DfE seeks job share director to oversee T Levels and level 3 reforms

It’s the second senior skills role to be shared by two people announced in recent months

It’s the second senior skills role to be shared by two people announced in recent months

The Department for Education (DfE) is advertising a job share role for the civil service role responsible for T Levels and level 3 qualification reform.

This weekend, the DfE posted an advert for a part-time director of technical qualifications and essential skills to share with current permanent director Kiera Harper.

The role includes being the senior responsible officer for T Levels, a DfE major project with a “substantial” £1.6 billion overall budget – currently rated ‘amber’ by government infrastructure project experts.

It also involves oversight of the DfE’s reforms of level 3 and below qualifications, which has faced controversy due to its proposed axing of popular vocational courses, such as some BTECs, that “overlap” with T Levels.

At three days a week, the role has a full-time equivalent salary of £98,000 per year and comes with a civil service pension contribution equivalent to £28,390 per year.

Harper, who is currently on maternity leave, is hoping to find a job-share partner to work with when she returns.

Since going on leave in June 2024, her role has been covered by job sharing interim directors, Jane Belfourd and Rebekah Chatwin. Harper replaced previous director Sue Lovelock in 2023.

High profile job sharers

If appointed as planned, the job share will be the second announced in recent months, following the appointment of Skills England joint chief executives Tessa Griffths and Sarah Maclean, who have held the same roles together for almost two decades.

The civil service, which aims to be “the most inclusive” employer in the UK, promotes job sharing in senior roles, believing that benefits include an improved work/life balance and promoting gender equality, particularly for women.

It has created a ‘job share notice board’ for finding a job share partner and published practical advice for candidates and hiring departments in 2020.

In recent years government blog posts have promoted case studies of senior job sharing roles in various departments, including current director generals for policy at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, who have shared for fifteen years.

The T Level challenge

It comes shortly after the National Audit Office (NAO) cast doubt on the scalability of T Levels after finding student number forecasts were missed by three quarters.

Following the NAO report, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said a lack of widespread awareness, declining pass rates and challenges securing industry placements show a risk to the DfE’s “ability” to scale up T Levels.

According to the description posted on the Civil Service Jobs website, the role is a “challenging and high profile” that needs an “extraordinary leader” who can think “strategically and at pace” about a complex policy and delivery landscape.

The DfE hopes to recruit someone with “strong financial management and Major Project discipline” due to the “substantial amount of public funding” the director is accountable for.

The directors will oversee a team of around 160 staff across multiple sites and will report to Julia Kinniburgh, director general for skills.

As a senior civil servant, the successful candidate will be expected to commit to a minimum duration of three years “to enable them to deliver on the agreed business outcomes”, although this is not a contractual requirement.

Applications must be submitted by April 28, ahead of interviews and assessments in May.

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