Head of Employee Experience (Cabinet Office)

This key Grade 6 leadership role for a seasoned HR professional, the Head of Employee Experience, sits within the Cabinet Office's People Development and Transformation (PD&T) team. Joining the PD&T Senior Leadership Team, the post-holder will serve as a trusted advisor to the Deputy Director for PD&T and the Chief People Officer. The role operates within a fast-paced environment subject to extensive internal and external scrutiny, requiring strong political astuteness, active risk management, and a minimum of 60% workplace attendance.

The role involves both strategic development and operational leadership across vital services, specifically Culture and Wellbeing, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), and Learning and Development (L&D). A core responsibility is leading the Employee Experience Pillar within the new Cabinet Office People Strategy, ensuring strategic alignment with the Civil Service EDI Strategy and the updated CS People Plan. As a thought leader, the post-holder will champion a diverse workplace, scoping and delivering targeted behavioural change interventions to foster a high-performing culture of belonging. A key focus will be transitioning services to a Centre of Excellence model to protect capacity for high-value initiatives, while ensuring statutory obligations like Gender and Ethnicity Pay Gap disclosures are met. For L&D, the role directs the Central Learning and Apprenticeship Offers, translates advancements like AI into a long-term skills roadmap, and oversees the transition to the new Government Skills Campus.

The Head of Employee Experience will also manage departmental change, build effective business engagement, and lead a geographically dispersed team of 810 people across the UK.

Candidates must be experienced HR professionals, who are currently Chartered CIPD or willing to commit to achieving it.

Essential skills include a strong operational grasp of EDI, deep expertise in at least one relevant area (such as L&D, EDI, Employee Experience, Culture Change, or Organisational Design), and a solid track record of delivering culture change in a complex organisation. The position demands excellent leadership, stakeholder management, strategic thinking, and proficiency in using workforce data for decision-making.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy & Business Engagement

• Lead the development and delivery of the Employee Experience Pillar within the new Cabinet Office People Strategy, guaranteeing seamless alignment with the Civil Service EDI Strategy and the updated CS People Plan.

Essential Experience and Knowledge

• A strong operational grasp of EDI is essential for this role, with evidence of managing associated challenges, risk and external scrutiny associated with the EDI agenda.
• Excellent leadership and management skills - with the ability to build, maintain and motivate high-performing teams, which are multi-functional and geographically dispersed.
• Deep understanding of HR and employee experience, including a solid track record of leading and improving services in at least one of the areas: L&D, EDI, Employee Experience, Culture Change or Organisational Design.
• The ability to think strategically and translate strategy into actionable plans - including understanding the current context, identification of priorities and development of robust projects / programmes.
• Experience delivering high quality culture change initiatives for an organisation similar in scope, scale and complexity to the Cabinet Office.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, and the ability to effectively communicate complex issues to non-expert audiences, with attention to detail.
• Excellent stakeholder management, with the ability to form strong relationships at all levels and able to work across organisational boundaries to collaborate and resolve issues.
• Proficiency using data and analysis to inform strategy and decision making - particularly in relation to employee engagement and use of workforce data.
• Ideally with experience of commercial and financial management, specifically in the context of large-scale L&D/wellbeing procurement or apprenticeship levy management.

Additional information:

Cabinet Office policy is that a minimum 60% of your working time should be spent at your principal workplace. For some roles, due to their nature and the business need, this may be up to 100%. Requirements to attend other locations for official business will also count towards this level of attendance.