Pay & Reward Delivery Manager - GDS - G7

Location

Bristol, London, Manchester

About the job

Job summary

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

Join the Strategic Workforce and Capability Division, where our mission is to ensure the government possesses the necessary talent to drive digital transformation and overcome the challenges ahead. We're dedicated to enhancing the government's capacity to attract, recruit, nurture, and retain top tier digital and data professionals.

As part of the team, you will help shape the future of digital strategy and capabilities, providing vital insights that support cross departmental policies, standards, and strategies.

We're entrusted with devising strategies and delivering results for a community of 30,000+ digital innovators, aspiring talent, and the broader civil service. Our commitment extends to fostering an inclusive, supportive, and dynamic culture where individuals thrive and excel.

Job description

As the Pay and Reward Senior Delivery Manager, you will drive the end to end delivery of the cross government Digital and Data Pay Framework. This is a high impact delivery role, directly supporting government ambitions to scale a skilled and sustainable digital workforce. You will work closely with HM Treasury, senior leaders, departments and policy teams to ensure the pay and reward strategy remains competitive, coherent and aligned with professional and workforce planning priorities.

This role requires a strategic thinker, a numerate and confident delivery lead, capable of operating at pace across multiple and complex stakeholders.

Our priority within the Pay and Reward Team:

• A unified Digital and Data career and reward framework for government. Design and facilitate cross government adoption of a unified Digital and Data capability and remuneration framework that partners standardised digital and data role profiles, skill requirements and skill assessments with a competitive pay framework that is applied across government.

What You’ll Do

• Lead the end to end delivery of the Digital and Data Pay and Reward Framework, ensuring effective programme planning, risk management and alignment with workforce strategy and transformation objectives.
• Lead the Pay and Reward team, this will include line management of civil servants. 
• Translate strategic reward priorities into actionable delivery plans, coordinating cross functional teams to design and implement evidence based solutions that meet user and policy needs.
• Oversee the development and delivery of pay structures and reward mechanisms across delegated grades and SCS, ensuring delivery aligns with capability based progression models and organisational goals.
• Coordinate engagement with departments and professional leads, driving consistent adoption of the framework by managing delivery roadmaps, implementation support and embedding policy into operational practice.
• Integrate workforce analytics, pay benchmarking and user feedback into delivery cycles to maintain a competitive and future focused reward offer. You’ll adapt plans based on evolving insights.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to assess and support delivery of departmental business cases, ensuring governance processes are met and changes to reward structures are implemented effectively.
• Act as the delivery lead for the digital and data pay strategy, representing delivery progress and risks to senior leaders, Government People Group and Trade Unions, ensuring alignment across stakeholders.
• Embed continuous improvement and agile delivery principles, using feedback loops, data driven insights and policy iteration to enhance outcomes and value.
• Develop and deliver communication and engagement plans that support transparency, inclusive delivery and stakeholder alignment. You will also enable professional development across the pay and reward community.

Who You Are

• A delivery focused professional with substantial experience in optimising reward strategies, identifying risks in pay frameworks, or similar fields and unblocking issues.
• Able to lead complex reward initiatives in ambiguous, multi stakeholder environments.
• Possess expert data analysis skills to shape decisions, challenge processes, build business cases and influence outcomes. You will also help others adapt to new processes.
• Be an excellent communicator, with the ability to simplify complex policy into compelling narratives for technical and non technical audiences, from ministers to leaders, managers and practitioners across government.
• Strong stakeholder management skills across senior levels, including with HR, Trade Unions, digital leaders, commercial management, policy professionals and HM Treasury. 
• Experience in choosing the right type of feedback at the appropriate time and ensuring the discussion and decision stick. 
• Be passionate about public service, experiment with new and innovative ways of working, leading to digital transformation.
• Build inclusive ways of working when applying agile and lean practices.

Person specification

We're interested in people who have;

• experience managing end to end delivery of high impact pay and reward programmes with multiple stakeholders and priorities 
• experience translating strategic objectives into deliverable plans, particularly in the context of HR, pay or capability based frameworks
• experience of negotiating, influencing, whilst working within set budgets in complex environment
• the ability to build trusted relationships across departments, with senior leaders, unions and governance groups to drive adoption and alignment
• the ability to apply agile principles, iterate based on feedback and manage uncertainty and change
• experience in using workforce analytics, pay benchmarking and user research to shape, adapt and communicate delivery plans and outcomes
• experience using Microsoft packages, particularly Excel, Word and Powerpoint 
• experience working within formal governance structures, assessing business cases and ensuring compliance to mitigate any risks, issues or dependencies
• the ability to lead clear, inclusive communication strategies that align to stakeholder needs, support transparency and build community understanding
• experience of using feedback, retrospectives or service performance data to refine delivery and increase impact over time