Director-General

BBC Group and Public Services; City of Westminster; Hybrid; GBP 150,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading public service broadcaster seeks a Director-General to lead its creative vision and strategy. The role involves balancing public service and commercial interests while managing editorial and financial decisions. The ideal candidate will have experience in an editorial environment and demonstrate strong leadership skills in complex organisations. This position calls for someone who can navigate scrutiny, engage stakeholders, and drive key transformations during a critical period in broadcasting history.

Benefits

Competitive salary package

Flexible working hours

25 days annual leave

Qualifications

• Strong conviction for public service broadcasting.
• Able to cope with significant pressures and scrutiny.
• Can process complex information and make strategic decisions.
• Proven ability to represent a large organisation effectively.
• Builds high-performing executive teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead the BBC's creative vision and strategy.
• Balance public service and commercial pressures.
• Manage financials and editorial decisions at the BBC.
• Engage stakeholders and represent the BBC in external forums.

Skills

Public service broadcasting conviction

Courage and resilience

Intellectual agility

Exceptional communication skills

Team building

Education

Experience in an editorial environment

Leadership experience in a complex organisation

Job description

How to Apply

Egon Zehnder has been selected by the BBC Board to manage the Director General appointment process. If you would like to apply, please send an up‑to‑date CV and covering letter to [e-mail]. The letter should be no more than two pages long and should outline why you are interested in the Director General role and the relevant skills and experiences (as outlined in the role specification below) which make you suitable for it. We expect a high number of applications and while we will be able to acknowledge receipt, we will only contact those who have been selected for shortlist and regretfully we will not be able to give individual feedback.

The deadline for applications is midnight on 31st December 2025.

About the BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is the world’s leading public service broadcaster and occupies a special place in the cultural life of the UK.

The BBC’s mission is defined by Royal Charter to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high‑quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain.

It does this by delivering five public purposes:

• To provide impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them
• To support learning for people of all ages
• To show the most creative, highest quality and distinctive output and services
• To reflect, represent and serve the diverse communities of all the United Kingdom’s nations and regions and, in doing so, support the creative economy across the United Kingdom
• To reflect the United Kingdom, its culture and values to the world

The BBC is independent in all matters concerning the fulfilment of its mission and the promotion of the public purposes. It is funded primarily by the licence fee and seeks to deliver distinctive content that serves all audiences. It does this through:

• A portfolio of television services, including the UK’s most popular channel BBC One, the 24‑hour News Channel, acclaimed channels for Children and the young‑audience service BBC Three, as well as national and regional television programmes and services across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales;
• Ten UK‑wide radio networks, providing the best live music and speech broadcasting in the UK, catering to all audiences;
• Two national radio services in each of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, catering to both English and indigenous language audiences, as well as 39 local radio stations across England and the Channel Islands, all of which provide a unique and local service to listeners;
• Award‑winning and industry‑defining digital products including iPlayer, BBC Sounds, apps for News, Sport and Weather, Children’s online services, as well as our vast digital archive; and
• Providing trusted and impartial news for audiences across the world, delivered through the BBC World Service on television, radio and online in more than 40 languages.

In addition to this, the BBC’s Commercial operations – including the producer and distributor BBC Studios– generate additional revenue for investment in new programming and services for UK audiences.

The BBC has an annual income of c.£5bn, made up of licence fee and commercial revenues. It employs over 20,000 people and has bases across the UK and in 59 countries globally.

Each year the BBC is required to publish an Annual Plan, setting out details of its creative remit for the forthcoming year, and an Annual Report and Accounts, reporting back on performance in the previous year.

The Role

The Director‑General

The role of BBC Director‑General is one of the most important, high‑profile public posts in the UK. It offers an unmatched opportunity to lead a creative organisation with a remit and a role that is critical in the cultural and political life of the country. It also offers the opportunity to lead and shape a future vision for the organisation at a time of significant change.

The Director‑General is the Chief Executive Officer and Editor‑in‑Chief of the BBC. They are ultimately responsible and accountable to the Board for decisions on the BBC’s editorial matters, creative output, public service delivery and the success of its commercial operations.

The BBC is an acclaimed and outstanding commissioner and producer of British content, a standard‑bearer for trust and impartiality in the coverage of news and current affairs, a creative and financial partner for the UK’s creative industries and a loyal friend to local audiences up and down the country, and globally. It is a tech firm and a newsroom. It is a live event producer and a born entertainer. It provides value to all audiences and it is the place where people across the UK come together, whilst also providing room for different voices and debate.

The Director‑General is the figure who knits these strands together, setting out the creative vision for the organisation, establishing the strategy, balancing public service and commercial pressures and managing the BBC’s finances across all its divisions and output.

As the BBC seeks to evolve in a fast‑changing media landscape, its mission and public purposes remain the same but the way the organisation delivers them must adapt over time. The BBC has always been at the forefront of change in the media industry but today it faces a unique set of challenges in an increasingly global market. New companies have and continue to enter the UK market, changing the traditional broadcasting ecology. A digital‑native generation is growing up with a very different set of media habits and preferences.

This is therefore a crucial time for the BBC as it faces an increasingly competitive landscape. Its mission to provide a universal service for audiences across the whole of the UK is challenged by new technologies and audience behaviour. At the same time, scrutiny of the corporation – from government, parliaments, regulators and stakeholders – remains intense. The BBC needs to be able to respond confidently to that scrutiny and engage stakeholders with a vision for the future of public service broadcasting. In this context, the BBC will also be participating in a review of its Royal Charter in 2027. The next Director‑General will therefore be charged with leading and defining the BBC through a hugely critical and transformative period in the Corporation’s history.

The Ideal Candidate

The Director‑General has to fulfil a wide variety of functions and deal with an ever‑changing range of complex, sensitive and strategic issues, often at speed. Consequently the right candidate will need the optimal blend of personal qualities and experiences (whilst recognising that no candidate will be likely to have all of these qualities in equal measure) to set out and articulate a clear vision for what the BBC of the future should be.

PERSONAL QUALITIES

Purpose‑driven with high integrity

• A strong conviction for public service broadcasting and a passion for the BBC’s purposes, and a belief in how it delivers its mission to all classes, communities and cultures
• Leads with values, engendering trust amongst colleagues and stakeholders, inspiring the organisation to operate with purpose, honesty and fairness

Demonstrable courage and resilience

• Able to cope with the significant personal and professional pressures of leading a major public organisation and being subject to scrutiny from a wide variety of audiences
• Able to make sound decisions on complex issues at speed, in the best interests of audiences and licence fee payers

Natural curiosity and intellectual agility

• Can process complex information, make strategic decisions, and solve problems effectively with strong analytical and critical thinking skills to help in assessing risks, identifying opportunities
• Challenges assumptions and seeks diverse perspectives, being prepared to ask difficult questions and keep an open mind to new ideas
• Inherent flexibility to adapt to changing conditions to enable decisive action, navigate uncertainty

Exceptional communications skills

• A proven ability to represent a significant organisation with national and international interests
• Clear, consistent and focused in message and action, comfortable with public speaking and able to communicate a compelling strategy to different audiences
• A communication style that is both human and engaging as well as straightforward and confident

Builder of effective teams

• Builds a high performing executive team with the right balance of experiences and perspectives and ensures that their efforts are aligned
• Ensures that the organisation has the right talent required to meet current and future needs by bringing the best talent on board, developing internal capabilities and building a worldclass bench of talent at the BBC
• An advocate for the importance of an inclusive workplace culture and on‑ and off‑screen diversity which reflects the audiences that the BBC serves

COMPETENCIES AND EXPERIENCE

Creative Leadership and Editorial Judgement

• Exposure to an editorial environment, having led a creatively‑driven organisation
• Evidence of making complex and challenging editorial judgements and creative decisions, and taking ultimate responsibility for them
• Has demonstrated decision‑making that adheres to the BBC’s principles of impartiality and editorial independence

CEO or equivalent leadership experience

• Proven leader of a substantial enterprise in the context of a fast‑changing market
• A commercially‑minded executive with experience of P&L ownership and of exercising firm management control to ensure the achievement of key metrics
• Evidence of having cultivated a positive work environment that encourages high performing and engaged employees and led an inclusive culture with a shared commitment to excellence

Articulating strategy and driving large scale transformation

• Evidence of shaping, articulating and leading a clear strategy and narrative for employees, audiences and stakeholders alike
• Experience of having led an organisation through significant change across strategy, operations, process, culture and behaviour, ranging from technological and digital change to operational change management to business model transformation
• Within that, evidence of having supported or embedded innovation such as building new capabilities, products or business models or expanding beyond the conventional core

Managing external stakeholders

• Adept at dealing with key stakeholders outside the BBC such as regulatory bodies, government agencies, Parliament, industry groups and others, to gain support on key issues or create a favourable operating environment

Organisational and operational complexity

• Leadership experience gained in an organisation of equivalent complexity e.g. comprising multiple business units, lines of business, distribution channels or a highly matrixed business structure

External perspectives

• Exposure to a broad ecosystem of stakeholders – Government, regulators, competitors (both UK and internationally), the tech sector
• Experience operating at the interface between the public sector and commercial worlds

Governance

The BBC’s Board ensures that the Corporation delivers its mission and public purposes, as set out in the Royal Charter. The current Charter began on 1 January 2017 and ends on 31 December 2027.

The BBC Board

The Board upholds and protects the independence of the BBC and makes its decisions in the public interest. It is accountable to licence fee payers for all the Corporation’s activities including both publicly funded and commercial activities, in both the UK and overseas. The Director‑General is required to be a member of the Board under the terms of the Charter.

The Chairman and the Nation members of the Board are appointed by Government, in consultation with the relevant national assemblies. The remaining members are appointed by the Board on the advice of the Nominations Committee.

The Executive Committee

The Director‑General also chairs the Executive Committee, which is responsible for delivering the BBC’s services in accordance with the strategy agreed by the BBC Board and for all aspects of operational management. Detail on the membership of the Executive Committee can be found here.

Accountability

The Office of Communications (Ofcom) is the UK’s broadcasting, telecommunications and postal regulatory body. It regulates the BBC’s UK Public Services.

The National Audit Office (NAO) is the body responsible for scrutinising public spending on behalf of Parliament. It is the BBC’s statutory auditor and also undertakes a programme of value for money reviews on BBC spending each year.

The BBC is also required to engage with ministers and Government departments across the UK’s Parliaments and devolved Assemblies. The Corporation’s Annual Report and Accounts is laid by the DCMS Secretary of State each year in the United Kingdom Parliament. The BBC must then also lay the Report before the Scottish Parliament, the Senedd Cymru/Welsh Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly respectively.

Location

The role can be based in any of the BBC’s main UK bases, but will require substantial time in London, travel around the UK and occasional international travel.

About Egon Zehnder

Egon Zehnder helps the top leaders of organisations around the world solve their most strategic and transformative leadership challenges. Our team of 600 consultants across 68 offices in 36 countries bring hands‑on industry experience and collaborative spirit to every client to help them discover, develop and transform their current and future leadership.

Disclaimer

This job description is a written statement of the essential characteristics of the job, with its principal accountabilities, incorporating a note of the skills, knowledge and experience required for a satisfactory level of performance. This is not intended to be a complete, detailed account of all aspects of the duties involved.

Please note: If you were to be offered this role, the BBC will conduct Employment screening checks which include Reference checks; Eligibility to work checks; and if applicable to the role, Safeguarding and Adverse media/Social media checks. Any offer made is conditional on these checks being satisfactory.

The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC and they will be given priority consideration ahead of other applicants. Priority consideration means for those employees seeking redeployment their application will be considered alongside anyone else at risk of redundancy, prior to any individuals being considered who are not at risk.

Information at a Glance

This is your BBC

At the BBC you can create and innovate in an inclusive environment while contributing to some of the world’s best loved content, and the BBC’s mission to inform, educate and entertain.

Find out more about the BBC

Life at BBC

Here you will benefit from:

• Fair pay and flexible benefits including a competitive salary package, a flexible 35‑hour working week, 25 days annual leave with the option to buy an extra 5 days, a defined pensionscheme and discounted dental, health care and gym.
• Excellent career and professional development.
• Support in your working life, including flexible working which you can discuss with us at any point during the application, selection or offer.
• A values‑based organisation where the way we do things is important as what we do.

Benefits may vary if you are joining on an FTC basis or on an orchestra conditions contract.

Learn more about life at the BBC and our values in our candidate pack.

Candidate pack

You belong

We have a working environment where we value and respect every individual's unique contribution, so all our employees feel that they can belong, thrive and achieve their full potential.

We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to join us. The more diverse our workforce, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity.

We welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio‑economic background, religion and/or belief.

Find out more about diversity, inclusion and belonging in our strategy below.

Diversity, inclusion & belonging strategy

Disability confident

We are a disability confident employer. If you need to discuss adjustments or access requirements for the interview process, or to carry out this role, please contact us via email and we’d be happy to discuss: [e-mail]

BBC Group and Public Services, Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London, United Kingdom, W1A 1AA. BBC Studios Distribution Limited, company no: 01420028, registered address: 1 Television Centre, 101 Wood Lane, London, United Kingdom W12 7FA.