Public Appointments Senior Talent and Events Lead

Can you communicate complex information clearly and confidently to a wide range of audiences, using your influencing and relationship-building skills to achieve positive outcomes?

Have you successfully led or coordinated work involving multiple stakeholders, building strong networks and collaborating across teams to deliver shared objectives?

Do you thrive in a fast-paced environment, working autonomously while encouraging others, identifying improvements, and finding creative solutions to enhance processes and ways of working?

If so, we’d love to hear from you!

This is an exciting opportunity to take on a unique role in the Department for Transport’s Public Appointments Team, where you will playa key role in attracting and engaging diverse talent for high-profile public appointments. As Senior Talent and Events Lead, you will drive outreach and engagement activities and lead the next phase of our diversity in public appointments strategy and events programme, building strong relationships with current and prospective candidates, diversity networks, industry groups, and senior stakeholders across government. Working closely with Ministers’ Private Offices, Board Members, Chairs, sponsorship teams, No.10 and other Government Departments, you will help shape appointment campaigns and provide expert advice to Ministers. Partnering with the Grade 7 lead, you will champion inclusion, enhance candidate experiences, and support the department’s commitment to strengthening diversity and excellence in public appointments, helping attract exceptional talent to influential leadership roles.

Joining our department comes with many benefits, including:

• Employer pension contribution of 28.97% of your salary. Read more about Civil Service Pensions here
• 25 days annual leave, increasing by 1 day each year of service (up to a maximum of 30 days annual leave), plus 8 bank holidays a privilege day for the King’s birthday
• Flexible working options where we encourage a great work-life balance.

Read more in the Benefits section below!

Find out more about what it's like working at DFT.

Working with the Grade 7, we are looking for this role to independently manage our diversity in public appointments strategy and Public Appointments Diversity Engagement Group (PADEG), run outreach events and webinars, and lead our management information.

Your responsibilities will include, but aren’t limited to:

• Manage a considerable and varied workload with autonomy, providing a quality service dealing with both day-to-day and ad-hoc tasks.
• Proactively build and maintain strong relationships with a variety of senior and important stakeholders across government, public bodies, and external

organisations.

• Lead on diversity in Public Appointments, including the next phase of our strategy,. and succession planning for the leadership and membership of our PADEG ; organising the next set of group meetings, providing secretariat to the group, driving forward group actions, and supporting the Diversity in Public Appointments Champion who chairs the meetings.
• Lead and coordinate large regional outreach events, with Ministerial and senior stakeholder attendance, for potential public appointment candidates.
• Lead the organisation of our next regional outreach event in Bristol; this will require travel to Bristol for the event and managing and coordinating a team of volunteers to support you with event delivery in the run up to the event and on the day.
• Prepare high-quality and timely written advice for senior stakeholders and Ministers, including advice, briefings, and agendas.
• Lead recruitment campaign management for 1-2 DfT public bodies/committees; being the main point of contact and managing the forward look of appointments for those bodies/committees.
• Lead the team’s management information forward look and Power BI dashboard, ensuring it is kept up to date for reporting to senior officials.
• Oversight of the public appointment’s team candidate pool and leading on engagement and communications for that pool and potential candidates; including online presence, social media and monthly newsletters in collaboration with an HEO campaign manager in the team.
• Lead the organisation and delivery of outreach webinars for public appointment vacancies, working with various shareholder/sponsor teams to understand individual requirements and suggest creative approaches to attract and inform potential candidates.
• Lead on and be the main contact point for Direct Ministerial Appointments (DMAs) and other ad-hoc appointments, keeping trackers up to date.
• Work collaboratively with colleagues in the Public Bodies Engagement and Standards team on engagement opportunities for new and existing public appointees, such as induction and development.
• Lead task management of others in the team working to you and provide cover for other SEO roles in the team when campaign work peaks or to cover absence.

Flexible resourcing

Colleagues are expected to work with a degree of flexibility, meaning responsibilities may change to support priority delivery.

For further information on the role, please read the role profile. Please note that the role profile is for information purposes only - whilst all elements are relevant to the role, they may not all be assessed during the recruitment process. This job advert will detail exactly what will be assessed during the recruitment process.

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)

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

How to apply:

Our selection process ensures a comprehensive assessment of each applicant's qualifications, skills, and potential fit within our organisation.

The selection process for this role will be:

Stage 1: Sift of CV and personal statement and behaviour statement

Stage 2: Interview

You must be successful at each stage to progress to the next stage.

Stage 1: Sift

At sift, you will be assessed against the following Success Profile elements:

Behaviours – you will be asked to provide a 250-word statement on the following Behaviours: Managing a Quality Service

Experience – you will be asked to provide a CV (unlimited wordcount) and personal statement (1000-word count). Please provide evidence of your Experience of the following:

• Experience of leading or being involved with running high profile events that have had senior stakeholder involvement and/or attendance.
• Excellent written and verbal communication with a wide variety of audiences, including with senior stakeholders
• Strong stakeholder management, including managing upwards and task managing others.
• Strong networking skills, with the ability to proactively identify opportunities to connect and build trusted relationships with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders of all levels.

Should a large number of applications be received, an initial sift may be conducted using the lead Success Profile element, Managing a Quality Service. Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift or progressed straight to assessment/interview.

The sift will take place from 16th September 2026.

Stage 2: Interview

At interview stage, you will be assessed against the following Success Profile elements:

• Behaviours – Communicating and Influencing, Changing and Improving, Working Together, Managing a Quality Service, Delivering at Pace
• Experience

The interviews will take place week commencing 28th September 2026.

This interview will be conducted in person at our London office (Great Minster House, 33 Horseferry Rd, London, SW1P 4DR). Further details will be provided to you should you be selected for interview.

You can find out more about our hiring process, how to apply, and application and interview guidance on our careers site (opens in a new window).

Please note that we will try to meet the dates set out in the advert. There may be occasions when these dates will change

Further information on the selection process

We will also hold a 12-month reserve list for this role, which may lead to potential opportunities beyond the role you applied for.

During your application, you should indicate which location(s) you wish to be considered for and, if successful, you will be placed on an individual list of candidates for each location. Candidates will be held on that list and drawn from it in merit order. We advise you to carefully consider which locations you wish to be considered for. If you decline an offer for a location you have expressed a preference in or have expressed an interest in more than one location and accept an offer, you will be withdrawn from any lists you may be held on. We may also offer candidates a location that they have not expressed a preference for where we have the requirement to do so but this will again be done on the basis of your place in the overall merit order and, in this event, you will not be removed from the list if you decline.

Reasonable Adjustments

As a Disability Confident Leader employer, we are committed to ensuring that the recruitment process is fair, accessible and allows all candidates to perform at their best. If a person with a visible or non-visible disability is substantially disadvantaged, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes.

Complete the “Assistance required” section in the “Additional requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need during the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at an interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional.

If you need a reasonable adjustment so that you can complete your application, you should contact Government Recruitment Service via dftrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.

Document Accessibility

This job advert contains links to the DfT Careers website. Our website provides useful guidance and information that can support you during the application process. If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert or the information on our website, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section.

Further Information

For more information about how we hire, and for useful tips on submitting your application for this role, visit the How We Hire page of our DfT Careers website. You can find detailed information about the recruitment process and what to expect when applying for a role.

For further information on National Security Vetting please visit the Demystifying Vetting website.

Please be aware the levels of national security clearance are changing which may impact on the level needed for this role by the time of appointment. All efforts will be made to keep candidates informed of any changes and what that will mean in terms of vetting criteria. For more information please See our vetting charter.

If your application is successful but you have been dismissed from the Civil Service, your application could be removed at the pre-employment checking stage depending on the nature of the dismissal.

Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant’s details held on the IFD will be refused employment. A candidate is not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5-year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government.

All external applicants and current employees of accredited non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) will be required to undergo a Social Media Check. A Social Media Check is a review of your publicly available online activity, typically across platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and others. The purpose is to identify any public posts or content that could raise concerns for employers, such as:

• Hate speech or discriminatory behaviour
• Threats or acts of violence
• Illegal activity or substance misuse
• Sexually explicit material
• Extremist views or affiliations

Importantly, this check does not involve hacking into your accounts or accessing private messages. It only considers content you have chosen to make public. Employers use this kind of screening to help ensure their workplace remains safe, inclusive, and aligned with company values. It’s not about judging your personality or lifestyle - it’s about checking for potential red flags that might affect the role or company culture. If you have questions or concerns about the social media check, we would be happy to explain in more detail what’s being looked at and how your data is handled securely and fairly.

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