About the role

Home Office Digital designs, builds and runs the technology and services that deliver, at scale, some of the UK’s most critical and well-used public services.  The digital capability plays a critical part in every part of the Home Office in delivering its mission from how we secure the border and control immigration to issues passports and reducing and preventing crime, supporting these services that impact millions of people every year.

The Home Office Digital estate consists of more than 600 systems, enabling critical services such as;

• 13 million Electronic Travel Authorisations since launch
• 3 million visa applications annually
• 130 million border checks each year
• 7 million passport applications annually
• 140 million police checks on people, vehicles, and property

Migration and Borders Digital (M&B Digital) is part of Home Office Digital. We are a Portfolio of around 3,500 dedicated professionals made up of civil servants and suppliers working together to develop some of the most challenging and transformative technology products, supporting critical programmes within the Migration and Borders system. Working closely with colleagues in the Migration and Borders mission, we also support a number of the Home Office’s capabilities such as Citizenship Services, Immigration Enforcement, Border Force and the Asylum Group. We jointly design services, build, run and sustain them to enable some of the government’s most important strategic outcomes, notably the legitimate movement of people and goods to support economic prosperity.

Job description

There are four roles available:

• Asylum Independent Immigration Appeals Authority Digital Deputy Director – This role provides strategic leadership and programme delivery of the Independent Immigration Appeals Authority (IIAA) Programme. This role leads the design, development and delivery of the Programme including all related products and digital services across Home Office Digital, overseeing a blended team of approximately 50 Civil Servants, Managed Suppliers, and managing an annual budget of circa £60 million. The programme scope and budget continues to develop and be defined.
• Asylum Transformation Digital Deputy Director – This role provides strategic leadership, programme delivery, and continuous improvement of digital services across the totality of Asylum Group Directorate and Programmatic structures, part of the wider Migration and Borders system. This role leads the development and delivery of Asylum related programmes and projects, products and digital services, overseeing a blended team of approximately 150 Civil Servants, Managed Suppliers, and managing an annual budget exceeding £150 million.
• Borders, Compliance and Enforcement Digital Deputy Director – This role provides strategic leadership, programme delivery, and continuous improvement of digital services across the Border Security Command (BSC) including Home Office Intelligence (HOI), Immigration Enforcement (IE) and Border Force (BF), all as part of the wider Migration and Borders system. This role leads the development and delivery of BSC, IE and BF related programmes and projects, products and digital services, overseeing a blended team of approximately 150 Civil Servants, Managed Suppliers, and managing an annual budget exceeding £150 million
• Passports, Citizenship & Civil Registration Digital Deputy Director – This role provides strategic leadership, programme delivery, and continuous improvement of digital services across the UK’s passport and civil registration domains, all as part of the wider Migration and Borders system. This role leads the development and delivery of Passports and Civil Registration products, platforms and digital services, overseeing a blended team of approximately 600 Civil Servants and suppliers, and managing an annual budget exceeding £100 million.

Key responsibilities:

The posts will report into the Migration & Borders Digital Directors and will be part of senior leadership team as well as part of the wider Home Office Digital leadership.

• Strategic Digital leadership: Set and drive a compelling digital strategy, vision and roadmap. Balance immediate operational priorities with long-term transformation, future trends and wider Home Office and government objectives.
• Product, Programme and Service Delivery: Lead delivery of high-priority programmes and product portfolios. Embed end-to-end product lifecycle management and ensure services are user-centred, secure, robust, scalable and aligned across policy, operations and digital.
• Live Service and Continuous Improvement: Ensure effective service management, operational resilience and cyber security. Use performance data, user feedback and emerging technology to improve quality, accessibility and public value.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Build strategic relationships across business areas, government, suppliers and industry. Translate complex digital issues clearly, build consensus, secure buy-in and provide transparent reporting on progress, risk and challenge.
• People Leadership: Provide inspirational leadership to multidisciplinary, distributed and blended teams. Empower decision-making, create an inclusive culture of curiosity and experimentation, develop talent and actively support succession planning.
• Financial, Commercial and Supplier Leadership: Prioritise digital investment, people and projects in line with strategic goals. Manage budgets, contracts and supplier relationships with clear accountability, propriety and value for money.
• Strategic Alignment: Working with Policy, System Design and Home Office Analysis and Insight to deliver systemic change, recognising the inter-dependencies across the system and delivering across multiple delivery roadmaps alongside Home Office Digital teams and wider Migration and Borders domains.
• Data, Ethics and responsible Innovation: Champion data ethics and AI governance, ensuring new technology is adopted responsibly and supports public and organisational interests.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

The successful candidate will need to demonstrate:

• Proven senior leadership of large-scale digital transformation within the public sector.
• Experience of leading secure, robust, scalable and user-centred digital products, platforms or services at national scale, with clear measures of technical performance, service impact and public value.
• Demonstrable expertise in a core digital discipline, such as product, delivery, service or engineering, combined with strong portfolio, business change and end-to-end service leadership.
• Proven ability to build strategic relationships and deliver in high-profile environments involving Ministers, senior leaders, other government departments, industry partners and suppliers.
• A strong record of leading multidisciplinary, distributed and blended teams, empowering decision-making, developing capability and talent, supporting succession planning, and fostering inclusion, curiosity, innovation and continuous learning.
• Strong financial, commercial and supplier leadership, including prioritising investment and managing significant budgets or contracts of £15 million or more to deliver value for money and public value.
• Evidence of anticipating emerging technology and digital disruption, and promoting responsible innovation, cyber security, data ethics and AI governance.