Commercial Change Portfolio & Transformation Lead

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is one of the UK's biggest government departments, building services that make a real difference to the lives of millions of people. Commercial Directorate (CD) is one of the leading government procurement functions, is commercially unique and presents an attractive challenge for anyone wanting to advance their procurement career.

As a key part of DWP, CD shapes how services are delivered across hundreds of third-party contractual arrangements, with some of the largest industry suppliers. In 2026/26 CD managed a total spend of over 3.2bn and secured savings for the taxpayer of over 500m.

DWPs Commercial function is based across several Finance Group Hub locations and is divided into several categories aligned to areas of spend with a central enabling team leading on areas such as data, policy and systems. The team works with key stakeholders to design and deliver services to support some of DWPs biggest key policies and organisational priorities.

This is an exciting opportunity to lead a central enabling team and support the delivery of the DWP Commercial Strategy. Our strategy is fundamental to the achievement of departmental objectives priorities and delivery of government missions. The Commercial Change Portfolio & Transformation Lead is a pivotal role in our structure. The role holder will provide portfolio leadership, governance and strategic delivery of all transformation, policy implementation and continuous improvement activity across the Commercial Directorate, ensuring initiatives are prioritised, sequenced, resourced and communicated effectively to deliver agreed outcomes.

Leading a small team responsible for planning, coordinating, and governing the delivery multiple strands of our commercial strategy and policy implementation deliver. The post holder will also be responsible for developing and leading delivery of our transformation communications plan and supporting matrix management of the Chief Commercial Officers Private Office. They will own the delivery of the commercial strands of the departments transformation and efficiency plans, maximising the transformational opportunities presented through implementation and embedding of new strategies and policies into commercial delivery.

The post holder will work with commercial teams and wider stakeholders to transform our processes and ways of working, creating opportunity to reduce administrative burdens and embedding a culture of continuous improvement. The post holder will report to the Head of Commercial Operations and Strategy and will be supported by a small, dedicated team with access to relevant subject matter experts across the enabling functions. The post holder will also work closely with key stakeholders, including category and finance teams and Cabinet Office, and will act as the central commercial lead for the overall departmental transformation programme.

Responsibilities will include:

• Creating a single view of all change activity across CD, identifying, and managing dependencies between current and planned strands of activity, including those within the wider central enabling function and commercial categories, ensuring no duplication or unmitigated risks and sequencing activity to drive intended outcomes with limited resource.
• Act as the central authority for commercial transformation governance. Acting as a gatekeeper for new work entering the directorate, ensuring there is clear prioritisation against strategic outcomes and existing plans through demand management and assessment of impacts, recommending stop / start decisions and maintaining a forward pipeline of future changes.
• Working with the directorates risk lead to identify, monitor and manage any risks associated with commercial projects and transformation activity, escalating issues early to ensure timely resolution.
• Leading a small team responsible for development and delivery of the strategic communications plan, delivering high quality communications material through multiple channels to a variety of internal and external audiences to ensure people know what is changing and why.
• Overseeing / assuring commercial milestones within wider departmental transformation plans, maintaining commercial input, managing dependencies driving delivery and escalating where appropriate. This will include leading the Strategic Transformation Board within CD.
• Setting and maintaining an benefits management framework to capture outcomes and benefits created through implementation of projects and continuous improvement initiatives, linking into wider departmental efficiency and commercial savings targets as required to demonstrate the value of the commercial function and change portfolio.
• Maintaining the Commercial Strategy to ensure continued alignment to departmental and wider government objectives.
• Leading the team responsible for managing the Chief Commercial Officers Private Office, including preparing papers / submissions for Commercial Executive Team, Permanent Secretary and Ministers to update on commercial transformation as required.
• Working closely with Cabinet Office and other central departments to influence the timing and implementation of new policy and strategies, where there are cross dependencies or misalignment between intended outcomes.
• Line management responsibilities - ensuring that there is a sophisticated and highly responsive team.
• Attending Commercial Director led Wing SLT meetings and All Colleague Calls to provide updates and to engage wider teams in upcoming change, including use of category and central enabling resource to support delivery where appropriate.