Data Engagement Lead - GDS - G7

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government. We are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.

Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government, by:

1. joining up public sector services
2. harnessing the power of AI for the public good
3. strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure
4. elevating leadership and investing in talent
5. funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation
6. committing to transparency and driving accountability

We are home to the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI), the world-leading GOV.UK and at the forefront of coordinating the UK’s geospatial strategy and activity. We lead the Government Digital and Data function and champion the work of digital teams across government.

We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.

The Government Digital Service is where talent translates into impact. From your first day, you’ll be working with some of the world’s most highly-skilled digital professionals, all contributing their knowledge to make change on a national scale.

Join us for rewarding work that makes a difference across the UK. You'll solve some of the nation’s highest-priority digital challenges, helping millions of people access services they need

Job description

You will be part of the Data Directorate at an exciting time as we gear up to deliver on the vision for modern digital government. 

Data is the driving force of the world’s modern economies, and central to helping us tackle some of society’s biggest challenges. We are delivering a programme of work to improve the way we use data in government through implementing standards, frameworks and tools that increase data quality, trust, security, privacy and interoperability.

We need great people to make it happen. 

One of areas of focus is supporting our programme delivery with effective governance, communications and engagement with our key stakeholders. For this we need a creative individual who can think on their feet, solve problems and build collaborative relationships across the organisation and across Whitehall.

As a Data Engagement Lead you’ll work directly with the Head of Data Portfolio, working across all areas of the team:

• lead on Engagement with other government departments and wider DSIT for Data Policy development
• provide oversight of our governance groups (including the Chief Data Officer’s Council and the Data and Technical Architecture Design Authority), ensuring there is strong  alignment with wider departmental governance structures
• create an Engagement plan and develop strategic relationships to align the team’s roadmap of work with wider government strategy and departmental programmes
• identify opportunities to allow us to test and develop policy and guidelines. 
• work flexibly and collaboratively on a range of projects where your expertise and skills are needed and support a culture of agile working across your team

Person specification

We're interested in people who have:

• excellent communication and writing skills
• the ability to balance changing priorities, deal with ambiguity, using astute judgement to make decisions in the absence of full facts
• significant experience of building and maintaining effective relationships, and using a variety of channels to get the best results
• experience of working with multiple stakeholders across a large and diverse audience 
• experience of communicating to data expert and non-technical audiences and producing briefings and presentations
• experience in handling both quantitative and qualitative evidence to make decisions 
• experience of taking the initiative to solve problems, and and deliver results collaboratively, but independently
• an understanding of HMG’s data agenda and how this fits into the broader digital strategy