Head of DfT Group Recruitment Strategy and Policy

Job summary

Can you demonstrate experience leading large-scale recruitment services and delivering strategic improvements across complex systems?

Do you have the ability to build strong relationships with stakeholders, suppliers, and delivery partners to drive successful change and high-performing recruitment outcomes?

Have you developed and implemented recruitment strategies that align policy, operational delivery, commercial considerations, and workforce objectives while leading teams through change and ambiguity?

If so, we’d love to hear from you!

Join the Department for Transport at a pivotal time as we reshape recruitment and onboarding across the DfT Group! This influential leadership role will help ensure the Department attracts, recruits and retains the talent needed to deliver a modern, efficient and inclusive transport system. Working across DfT and its agencies, you will lead the development of recruitment strategy, policy and governance, driving continuous improvement and supporting major transformation programmes. You will collaborate with senior leaders, government partners and service providers to create future-focused recruitment services that deliver value for money, support diversity and inclusion, and meet the workforce and capability challenges facing the Department both now and in the years ahead.

Joining our department comes with many benefits, including:

• Employer pension contribution of 28.97% of your salary. Read more about Civil Service Pensions here
• 25 days annual leave, increasing by 1 day each year of service (up to a maximum of 30 days annual leave), plus 8 bank holidays a privilege day for the King’s birthday
• Flexible working options where we encourage a great work-life balance.

Read more in the Benefits section below!

Find out more about what it's like working at DfT.

Job description

Lead the future of recruitment across the Department for Transport Group! As the Grade 6 functional lead for Recruitment, Strategy and Policy, you will shape and oversee recruitment and onboarding services, ensuring they are effective, compliant, and aligned with workforce priorities. You will lead strategic planning, recruitment policy, governance, and supplier relationships, while driving continuous improvement and transformation. Working with senior stakeholders across DfT and government, you will provide leadership for recruitment strategy, diversity and inclusion outcomes, financial management, and the development of services that meet the workforce challenges of today and the future.

Your responsibilities will include, but aren’t limited to:

• Lead the development and delivery of DfT Group's recruitment strategy, ensuring it supports organisational priorities and future workforce needs.
• Drive the vision for recruitment services, maximising the value of technology, expertise, and resources across the DfT family.
• Provide strategic leadership of the Recruitment Hub, ensuring a high-performing, customer-focused recruitment service.
• Develop and enhance DfT's talent acquisition approach, leveraging in-house capability, external partners, government schemes, and professional networks.
• Continuously improve recruitment policy and practice through data, insight, and evidence-based decision making.
• Take accountability for recruitment performance, including time-to-hire, diversity and inclusion outcomes, and wider government people metrics.
• Manage key commercial relationships and service providers, ensuring effective delivery and smooth transition to new arrangements where required.
• Lead and influence a broad range of stakeholders, while providing leadership for a team of recruitment professionals and managing financial and commercial responsibilities.

Great line management is important to us as an organisation, and we will equip and support line managers to develop the skills set out in the Civil Service Line Management Standards.

Colleagues are expected to work with a degree of flexibility, meaning responsibilities may change to support priority delivery.

For further information on the role, please read the role profile. Please note that the role profile is for information purposes only - whilst all elements are relevant to the role, they may not all be assessed during the recruitment process. This job advert will detail exactly what will be assessed during the recruitment process.

Person specification

Required experience:

To be successful in this role you will need to have the following experience:

1. Recruitment Leadership and Delivery
   Significant experience leading recruitment delivery across public and private sectors, driving operational excellence and implementing service improvements.

2. Change Management and Stakeholder Engagement
   Proven ability to lead recruitment transformation, engaging operational teams, stakeholders, and suppliers to deliver high performance through change.

3. Strategic Recruitment Expertise
   Deep understanding of how resourcing strategy, recruitment policy, and operational delivery align to support organisational objectives and workforce needs.

4. Commercial and Digital Partnership Working
   Strong experience working with technology specialists, commercial partners, and finance teams to deliver recruitment solutions, manage budgets, and forecast costs and benefits.

5. Influential and Resilient Leadership
   Credible and resilient leadership with the ability to shape the vision in a complex system, build senior stakeholder relationships, navigate competing priorities, and lead teams through ambiguity and change.

Additional Information

This post is offered on a Fixed Term Appointment (FTA) basis to complete a finite piece of work.

Permanent Civil Servants will be appointed on an inward loan and subject to the terms of the agreed inward loan. You must have your home departments approval to return to them at the end of the loan before you apply. Internal candidates will return to their previous post at the end of the loan period, which will need to be agreed with your line manager in advance. If your home department cannot agree to release you on loan, there is the opportunity for you to move across to the department on a fixed term appointment. In this instance the Department for Transport would become your home department and if there is no role available for you at the end of this appointment, you would be subject to the redeployment and redundancy process.

If you're employed by a non-departmental public body (NDPB) by moving jobs this will involve a change of employer and you may break the statutory rules on continuity of employment.

There could be the potential of extension up to 1 year or permanency, subject to the role being available (and for those coming across on loan, your home departments agreement)

Qualifications

CIPD L7 or willing to work towards

Working hours, office attendance and travel requirements

Full time roles consist of 37 hours per week.

Whilst we welcome applications from those looking to work with us on a part