Deputy Head

Job summary

The Policy Unit is a relatively new team, set up to directly support the Secretary of State by identifying and incubating new ideas to help deliver her vision to support growth and good jobs across the nation, enable richer lives with choices and opportunities for all, and build a more cohesive country where people are in charge of their own destinies.

It works across the full range of DCMS policy, working closely with external experts and internal policy teams to consider ways to do things differently, and work closely with Special Advisers and Private Office to ensure its work is delivering for the Secretary of State.

The team is outward facing, building a network of people with experience of delivery in communities across the country. It will also work collaboratively with external organisations to help tackle policy challenges and co-design solutions.

We really encourage applications from those interested in doing it on a secondment basis.

Job description

We are looking for a Deputy Head to lead a small, agile team which has been set up to support the DCMS Secretary of State to support her priorities, and to come up with new and innovative solutions to problems. This is an exciting opportunity to work in senior leadership at the heart of DCMS.

The post holder will lead teams working on a variety of high-profile projects, and will be expected to flex between incubating short term policy ideas, providing a challenge function to existing policy work, and driving forward specific Secretary of State priorities.

Responsibilities are likely to include leading teams to deliver:

• Short term idea generation: rapidly developing and incubating new ideas, including from the Secretary of State and external stakeholders.
• Medium term policy projects: starting from first principles to develop new policy proposals, including cross-cutting issues, and areas where additional capacity is required.
• Providing a challenge function to upcoming policy announcements, to ensure alignment with the Secretary of State’s ambition.

Person specification

The ideal candidate would have the following skills and experience:

Essential requirements:

• Ability to lead multi-disciplinary teams to develop options to tricky policy problems; often working in ambiguous environments to realise the Secretary of State’s ambitions.

• Recognition of where new ideas can help improve delivery, confidence to challenge the way things have always been done.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills which allow you to communicate with others in a clear, honest, and enthusiastic way.

• Experience building relationships with senior stakeholders.

• Ability to ensure the team’s activity reflects wider strategic priorities; bringing together views, perspectives and diverse needs of stakeholders.

Desirable Skills:

• Understanding of Department for Culture, Media and Sport objectives and priorities.
• Experience of working with Ministers

We are running an information session where prospective applicants can find out more about the role. This will be hosted by Christine Mosedale and will take place on:

• 17th March 2026 at 11am

The session will be an opportunity to hear more about the role, the team and wider directorate and the department. It will also be an opportunity for you to ask any questions.

Please register your interest by filling out this Registration form by Friday 13 March 2026 and you will be sent an invitation. Invites will only be sent after this deadline has passed.

Please note that the session will not be recorded and will not focus on the DCMS recruitment process - please direct any queries that you have on this topic (timelines, reasonable adjustments, onboarding etc) to recruitment.team@dcms.gov.uk

Behaviours

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

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Leadership
• Changing and Improving
• Communicating and Influencing