Chief Delivery Officer

Harwell – Existing UKSA staff may retain their current location

Welcome Message from Paul Bate

This is an exciting and challenging role, requiring a leader who can provide the intellectual rigour, leadership and stakeholder influence needed to ensure delivery of projects and programmes which are large in size, politically sensitive, technically complex and have a large number of high-profile stakeholders.

The successful candidate will be a member of the Agency’s Executive Committee, lead across the Missions and Capabilities Priorities for the UK Space Agency, the Transformation Directorate including delivery of the Integrated Transformation Programme, and the Offices of Regulation, the Chief Engineer, and Programme and Project Management. They will chair the Agency’s Delivery Board, be the head of the Agency’s Programme and Project Delivery Profession, and the Responsible Director for Missions and Capabilities-led transformation projects. As needed, they will deputise for the Chief Executive Officer.

As a senior leader, they will communicate and embed the Agency’s vision, monitor and account for their part of the Agency’s performance and risk management, and lead staff engagement across the wider Agency. 

Play a full part in running the Agency, as a member of the Executive Committee (ExCo):

– Set the forward direction for the Agency
– Support a positive culture across the Agency, championing the Respect at Work programme and upholding high standards of diversity, fairness and inclusion.
– Support the delivery of the Agency’s Value Proposition and associated elements of the National Space Strategy whilst ensuring value for money.
– Support the transformation of the Agency through visible collective leadership of the Integrated Transformation Programme
– Support, develop and challenge all other members of ExCo.

Lead across the Missions and Capabilities Priorities for the UK Space Agency, managed through three directorates and with a collective budget across the three-year 2021 Spending Review period of £1.15bn. The priorities are set out in our Corporate Plan. 

– Launch
– Earth Observation
– Low Earth Orbit Capabilities 
– Discovery
– Sustainability

Space safety and security is also included in these three directorates

Oversee and drive the delivery of the work of the Integrated Transformation Programme, supporting the Agency to become a delivery-focused organisation that is a great place to work. This includes the services, processes and organisation design to deliver the Target and Business Operating Models, moving to locations across the UK including a new HQ in Harwell, and embedding positive culture change. In addition to the overall ITP programme oversight, be accountable for the (ITP) projects within the Missions and Capabilities workstream, as each project’s Responsible Director.

Lead across three “Offices” supporting delivery of projects and services across the Agency

– Office of the Chief Engineer
– Office of Regulation
– Office of Project and Programme Management

Lead the Programme and Project Delivery Profession across the UK Space Agency, including championing programme and project governance frameworks that are in line with the Infrastructure and Project Authority’s functional standards and best practice, maintaining coherence with other Agency directorates, building the Agency’s Programme and Project Management skills and upholding professional standards

Chair the Agency Delivery Board, which oversees all external delivery priorities, being accountable for ensuring strategic and operational risks and issues are identified, prioritised, assessed and mitigated.

Be responsible for capital and resource expenditure over multiple financial years to deliver mission and capability outcomes set out in the UKSA Corporate Plan, spending within 1% of P6 forecast outturn each year, and being accountable for business cases within the role’s Letter of Delegation.

Ensure stakeholder interests are identified and addressed, segmenting and managing multiple stakeholder groups appropriately.

Engage fully with Agency-wide and wider government assurance and governance, including being a member of the Agency Steering Board and attending the Audit and Risk Committee, and interacting with external committees and bodies such as the IPA and GIAA.

Deputise for the Chief Executive Officer as needed. 

We’ll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Leadership
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Changing and Improving
• Making Effective Decisions
• Working Together

Alongside your salary of £97,000, UK Space Agency contributes
£26,190 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme.

Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• 25 days annual leave on entry, increasing on a sliding scale to 30 days after 5 years’ service. This is in addition to 8 public holidays and one day’s leave for the King’s birthday.
• A competitive contributory pension scheme that you can enter as soon as you join where we will make a significant contribution to the cost of your pension; where your contributions come out of your salary before any tax is taken; and where your pension will continue to provide valuable benefits for you and your family if you are too ill to continue to work or die before you retire;
• Flexible working patterns including part-time or time-term working and access to Flexible Working Schemes allowing you to vary your working day as long as you work your total hours;
• Generous paid maternity and paternity leave which is notably more than the statutory minimum offered by many other employers;
• Interest-free loans allowing you to spread the cost of an annual travel season ticket or a new bicycle;
• The opportunity to use onsite facilities including fitness centres and staff canteens (where applicable); and.
• Occupational sick pay.

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.

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).

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Job contact :

• Name : SCS Recruitment Team
• Email : scscandidate.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : scscandidate.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk