Senior Lawyer

Care Quality Commission; Greater London; On-site; GBP 55,000 - 63,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Homeworking allowance

Recruitment and Retention allowance

Hybrid working

Job summary

Care Quality Commission is seeking a Senior Lawyer to lead a legal team and provide strategic guidance on complex public law matters. You will oversee high‑quality legal advice across the organisation and work closely with senior leaders to shape policy and mitigate risk.

The role is available on a fixed-term basis or via secondment, with flexible location (home or office-based, hybrid 2 days from home) across UK offices. A rewarding package includes allowances and development opportunities.

Qualifications

• Qualified solicitor, barrister, or chartered legal executive with at least five years’ post-qualification experience.
• Experience leading and developing legal professionals.
• Strategic thinking to shape policy or operational decisions.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop a legal team to provide high-quality legal advice across the organisation.
• Advise on legal matters including policy development and public law.
• Shape legal strategy with senior leaders to align priorities and manage risk.

Skills

Legal expertise

Leadership

Strategic thinking

Advisory skills

Education

Qualified solicitor/barrister/chartered legal executive

Job description

Senior Lawyer

Grade A: £55,172 (National) or £61,028 (London – for London office based or homebased workers within the boundary of the M25) – This role also offers a £600 annual homeworking allowance and a £2,500 Recruitment and Retention allowance.

Contracted Hours: Full-time, 37 hours per week.

Contract Type: 12 Month Fixed Term or Secondment Opportunity - to provide cover for a substantive post holder who is currently undertaking a secondment to another role.

Internal applicants must obtain written confirmation from their line manager, granting permission to be released from their current role, before applying for this opportunity.

Location: Home or office based (flexible location) or hybrid working (working 2 days a week from home). CQC’s offices are in London, Newcastle, Leeds, Nottingham, and Bristol.

Closing Date: Sunday 6 September 2026 at 11.59pm.

Make a difference

Every role at CQC contributes to our mission. If you’re looking for a new role in the Legal Services Directorate that gives a true sense of meaning and purpose, then you’ve found it! As a Senior Lawyer, you’ll help ensure that CQC’s decisions are legally sound and support our mission to improve health and social care for everyone.

Picture this

Imagine leading a team of legal professionals who are passionate about making a difference, where your advice helps shape national policy and protect people’s rights.

In the last year as a Senior Lawyer, you might have:

• Led the legal response to a complex public law case, ensuring actions were fair, lawful, and in the public interest.
• Developed a new legal framework to support enforcement activity, helping frontline teams act swiftly and confidently.
• Supported the development of new or emerging policies or legislation.

The role

You’ll play an important part in delivering our mission. In this role, you’ll:

• Lead and develop a legal team: Provide coaching, supervision, and support to ensure high-quality legal advice across the organisation.
• Advise on legal matters: Offer clear, solutions-focused legal guidance on a wide range of issues, including policy development and public law.
• Shape legal strategy: Work with senior leaders to align legal priorities with CQC’s goals and ensure legal risks are identified and managed early.

Show us

We will be looking for specific skills, knowledge and experience in your application form:

• Demonstrated legal expertise: You’re a qualified solicitor, barrister, or chartered legal executive with at least five years’ post-qualification experience, including advising on complex legal matters.
• Leadership and team development: You’ve successfully led and supported legal professionals, helping them grow and deliver high-quality work.
• Strategic legal thinking: You’ve used your legal knowledge to shape policy or operational decisions, balancing risk and benefit in a fast-paced environment.

Compliance

Note for internal candidates: This is a secondment/fixed term opportunity. Please read the recruitment and selection policy section on secondments. You must discuss your application with your line manager before applying.

To progress your application, you’ll need to provide evidence of your right to work in the UK. Without a valid right to work, you won’t be eligible for the role. We are unable to offer sponsorship for this role. Some roles may also be subject to a satisfactory DBS check.

The Benefits

We offer a wide range of benefits, including:

• Annual leave starting at 27 days per year, rising to 32.5 days with service, plus bank holidays (usually eight days per year).
• Training and development opportunities.
• Wellbeing initiatives, such as gym discounts and meditation.
• NHS pension scheme, with around 14% employer contribution.
• Discount schemes (including eligibility for a Blue Light card, at a cost of £4.99 and valid for two years), reward vouchers, car leasing and more!

Equity for all

We know job descriptions can feel intimidating. Research shows they can cause some people to doubt whether they’re a good fit. This happens more often to people from underrepresented groups (e.g. ethnic minority backgrounds). If this role interests you, we encourage you to apply. Your unique perspective, skills, and experience could be exactly what we need.

We want every candidate to feel supported and able to do their best. If you need adjustments to our process, we’ll work with you to remove any barriers. Visit our accessibility page for more on this. If you’d like to chat, please contact [e-mail]. Please note, if you have previously informed us of adjustments you need for an interview or within your role, these are not carried over and must be discussed for each individual application you make.

We promote a workplace wherefairness, respect and inclusion are a priority. Diverse teams make our work better, help us deliver our mission and make our culture stronger. See our ED&I page for more about this.

We welcome applications fromeveryone, and colleagues can find support and community among our many employee networks. This includes people of any:

• Age
• Sex
• Gender identity or expression
• Sexual orientation
• Religion or belief
• Ethnicity
• Disability

Values and vision

We are guided by ourcore values, which shape our work and our culture.

• Excellence– being a high-performing organisation.
• Caring– treating everyone with dignity and respect.
• Integrity– doing the right thing.
• Teamwork– learning from each other to be the best we can.

A Note on AI

We know AI tools can be great for research and refining ideas, but we want to learn about you. If you use AI or Chatbots to help you with your application, keep these points in mind:

• AI can support research, structuring and refining your writing, but your applicationmustreflectyour real skills and experience.
• Spell-checking and condensing word counts are great ways to use AI effectively.
• Do notcopy and paste AI generated answers. These will not help you stand out; remember, we want to hear about your skills and experience.
• Providing false and insincere examples goes against our core values of honesty and integrity andmay lead to your application being withdrawnor termination of your employment.