Head of Development Digital Delivery

Job summary

Great technology starts with great leadership. Ofgem is looking for a people-first Head of Development Delivery and bring together our development community to create the culture, confidence and ambition needed to deliver outstanding digital services.

Ofgem is Great Britain’s independent energy regulator. We’re at the forefront of change across the sector, driving toward Net Zero whilst protecting consumers, especially vulnerable people.

This is a permanent opportunity to put people at the heart of development across our Digital Delivery portfolio. Leading a team of talented Technical Leads who oversee around 45 development staff, you’ll have the scope to make a real difference to how our teams work, collaborate and succeed.

We’re evolving how we approach digital, and you’ll be joining at an exciting time to help move that forward. From raising engineering standards and exploring new technologies, tools and AI, to finding better ways of working, you’ll have the freedom to challenge thinking, encourage innovation and help our development community reach its full potential.

Above all, this is about people. You’ll build trust, create an environment where honest conversations can happen and give technical leaders the confidence and support to get the best from their teams. When things aren’t straightforward, you’ll bring people together, cutting through ambiguity and helping find a way forward.

To be considered, you’ll need significant experience leading software development teams through other technical leaders, alongside a strong track record of coaching, managing performance and creating high-performing, supportive cultures. You’ll also have experience driving technology adoption and change, delivering engineering standards and communicating confidently with technical and non-technical stakeholders at every level.

In return, you’ll have the opportunity to lead talented people, explore emerging technology and shape a development culture that’s ready for what comes next. Alongside the freedom to make your mark, you’ll enjoy an outstanding rewards package, plenty of flexibility and a working environment that supports you to perform at your best.

We have a critical purpose to drive the digital performance of the energy sector. Join us and help create the culture and 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 6–8 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.

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.

Key Stakeholder Relationships

Internal

Deputy Directors, Technical leads, other members of the Digital Delivery portfolio, Corporate services technical resources.

External

Scheme participants and system users, energy suppliers, DESNZ, third-party software development partners, vendors, consultancies and any other relevant stakeholders.

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) .
• 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., cosourcing, 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

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 (opens in a new window).

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 this is kept under 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 and Experience.

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.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a basic (or equivalent) 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 Comm