Deputy Director, Experimentation, Systems and Enablement
| Posting date: | 19 January 2026 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £81,000 to £117,800 per year |
| Additional salary information: | Non civil servants will be expected to start at the salary minimum if successful. Standard pay rules apply for existing civil servants. |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 01 February 2026 |
| Location: | Glasgow |
| Company: | Government Recruitment Service |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 443493/1 |
Summary
Want to know more about the role? Join us on our Candidate Engagement Session, which will be held at 15:00 – 15:45 on Wednesday 21st January here.
This is a pivotal and highly influential leadership opportunity for a creative and delivery-focused Deputy Director. You will be responsible for leading two of the most critical functions within the Civil Service Strategy Unit: the Engagement Team and the Experimentation and Openness Team.
Deputy Director roles within the CSSU are stretching and developmental. As a small team in the Centre, the role holder will have significant exposure to senior officials and Ministers and need to navigate government. Their success will in part be down to their approaches, their network and the way they build an empowered and talented team around them.
Your primary role is to act as a catalyst for a movement of reform across the Civil Service, ensuring that the government’s reform agenda is understood, bought into, and tested in a rigorous and evidence-based way. You will be a key driver of cultural change and innovation, helping leaders understand their role in a Productive and Agile State and civil service reform strategy.
By your nature, you will be an agile problem solver, able to quickly define the problem through data and analysis, developing options and communicating recommendations.
You will develop and successfully deliver a triage approach to new work requests. Assessing through scoping their impact, effort and your ability to influence. You will ensure a stretching yet achievable ‘stack’ of experiments which are carefully phased over quarters to ensure deliverability.
You will be a visible role model of reform - utilising new technology, ways of working, outcome focused delivery and user-centric design - all in the aim of higher productivity and increased outcomes for the public. Your team will reflect your role modelling, including in terms of being a thoughtful, collaborative, corporately-minded and caring leader.
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