Senior role comes with a salary of £75,000, and a remit to explore how ‘new and unconstrained’ technology could be deployed to support the tax agency’s policymaking, services and operations

HM Revenue and Customs is seeking to recruit a head of innovation with a  brief of “understanding and translating technology advancements into an HMRC concept” .

The post, which comes with an annual salary of £75,000, will sit at the head of an Innovation team that works with commercial suppliers – including “industry-leading SMEs” – to seek out opportunities to deploy new technology across the department. The team conducts “proof-of-concept and proof-of-value exercises, which can then help inform decision-making and future strategies”, the job advert said.

The aim of the team is to “demonstrate how technology can shape and transform policy or ways of working in HMRC” before, ultimately, “moving proven innovations into realised benefits via the appropriate delivery teams”.

The successful candidate will engage with policy, delivery, and senior-management colleagues across the department to, with a remit to support their work by “bringing together user needs, design and technology that demonstrate how HMRC can transform”.

Related content

• ‘We do not want it to be a hardship to contact us’ – how HMRC hopes to use AI and analytics to transform customer service
• HMRC to begin migrating ‘small numbers’ of Government Gateway users to One Login shortly
• HMRC picks £5m partner to support programme to ‘transform customer interactions’

The technology under consideration by the team will include exploration “new and unconstrained” products and services, and how they could be applied to HMRC’s work.

The head of innovation will be tasked with “demonstrating an understanding of the strategic direction and the key challenges facing HMRC and customer needs as the economy develops and ways of working change, identifying and proving that technology can provide appropriate solutions enabling HMRC to continuously adapt and stay up to date with technology advancements”.

The postholder will also serve as “the single point of contact for senior leaders and directors within customer and functional units in CDIO, corralling innovation engagement that develops an environment to foster innovation and provides access to resources and tools that can develop ideas and prove the art of the possible”, the job advert added.

Applications are open until 11.55pm today. The chosen applicant will be based from one of HMRC’s offices in Portsmouth, Worthing, Stratford, Croydon, Bristol, Cardiff, Nottingham, Telford, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Edinburgh or Glasgow.