Regulation Functional Team Leader

About OPSS

Do you care about the safety of products and want to protect people and places? Can we use your skills, knowledge and experience to enable UK business to thrive? If the answer is yes, then we would like to hear from you!

We are the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS), part of the Department for Business & Trade. We are here for the purpose of making regulation work to deliver real world impact. Regulation is a powerful Government tool to address market failures, influence behaviour and promote positive action. Crafted and delivered well, regulation can be an enabler of growth, innovation and efficiency.

Since early 2018 we have been building a positive and creative team that enjoys a position of influence and respect within an organisation that continues to grow.

Our primary purpose is to protect people and places from product-related harm, ensuring consumers and businesses can buy and sell products with confidence

Further information can be found on our website here.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles. We embrace diversity and promote equality of opportunity. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives and skills. There is a guaranteed interview scheme (DCS) for people with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

We are Inclusive

We are fully committed to being an inclusive employer and ensuring equal opportunities. We are keen to make our workforce as diverse as possible and recognise how important inclusivity is to achieve the best outcomes. We hope to attract applications from all underrepresented groups.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation if required to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform crucial job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.

The Role and Our Team

We are recruiting for a Grade 6 Functional Team Leader within the Regulatory Impact Area at OPSS.

The Regulatory Impact Area delivers work with real-world impact, protecting people and places from product-related harm. We regulate products across a wide range of sectors in the UK economy. As the national product regulator, we enforce a broad framework of product regulation, deliver evidence-based interventions, and support businesses to meet their legal obligations. We do this proportionately through a combination of enforcement, engagement, and collaboration across government, and with local, national and international regulatory partners. As a risk-based regulator, we share our expertise to lead and influence both domestically and globally.

You will provide senior leadership of OPSS regulatory activity as part of the UK’s product regulation system. You will lead multidisciplinary teams to design and deliver risk-based, proportionate regulatory interventions that protect people and places while supporting businesses to innovate and grow.

We are looking for confident and credible leaders with significant experience of regulation, compliance and enforcement, including leading complex and high-profile investigations and incidents through to clear outcomes.

Operating in a complex and evolving regulatory environment, you will combine strong people leadership with robust operational delivery and sound judgement. You will navigate ambiguity and scrutiny with resilience, working collaboratively across OPSS, DBT and delivery partners to deliver meaningful, real-world impact.

The Regulation Impact Area includes several high-impact enforcement teams; we are currently recruiting for a vacancy within Online and Supply Chain Enforcement.

Products and Sectors Regulation

Products and Sectors Regulation is responsible for regulating sectors with obligations relating to product safety, security, environmental impact, accuracy and energy efficiency. Our work spans most industry sectors and supports wider government priorities. We work closely with, and on behalf of, other departments to deliver shared outcomes.

This includes supporting economic growth by providing a robust and fair regulatory environment in which businesses have confidence to invest and grow, while ensuring that consumers, places and the environment are protected from product-related harm. Our work also extends to new and emerging sectors, enabling innovation while maintaining appropriate protections.

Online and Supply Chain Enforcement

This team is responsible for regulating the supply chain used to distribute products, ensuring consumers across the UK can feel as confident shopping online as they do on the UK’s High Streets; we are committed to preventing unsafe and non-compliant products entering the UK supply chain.

This team delivers an innovative programme of regulatory interventions, finding the right mechanisms to stop bad actors within the supply chain, including at ports and fulfilment centres. The work is risk-based, proactively monitoring online marketplaces and other platforms who make products available to UK consumers.

Construction Products

This team is responsible for regulating the construction products sector on behalf of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), to help the UK build better, safer buildings, ensuring that construction products meet their performance requirements and are safe. Where construction products do not meet these requirements, we take the necessary enforcement action.

Colleagues within the Regulatory Impact Area may be allocated to work areas, having regard to their preferences, skills and experience, and business requirements. A reserve list from this campaign may be retained and used to make future appointments.

Key Responsibilities:

• Setting strategic direction and ensuring regulatory delivery is coherent, prioritised and joined‑up across teams and partners. Take a system approach and adapt at pace to emerging risks, intelligence and ministerial or organisational change.
• Lead regulatory relationships with regulated businesses to influence their approach to compliance and engage with key stakeholders relevant to the sector to secure sector wide improvements that benefit people and places.
• Lead the design and delivery of risk-based, proportionate regulatory interventions (proactive and reactive), using an evidence‑based, problem‑solving approach focused on measurable outcomes for people and places and compliant businesses.
• Provide senior leadership for complex cases and incidents, ensuring effective triage, timely escalation and high‑quality decision‑making, with clear, defensible advice under uncertainty and external scrutiny.
• Maintain strong operational grip across a mixed portfolio (caseloads, projects and interventions): prioritise effectively, allocate resources and drive pace and quality. Ensure delivery meets relevant statutory duties and regulatory frameworks (including the Regulators’ Code, Regulatory Delivery Model, Business Impact Target and Growth Duty), supported by robust governance, assurance and performance information.
• Work in partnership with internal and external specialists (including Legal, Intelligence, Engineering and Science, Data and Analysis and other delivery partners) to shape options, manage risk and progress interventions at pace.

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, Strengths and Experience.

Interviews for this vacancy will be conducted virtually. We will, however, consider in-person interviews by exception.

Please ensure that you check your emails regularly as all updates from us will be sent to you this way.

To apply for this post, you will be asked to complete the following as part of the online application:

• A CV setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Provide employment history that relates to the essential criteria, and that any gaps in employment history within the last 2 years are explained. The CV should not exceed more than 2 x A4 pages.
• A Personal Statement of up to 1000 words, explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role in reference to the essential criteria.

Your application will be sifted against the Experience criteria of the Civil Service Success Profiles.

We aim to sift both the CV and the Personal Statement but, in the event of a large number of applicants, an initial short sift may be conducted on the Personal Statement only. Candidates who pass the initial sift of the Personal Statement will either progressed to a full sift where the CV is then assessed, or progressed straight to further assessment/interview.

Candidates who pass the sift will be invited to interview, where we will assess you on the Success Profiles elements of Behaviours and Strengths.

As part of your interview, you will be asked to deliver a short oral presentation, details will be provided prior to your interview.

It is likely that the sift will take place 1-2 weeks after the closing date and interviews 3-5 weeks after the closing date, though this is subject to change.

Please note, following a recent change to the Machinery of Government, the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) will be renamed to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST) as of 20th July 2026. BIST will connect the UK’s world-class science and technology base directly to the businesses, places and workers that will drive good growth across the country. Such changes will not affect the selection process for this campaign; however, we wanted to take this opportunity to advise you of the recent changes to our department.

You can find further information here regarding recent governmental changes Machinery of Government changes: Fact Sheet - GOV.UK.

Reasonable Adjustments

We are committed to supporting candidates so they can perform at their best throughout the recruitment process. This includes making reasonable adjustments to our process. In order to request an adjustment:

Complete the ‘Assistance required’ section on the ‘Additional requirements’ page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process.

Alternatively contact the Government Recruitment Service at DBTrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.

If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section.

Please see attached Candidate Pack for further information on: Diversity and Inclusion; Benefits; Learning and Development; Working Patterns and what we deliver as a department.

Further Information:

• A reserve list may be held for a period of 12 months from which further appointments can be made. Reserve Lists will be for each location and appointments made in merit order based on location preferences.
• Any move to the Department for Business and Trade from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments.
• The Department will not consider sponsoring a visa or issuing a Certificate of Sponsorship. We are unable to offer advice on any Visa and Immigration cases.
• New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band.
• 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. Any applicant who has 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.
• Terms and Conditions are attached. Please take time to read the document to determine how these may affect you.
• Please note – the successful candidate will be expected to remain in post for a minimum of 18 months before being released for another role.
• Candidates that do not quite meet the standard for this role may be offered a position at a lower grade.

In order to process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring Service on your behalf.

However, we recognise in exceptional circumstances some candidates will want to send their completed forms direct. If you will be doing this, please advise Government Recruitment Service of your intention by emailing Pre-EmploymentChecks.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk stating the job reference number in the subject heading.

Feedback

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