Blackpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Sheffield.
Please note that for candidates requesting to work in Newcastle, this role will be based at Benton Park View and then at 1 Pilgrim Place in Newcastle city centre by the end of 2027.
Job Summary
"If you are an experienced leader who is passionate about being part of the Digital Community then we want to hear from you"
DWP Digital and Transformation Group is looking to fill the role of Head of Digital & Transformation Capacity & Capability.
DWP is one of the largest UK government departments, serving 22 million people annually and managing £300bn in benefits.
Sitting within the Chief Operating Office, the Head of Digital and Transformation Capacity and Capability is an essential leadership role within DWP Digital and Transformation Group and the wider Civil Service.
The role is fundamental in building the Group's capability and culture to empower our people and provide an environment where everyone can thrive.
This Includes:
Building internal capability by "growing our own"
Increasing capacity through smarter sourcing and partnering
Driving strategic workforce planning and talent development.
The role must balance scaling capability with value-for-money, managing 9,000 resources (7,300 civil servants, 1,700 external), amid competitive market conditions and pay challenges.
Why Join DWP?
Job Description
The Digital and Transformation Group is a unified group which brings together Digital, Change Portfolio and Working Age Services, combining our talents to propel digital innovation and drive transformational change across DWP.
The Chief Operating Office, where this role sits, plays an essential part in driving Digital and Transformation Group forwards, providing an enterprise level view of all our delivery and ensuring we have the right people, processes and planning in place to support our ambitions and those of the wider DWP department.
The Role-holder Will Be Specifically Accountable For:
Strategic Leadership of Digital and Transformation Capability & Capacity
Lead the development of the long‑term blueprint for how Digital and Transformation will build and deploy capability, ensuring the organisation has the skills, structures and culture needed to deliver its strategic mission over the next decade.
Workforce planning and talent
Oversee the end‑to‑end processes that enable Digital and Transformation Group to grow, mobilise and optimise its 9,000‑strong workforce, balancing cost, capability and resilience in a complex labour market. Curate and champion an ecosystem of career pathways, development programmes, and skills to develop digital practitioners and talent across the Department
Risk, Governance & Compliance
Ensure robust governance and efficiency of external resources, commercial decisions and contractual arrangements, maintaining directorate-wide compliance with Civil Service recruitment principles and workforce strategies. Provide strategic assurance to the Executive Team and Director Generals through transparent, data‑driven oversight of resourcing patterns and risks.
Budget Management
Manage significant budgets, including a £14m recruitment spend, ensuring efficiency and value for money.
It's an exciting time to be part of DWP Please see the candidate pack attached to the advert for more about this role and the Directorate priorities.
The Digital and Transformation Group is a unified group which brings together Digital, Change Portfolio and Working Age Services, combining our talents to propel digital innovation and drive transformational change across DWP.
The Chief Operating Office, where this role sits, plays an essential part in driving Digital and Transformation Group forwards, providing an enterprise level view of all our delivery and ensuring we have the right people, processes and planning in place to support our ambitions and those of the wider DWP department.
The Role-holder Will Be Specifically Accountable For:
Strategic Leadership of Digital and Transformation Capability & Capacity
Lead the development of the long‑term blueprint for how Digital and Transformation will build and deploy capability, ensuring the organisation has the skills, structures and culture needed to deliver its strategic mission over the next decade.
Workforce planning and talent
Oversee the end‑to‑end processes that enable Digital and Transformation Group to grow, mobilise and optimise its 9,000‑strong workforce, balancing cost, capability and resilience in a complex labour market. Curate and champion an ecosystem of career pathways, development programmes, and skills to develop digital practitioners and talent across the Department
Risk, Governance & Compliance
Ensure robust governance and efficiency of external resources, commercial decisions and contractual arrangements, maintaining directorate-wide compliance with Civil Service recruitment principles and workforce strategies. Provide strategic assurance to the Executive Team and Director Generals through transparent, data‑driven oversight of resourcing patterns and risks.
Budget Management
Manage significant budgets, including a £14m recruitment spend, ensuring efficiency and value for money.
It's an exciting time to be part of DWP Please see the candidate pack attached to the advert for more about this role and the Directorate priorities.
Person specification
The successful candidate must be able to demonstrate their knowledge, experience and skills against the following essential criteria:
Evidence of leading enterprise‑level workforce planning, capability forecasting and resource modelling in a large, complex organisation, using data and insight to shape future workforce requirements and investment decisions.
Proven ability to build trusted relationships and influence stakeholders at the most senior level in your organisation, providing authoritative advice and securing commitment to complex workforce and capability decisions in ambiguous environments.
Experience working within or alongside technical, digital or transformation functions with the ability to translate emerging skills needs and technical capability gaps into actionable workforce and capability strategies.
Proven ability and experience overseeing significant commercial arrangements, such as external resourcing, supplier contracts or contingent labour, ensuring value for money, compliance, and alignment with strategic workforce needs.
Strong evidence of leading senior staff across multiple locations and disciplines, embedding continuous improvement, driving measurable performance, and influencing senior stakeholders to support complex capability and workforce interventions.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
Seeing the Big Picture
Communicating and Influencing
Managing a Quality Service
Leadership
Alongside your salary of £81,000, Department for Work and Pensions contributes £23,465 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.
DWP have a broad benefits package built around your work-life balance which includes:
Working patterns to support work/life balance such as job sharing, term-time working, flexi-time and compressed hours.
Generous annual leave – at least 25 days on entry, increasing up to 30 days over time (pro–rata for part time employees), plus 9 days public and privilege leave.
Support for financial wellbeing, including interest-free season ticket loans for travel, a cycle to work scheme and an employee discount scheme.
Health and wellbeing support including our Employee Assistance Programme for specialist advice and counselling and the opportunity to join HASSRA a first-class programme of competitions, activities and benefits for its members (subscription payable monthly).
Family friendly policies including enhanced maternity and shared parental leave pay after 1 year's continuous service.
Funded learning and development to support progress in your role and career. This includes industry recognised qualifications and accreditations, coaching, mentoring and talent development programmes.
An inclusive and diverse environment with opportunities to join professional and interpersonal networks including Women's Network, National Race Network, National Disability Network (THRIVE) and many more.
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 and Experience.
If you think you have the experience and energy to take on these stretching and demanding role, we would be very keen to hear from you.
To apply for this post, you will need to complete the online application process outlined below no later than 23:55pm on 9th March 2026.
A CV setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure you have provided reasons for any gaps within the last two years;
A personal statement (maximum 1250 words) explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities, and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular reference to the essential criteria in the person specification.
Failure to submit both documents will mean the panel only have limited information on which to assess your application against the criteria in the person specification.
For more information about the roles and the applications process, please see the candidate pack attached.
Reasonable Adjustments
At DWP we value diversity and inclusion and actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, especially 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 need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should contact as soon as possible, before the closing date to discuss your needs. Complete the "Reasonable Adjustments" section in the "Additional requirements" page of your application form to tell us what additional support or adjustments you might need during the recruitment process.
For further information regarding reasonable adjustments, please see following link: Reasonable Adjustments, Civil Service Careers
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.
This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise.
As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.
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.
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.
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).
This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.
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 : DWP Senior Recruitment
Email :
Recruitment team
Email :
Further information
Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission's Recruitment Principles. If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with these principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should in the first instance contact DWP by email: Senior..GOV.UK.
If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission. Click here to visit the Civil Service Commission.