Head of Defence Children Services

Upavon with travel required internationally on occasion

Job Summary
To provide leadership to Defence Children Services (DCS), an organisation responsible for providing education and childcare to c.3,000 children aged between 0 and 18 of Defence personnel the UK and overseas. In addition, DCS provides direct support to families and children in the UK and overseas across a range of areas including educational psychology, speech and language therapy, social work and advice on all matters to do with children's education.

The DCS organisation comprises a UK HQ based in Upavon, two forward deployed HQs (Belgium and Cyprus) and a total of 20 schools and nurseries in the UK and overseas in Cyprus, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Brunei, Italy, Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands.

While experience in education would be advantageous, we strongly encourage applications from candidates with leadership experience and skills accrued in other sectors.

Job Description
The current responsibilities of the role include:

• Further developing and communicating the vision, mission, objectives and strategy for DCS.
• Oversight of a complex portfolio of education, childcare and specialist support worldwide.
• Leading and managing a large, multi-disciplinary delivery team based across the globe.
• Driving continued improvement in the provision of education and childcare to Service children, and those of the wider Defence and support to families.
• Budget holder for the operating costs of the schools, settings and other activities of c.£40M pa.
• Senior Information Risk Owner and Personal Information Responsible Owner for all data, including extensive personal sensitive data, stored on the MoD Schools IT system

The Current Responsibilities Of The Role Include

• Further developing and communicating the vision, mission, objectives and strategy for DCS.
• Oversight of a complex portfolio of education, childcare and specialist support worldwide.
• Leading and managing a large, multi-disciplinary delivery team based across the globe.
• Driving continued improvement in the provision of education and childcare to Service children, and those of the wider Defence and support to families.
• Budget holder for the operating costs of the schools, settings and other activities of c.£40M pa.
• Senior Information Risk Owner and Personal Information Responsible Owner for all data, including extensive personal sensitive data, stored on the MoD Schools IT system

Person specification

The successful candidate must be able to demonstrate their experience and skills against the following essential criteria:

• Proven leader with experience leading large geographically dispersed teams with a proven ability to develop and communicate a clear vision in a complex organisation.
• A track record of driving continuous improvement in service delivery, preferably in education and childcare.
• Strong financial acumen, with experience managing significant budgets ensuring value for money and effective resource allocation.
• Strong communication skills, with experience of building strong stakeholder relationships that achieve buy-in and commitment.

Desirable Criteria May Be Used In The Event Of a Strong Field Of Candidates When There Is a Need To Distinguish Between Candidates. This Will Be As a Second Sift, After The Essential Criteria Has Been Considered

• Demonstrated experience in driving organisational change by crafting and delivering a forward-thinking vision that advances the organisation's mission, while promoting a culture of collaboration and high performance across teams.

Alongside your salary of £81,000, Ministry of Defence contributes £23,465 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• 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%

Selection process details

To apply for this post, you will need to complete the online application process no later than
23:55 on 28th December 2025
and will involve providing the two documents outlined below via the Civil Service Jobs portal:

• A CV (no more than 2 pages) setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure you have provided reasons for any gaps within the last two years.
• A Personal Statement (no more than 2 pages) explaining how your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role.

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 for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

External candidates who join the MOD and are new to the Civil Service will be subject to a six-month probation period.

For further information about the role and full application process, please refer to the candidate pack attached below. If you wish to receive any material in a different format for accessibility, then please contact People-CivHR-

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise.

As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.

Security

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.

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)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job Contact

• Name : SCS Recruitment Team
• Email : People-CivHR-

Recruitment team

• Email : People-CivHR-