Chief Operating Officer

Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport; Manchester; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport seeks a Chief Operating Officer to lead a newly formed DCMS group of circa 500 staff across Corporate Functions.

You will oversee transformation, risk, and governance, delivering agile, user-focused services while integrating operations and staff experience across Finance, People and Workplace, Commercial, and DDaT.

Responsibilities

• Chief Operating Officer for our newly formed DCMS, integrating the organisation and driving innovation across our operations and staff experience.
• Leading the transition, embedding new corporate operating models and sponsoring major transformations, including migration to the cross-government NEO shared services platform.
• Provide overarching direction, risk oversight, and assurance across DCMS’s ecosystem of Arm’s-Length Bodies (ALBs).
• Deliver strategic oversight across DCMS corporate services, which includes Finance, People and Workplace, Commercial, and DDaT; steward multi-million-pound budgets with governance.
• Foster an inclusive, high-performing culture, driving workforce capability and talent development.
• Serve as principal operations advisor to the Executive Board, Ministers, and the Permanent Secretary, navigating political, operational, and reputational risks.

Job description

As Chief Operating Officer (COO), you will provide strategic executive leadership for a DG Group of circa 500 staff across DCMS’s integrated Corporate Function, encompassing Commercial, DDaT, Finance, Legal and People and Workplace, which includes HR, Property, and Security. Having oversight of the Finance Function you will support the Accounting Officer with the management of the full DCMS budget of circa £11bn and will have a direct budget currently estimated to be around £200m.

Reporting to the Permanent Secretary, you will be responsible for driving civil service reform in DCMS and for delivering an agile, user-focused Department. Following the Machinery of Government (MoG) change, the COO will have a key role in creating the new Department, integrating our services, and setting up the department for long-term capability consistent with our focus on making our organisation better at pace. As part of this work, we want to use the civil service reform programme to drive change in DCMS and to deliver for citizens using digital and technology.

Key Responsibilities

• Chief Operating Officer for our newly formed DCMS, integrating the organisation and driving innovation across our operations and our staff experience
• Leading the transition, embedding new corporate operating models and sponsoring major transformations, including migration to the cross-government NEO shared services platform.
• Provide overarching direction, risk oversight, and assurance across DCMS’s ecosystem of Arm’s-Length Bodies (ALBs).
• Deliver strategic oversight across DCMS corporate services, which includes Finance, People and Workplace, Commercial, and DDaT*; steward multi-million-pound budgets, ensuring value for money, fiscal discipline, and robust governance.
• Foster an inclusive, high-performing culture, driving workforce capability, talent development.
• Serve as principal operations advisor to the Executive Board, Ministers, and the Permanent Secretary, navigating complex political, operational, and reputational risks.