ODA and International Biodiversity Funds Deputy Director

Team Leadership

• Lead a multidisciplinary team of approximately 28 FTE and provide professional oversight, learning and development and standard setting for the wider community of staff working on ODA programming (approximately 100 FTE).
• Build an inclusive, high-performing and psychologically safe culture, foster innovation, collaboration and continuous improvement.
• Champion equality, diversity and inclusion and ensure fair and effective people management.

Budget and Resource Responsibility

• Oversight of £125m annual ODA expenditure.
• Accountability for £28.9m of live programmes.
• Oversight of £20m of legacy investments.

Person Specification

Essential Criteria

Strategic leadership:

• Exceptional positive and inclusive leadership and management skills, including evidence of inspiring and developing the long-term capability and performance of teams, promoting an inclusive, diverse and supportive environment.
• Experience leading multidisciplinary teams through change and uncertainty.

Strong collaboration and team working:

• Able to form strong alliances and partnerships to deliver ambitious change and innovative solutions even in the context of blurred boundaries and complexity.
• Excellent communication skills – an ability to hold delivery partners to account, navigate through the complexities of change and build strong senior and load-bearing relationships with colleagues from a range of different countries and organisations.

Strong programme management experience:

• Ideally of ODA programmes but I would be equally interested in applications from candidates with a range of transferable experience managing similar portfolios of programmes, budgets and delivery partners.
• Sufficient experience to help align programming and wider policy and strategy.
• Experience of public finance, governance, risk management (including safeguarding and fraud) and assurance.
• Delivery of complex programmes involving multiple partners and significant budgets.

Strategic thinking:

• The ability to design and deliver effective strategies, based on excellent analytical and scientific insight, in collaboration with a range of other partners.
• You will need to be able to demonstrate how you can look ahead, anticipate issues and risks, and develop innovative and creative solutions in addition to monitoring progress and delivery against agreed strategies already in place.

Strong understanding of the international context:

• To have sound judgement about the places where Defra programming is taking places, the operational, political and governance risks.
• How to deploy ministers and build political capital to build bilateral relationships, deliver meaningful and impact change, and influence international policy development across government.

Behaviours

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

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Developing Self and Others
• Working Together
• Changing and Improving

Salary and Benefits

• Alongside your salary of £86,000, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs contributes £24,914 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).
• Learning and development tailored to your role.
• An environment with flexible working options.
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity.
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection Process Details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

You will be assessed on the following behaviours throughout the selection process: Seeing the bigger picture, Developing self and others, Working Together, Changing and improving.

Application Process

As part of the application process, candidates are asked to complete a CV and Personal Statement (no more than 1000 words) on how your relevant skills and experience meet the essential criteria. Completed applications must be submitted no later than the closing date of 23:55pm 14th October 2026.

Sift

A sift will be conducted against the key criteria in the essential criteria and will assess your experience. Applications will be assessed by the selection panel and shortlisted. (please note: feedback is not given at the shortlist stage)

Assessment - Staff Engagement Exercise

This assessment will not result in a pass or fail decision. Rather, it is designed to support the panel’s decision-making and highlight areas for the panel to explore further at interview.

Full details of the assessment process will be provided to shortlisted candidates at the earliest opportunity.

For further information regarding the assessments please visit - https://scs-assessments.co.uk/

Interviews

You will be asked to attend a panel interview, in order to have a more in-depth discussion of your previous experience and professional competence in relation to the essential criteria for the role. As part of the interview, we may ask you to prepare and present a short presentation or undertake a practical desktop exercise. This will be confirmed in the interview invitation. We will also ask some strengths-based questions.

Interviews will be held face to face in 2, Marsham Street London.

Other Information

• Please let us know what adjustments we can put in place to help you through the recruitment process if you are disabled.
• Candidates who pass the interview criteria but are not offered a post may be kept on a reserve list for 12 months and may be offered similar roles across the department.
• Defra Is committed to ‘name blind’ sifting. That means that identifying characteristics such as your name, gender, age, or address are removed from your application until after shortlisting for interview has taken place.
• Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

• Successful candidates must undergo a basic (or equivalent) criminal record check.
• Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window). See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).
• People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality Requirements

This Job Is Broadly Open To The Following Groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window