Job description

Locations: Aberdeen, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Darlington, Edinburgh, London, Salford

Advertised working pattern: Flexible working, Full-time, Job share

Job summary

DESNZ leads on the government’s mission to make the UK a clean energy superpower. We are responsible for UK energy security, protecting billpayers, supporting economic growth and protecting jobs, and reducing the UK’s emissions. We are a ministerial department, supported by 15 agencies and public bodies and employing around 4,500 staff.

We have an ambitious agenda to deliver that our new Secretary of State has set out. Affordability is rightly at the heart of our work, alongside the need to accelerate delivery across the energy system and deliver growth. To do this well, we are transitioning towards operating through seven new director general groups, designed to provide clearer leadership accountabilities, strengthen alignment between policy and delivery and support collaboration across organisational boundaries. Please click here to learn more about us and our priorities.

Job description

We are seeking three exceptional leaders for the following SCS 3 director general level roles:

1. Director General Net Zero, Climate & Energy System Strategy

Accountable for DESNZ’s strategic coherence across the energy system, ensuring the department can translate ministerial ambition into a clear, evidence-led and deliverable long-term direction. The postholder provides the strategic grip that connects long-term priorities to real-world delivery, helping ministers to navigate the most material choices, risks and trade-offs involved in securing clean power and the wider Net Zero transition.

2. Director General Energy Market Reform

Accountable for the coordinated transformation of the UK electricity system, ensuring DESNZ can translate its clean energy ambitions into sector-level delivery at the pace and scale required. The postholder leads the five directorates responsible for renewable electricity generation, electricity systems and networks, energy development planning, offshore petroleum regulation, and electricity security, AI and market reform, bringing together responsibility for the full electricity value chain and associated regulatory and planning delivery.

3. Director General Household Consumers & Energy Retail

Accountable for ensuring that households and consumers are at the centre of DESNZ’s mission to make the UK a clean energy superpower. The role brings together responsibility for household energy affordability, fuel poverty, retail market design, consumer protection, warm homes and building decarbonisation, and the smart metering programme, providing a single senior owner for the household and consumer agenda.

These are nationally significant leadership roles at the heart of one of the most complex and consequential transformations facing the UK today.

Person specification

In addition to role-specific criteria outlined in the candidate brief, the following core criteria are essential for all three roles:
– Whole-System Leadership and Judgement – Exceptional strategic leadership in complex, politically sensitive environments, with the ability to set direction, make high-impact decisions, manage competing priorities and navigate complex trade-offs.
– Delivery of Complex Outcomes – A proven track record of leading large-scale, high-profile programmes or services, translating strategic ambition into delivery and achieving outcomes at pace in complex organisational environments.
– Influencing and Stakeholder Leadership – Outstanding ability to build productive relationships and secure collective action across organisational boundaries, operating credibly with ministers, regulators, delivery partners, industry and wider stakeholders.
– People Leadership and Organisational Stewardship – Experience leading large, multi-disciplinary organisations through change, building high-performing and inclusive cultures, strengthening capability and providing visible corporate leadership.