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; h