Deputy Director, Business and Consumer Engagement​ (Office for Product Safety and Standards)​

Job summary

About the Directorate

Do you care about the safety of products and want to protect people and places? Is your passion to empower consumers to make good and informed choices? Can we use your skills, knowledge and experience to enable UK business to thrive? If the answer is yes, then we would like to hear from you! ​

We are the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS), part of the Comptetition, Markets and Regulatory Reform Group in the Department for Business and Trade. We are here to make regulation work to deliver real world impact. Regulation is a powerful Government tool to address market failures, influence behaviour and promote positive action. Designed and delivered well, regulation can be an enabler of growth, innovation and productivity. ​

Our Mission is to be a trusted product regulator for the UK. Our goal is to be leader of good regulatory practice and a champion of local regulation. ​

About the Role

This is a critical senior leadership role within OPSS, responsible for shaping how the organisation understands, engages and delivers for businesses and consumers. The role will ensure business and consumer perspectives are central to how OPSS understands markets and sectors, designs interventions tailored to different audiences and changes behaviour in support of better regulatory outcomes.​​

You will lead the organisation in embedding a deep understanding of business environments, consumer behaviour and public expectations into decision-making. You will ensure OPSS takes an evidence-led, practical and proportionate approach that delivers real-world impact for businesses and consumers.​​

As a senior leader, you will play a central role in setting direction, strengthening delivery and building trust in OPSS as a visible, credible and effective regulator.​

Job description

Key Responsibilities

Embedding Business and Consumer Focus​

You will ensure that business and consumer perspectives are systematically embedded across OPSS activity, from operational design through to delivery and evaluation. This will include strengthening the evidence base on business experience and consumer outcomes, championing approaches that reflect real-world behaviours, risks and incentives, and ensuring insight shapes practical decisions across the organisation.​

Driving Practical and Deliverable Outcomes​

You will identify barriers faced by businesses and consumers and drive solutions that improve outcomes and impact. The role will shape interventions that support growth, innovation and consumer confidence, ensuring OPSS delivery is practical for business, meaningful for consumers and consistent with its wider mission.​

You will provide senior leadership for consumer delivery activity, including work with community groups and partners to improve reach, understanding and impact. This will include overseeing targeted grants and partnership activity that help consumer protection messages reach those who need them most, alongside information and awareness campaigns that support safer choices and stronger consumer confidence.​

Leading a Step Change in Insight and Understanding​

You will build organisational capability in market insight, consumer understanding and behavioural approaches, ensuring insight is translated into clear decisions and measurable outcomes. The role will strengthen how OPSS captures and uses intelligence from across the system, turning evidence into practical delivery choices and helping the organisation understand what works for different business and consumer audiences.

Influencing Across the System​

You will build and maintain strong relationships with business leaders, consumer groups, regulators and partners, influencing senior stakeholders across government and externally to improve coherence and outcomes. You will represent OPSS with authority and credibility, building trust across complex stakeholder groups and ensuring the organisation’s voice is clear, evidence-led and connected to the needs of those it serves.​

Leadership and Delivery​

You will lead multidisciplinary teams, of approximately 30-40 colleagues across business and consumer engagement functions, creating a high-performing, inclusive and resilient culture. The role will set clear direction and priorities, ensure delivery against organisational objectives, and contribute to wider OPSS performance, development and reputation as part of the senior leadership team.​

Building Confidence in the System​

You will strengthen confidence in the UK’s product regulatory system by ensuring it works effectively for businesses and consumers. The role will support OPSS’s reputation as a trusted, credible and business-aware regulator that delivers meaningful consumer protection, while building wider public awareness and trust in the OPSS brand through clear communications, accessible digital tools and visible delivery.​

You will also strengthen OPSS’s public-facing presence through GOV.UK and other digital channels, ensuring consumers, businesses and partners can access clear, timely and trusted information. This will help position OPSS as a modern regulator that is visible, responsive and recognised for protecting consumers and supporting confident markets.​

Person specification

Essential Criteria

• Significant senior leadership experience delivering results in complex, high consumer or business facing environments​
• Proven ability to embed business, consumer or audience insight into strategy, delivery, regulation or service improvement​
• Proven experience designing and delivering strategic messages, a strong grasp of channels: digital, media, social, content (including GOV.UK or equivalent platforms) and an ability to translate complex issues into clear, accessible content​
• Ability to build trust, credibility and effective relationships with senior internal and external stakeholders​
• Track record of leading high-performing, multidisciplinary teams and building an inclusive delivery culture ​
• Adept at strategic thinking with a strong focus on delivery, evidence and real-world impact

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £86,000, Department for Business and Trade contributes £24,914 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).

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

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 app