
* A supporting statement (pdf) of not more than 2 pages detailing how you can address the Essential criteria
* Contact telephone numbers as well as your personal email address
* A completed diversity monitoring form (this will appear on screen as part of the application process).
About
For a confidential discussion about the role, please do contact our recruitment advisers at Gatenby Sanderson who will be delighted to speak with you:
Sarah Luxford – 07812 150386 – Sarah. Luxford@gatenbysanderson.com
Martyn Brereton – 07586 715531 – Martyn.brereton@gatenbysanderson.com
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