Position as head of data as a service represents a ‘once-in-a-career opportunity’, according to department

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The Department for Work and Pensions is offering an annual salary in excess of £100,000 in its bid to recruit a head of data as a service.

According to the DWP’s chief data officer Paul Lodge, the position comes with “a once-in-a-career opportunity to re-architect the entire suite of data products for 22 million citizens”. 

This will involve leading agile development teams that will use both internal and external data sets to create new services, tools and “consumable statistics” that can help support the department’s policy and delivery objectives. 

A key part of this work will be “using the Digital Economy Act as a trigger” to better share data between the DWP and other departments. The postholder will also be expected “to bring in new ideas and innovation from outside government in order to continually evolve the DWP data strategy and architecture”, the job advert said.

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“The successful candidate will be accountable for building a world-class data product and service function in the Department for Work and Pensions, developing the organisational design and vision that will enable data managers, data engineers and other specialists to transform the work of the whole department. They will also be leading a multi-disciplinary team of digital and data professionals to provide secure data services across the citizen life journey in order to support the most vulnerable in our society,” it added. “This role is an exceptional opportunity to play a key part in creating the culture and opportunity to make our ambitions a reality; to transform service delivery through data in DWP; and, to use data to improve people’s lives.”

The department is seeking applications from candidates that have “experience of leading a large-scale data and analytics function in a complex, fast-paced organisation, such as government, retail, or banking and financial services”.

The selection process will involve an individual leadership assessment and a staff engagement exercise led by an occupational psychologist. Those who successfully navigate this stage will be invited to a final “blended interview” – which aims to be “more of a conversation” than a traditional interview – at which they will also have to give a five-minute presentation.

The successful applicant will earn between £71,000 and £105,000 a year, and will be based in one of DWP’s locations in London, Leeds, Blackpool, Newcastle, or Sheffield.

Applications are open until 11.55pm on 31 October.