Director General for Economic, Social and Environmental Statistics (ESEG)

The Office for National Statistics is seeking a Director General for Economic, Social and Environmental Statistics, responsible for leading the production and dissemination of key statistics. The role involves building relationships with key stakeholders, overseeing statistical transformations, and representing the ONS in various forums. The position operates under a flexible hybrid model with a minimum of 40% office attendance required, allowing for remote work.
ONS operates a flexible hybrid working model across the UK, with colleagues linked to one of our contractual locations in Newport, Titchfield (Fareham), Darlington and London and working between office and remote throughout the week.

As part of the hybrid working arrangement there is a 40% minimum office attendance requirement. Attendance is typically at your contractual office, with occasional travel to alternative locations.

Job Summary

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UK’s largest independent producer of official statistics and is the recognised National Statistical Institute.

The Director General for Economic, Social and Environmental Statistics (ESEG) is a high profile post responsible for leadership of all aspects of economic, social and environmental statistics at ONS. This includes directing the delivery of the UK’s most important statistics about the economy; being an authoritative and credible public face of economic, social and environmental statistics and analysis; overseeing the changes needed in modernising the collection and communication of those statistics; and devising and implementing the medium and long term strategic approach to production and dissemination of economic, social and environmental statistics.

Job Description

You will be a key member of the National Statistician’s top-level executive leadership group. It is anticipated you will be regularly invited to, and held to account by the UK Statistics Authority Board as well as the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee, other Parliamentary scrutiny bodies and across Whitehall.

You will be responsible for building and maintaining relationships on economic statistics with HM Treasury, the Bank of England, the Office for Budgetary Responsibility, other key users and opinion formers.

You will play a key role in deputising, on occasion, for the National Statistician domestically and internationally on matters of economic and social statistics as they affect the UK and international statistical system.

Key Responsibilities
• Provide enterprise leadership and direction to ensure consistently high quality, relevant, economic statistics and analysis are produced by ONS, including the National Accounts, prices, labour market and business statistics.
• Lead the transformation of statistics on the UK Labour Market to ensure they meet users’ needs.
• Instil an outward-facing approach across your Group which anticipates, understands and responds to user needs, and is grounded in a continuously improving understanding of the real world economic and political context.
• Build confidence, trust and credibility among users and provide an authoritative voice for economic statistics and analysis, personally explaining economic statistics to users including Government, Parliament, the media and the public.
• Develop an ambitious suite of statistics and analysis – including regular analytical outputs and bespoke analyses tackling individual topics to drive forward work across government missions.
• Build and manage key stakeholder relations within and outside government, including the Treasury, Bank of England and Office for Budgetary Responsibility.
• Drive at pace, provide leadership and direction for innovation, major change programmes, new technology and systems.
• Devise and implement a medium and long-term strategy which builds capability for delivering economic and social statistics at ONS, maximising the potential benefit of relationships across the Government Statistical Service (GSS), Government Economic Service (GES), government and private sector.
• Build and enhance the UK’s reputation for economic, social and environmental statistics across both the domestic and international statistical systems, maximising the benefits of collaboration and partnership working to ensure the UK is a model of best practice.
• Make the case for the appropriate funding of economic statistics, optimise value for money and ensure probity and good governance in the use of public money.

Further information on the role can be found in the attached candidate pack.

You will be a key member of the National Statistician’s top-level executive leadership group. It is anticipated you will be regularly invited to, and held to account by the UK Statistics Authority Board as well as the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee, other Parliamentary scrutiny bodies and across Whitehall.

You will be responsible for building and maintaining relationships on economic statistics with HM Treasury, the Bank of England, the Office for Budgetary Responsibility, other key users and opinion formers.

You will play a key role in deputising, on occasion, for the National Statistician domestically and internationally on matters of economic and social statistics as they affect the UK and international statistical system.

Key Responsibilities
• Provide enterprise leadership and direction to ensure consistently high quality, relevant, economic statistics and analysis are produced by ONS, including the National Accounts, prices, labour market and business statistics.
• Lead the transformation of statistics on the UK Labour Market to ensure they meet users’ needs.
• Instil an outward-facing approach across your Group which anticipates, understands and responds to user needs, and is grounded in a continuously improving understanding of the real world economic and political context.
• Build confidence, trust and credibility among users and provide an authoritative voice for economic statistics and analysis, personally explaining economic statistics to users including Government, Parliament, the media and the public.
• Develop an ambitious suite of statistics and analysis – including regular analytical outputs and bespoke analyses tackling individual topics to drive forward work across government missions.
• Build and manage key stakeholder relations within and outside government, including the Treasury, Bank of England and Office for Budgetary Responsibility.
• Drive at pace, provide leadership and direction for innovation, major change programmes, new technology and systems.
• Devise and implement a medium and long-term strategy which builds capability for delivering economic and social statistics at ONS, maximising the potential benefit of relationships across the Government Statistical Service (GSS), Government Economic Service (GES), government and private sector.
• Build and enhance the UK’s reputation for economic, social and environmental statistics across both the domestic and international statistical systems, maximising the benefits of collaboration and partnership working to ensure the UK is a model of best practice.
• Make the case for the appropriate funding of economic statistics, optimise value for money and ensure probity and good governance in the use of public money.

Further information on the role can be found in the attached candidate pack.

Person specification

Essential Criteria
• An inspiring, inclusive and confident enterprise level leader with experience of senior leadership and the ability to operate at Board level in a statistical or analytical capacity, engage people with the ONS vision and strategy and make risk-based decisions.
• A demonstrable and deep understanding of statistics and how they are used, in addition to familiarity with working in an analytical environment as well as a detailed knowledge of economic statistics.
• A leader who is a credible and authoritative commentator on statistics, economics and society with experience dealing with the media and key external opinion formers, commanding respect across sectors including Government, research, and academia.
• Transformative leader with a strong record of delivery and innovation at scale and pace, including experience of leading an organisation through change, and an ability to steer a complex technical portfolio of work.
• An ability to work across boundaries, building capability and promoting strong collaborative working practices within their team, the wider ONS, and across a range of broad and expert stakeholders.

Alongside your salary of £128,000, Office for National Statistics contributes £37,081 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

The Office for National Statistics is part of the Civil Service, and as such we share a number of key benefits with other departments, whilst also having our own unique offerings to support our 5400 valued colleagues across the business.

Whether you are hearing about us for the first time or already know a bit about our organisation, we hope that the benefits pack attached (bottom of page) will give you a great insight into the benefits and facilities available to our colleagues, and our fantastic working culture.

Inclusion & Accessibility

At ONS we are always looking to attract the very best people from the widest possible talent pool, and we are proud to be an inclusive, equal opportunities employer. As a Disability Confident Leader we’re committed to ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly throughout the recruitment process.

As part of our application process, you will be prompted to provide details of any reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process that you need. If you would like to discuss any reasonable adjustments before applying, please contact the recruitment team in the first instance.

If you would like an accessible version of any of the attachments or recruitment documents below or linked to in this advert, please contact the recruitment team who will be happy to assist.

Selection process details

Security Clearance

For ONS the requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for 3 consecutive years immediately prior to applying and the department will consider eligibility by exception on a case-by-case basis. You will be asked to provide information regarding your UK residency during your application, and failure to provide this will result in your application being rejected.

If you are unsure that you meet the eligibility above, please read the information available on Gov.uk on this link, or contact the recruitment email on the advert before applying to discuss, as failure to meet the residency requirements will result in your security clearance application being rejected and any offer of employment being withdrawn.

At the point of SC application, you will need to provide or give access to the following evidence:
• Departmental or company records (personnel files, staff reports, sick leave reports and security records)
• UK criminal records covering both spent and unspent criminal records
• Your credit and financial history with a credit reference agency
• Security Services records

ONS will support candidates through SC providing they meet the SC criteria outlined above.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

All applicants will have access to AI resources, it is therefore important to remember these tools, although helpful in streamlining the writing process, cannot fully understand the organisational context, or requirements for the role you are applying for.

To maintain authenticity and credibility of the application process, should you choose to use generative AI tools, you need to ensure the information you provide in your supporting evidence accurately reflects your skills, knowledge, and experience.

ONS does not advocate relying solely on generative AI to write your application. Doing so may negatively impact your chances of success during the selection process.

If you are invited to interview, please be aware the use of AI tools is prohibited and any suspected use may result in the termination of your interview and subsequent withdrawal from the campaign.

Social media checks

As part of our recruitment process, we may review publicly available social media profiles. By submitting your application, you acknowledge and consent to this review.

Selection Process

Applications should consist of your CV and Answers combined as one document and uploaded as a single attachment through Civil Service Jobs.

A Curriculum Vitae consisting Of:
• Details of your education and/or professional qualifications.
• Full employment history, giving details (where applicable) of budgets and numbers of people managed, relevant key achievements in recent posts.
• Details of your latest remuneration.

Answers to The Following Questions From Your Own Career And Experience Linked To The essential Criteria and Role Description – no More Than 350 Words Per Answer:
• How have you successfully led the transformation of statistical systems or large-scale data initiatives to meet evolving user needs?
• How have you built and managed trusted internal and external key stakeholder relationships to advance a strategic initiative?

Applications will be acknowledged shortly after receipt. If you do not receive an acknowledgement within one week of applying for the post, please contact our SCS Recruitment Team. at: SCS.Recruitment@ons.gov.uk

Further information on the assessment approach for this role can be found in the candidate pack. 

Expected Recruitment Timetable

Shortlisting meeting: 9th April 2025

Employee Engagement Exercise: 28th April 2025

Stakeholder conversations: WC 12th May 2025

Interviews: Between 30th May and 4th June 2025 - Held in ONS, Government Buildings, Cardiff Rd, Newport, NP10 8XG.

Dates are subject to change. 

Full terms and conditions are attached at the bottom of this advert

If you meet the required standard but the recruiting department is unable to offer you the job, you may be given the option of being added to a reserve list. Reserve lists may be shared with other Civil Service departments and professions who are recruiting for similar roles. 

Please note that all campaigns may be subject to withdrawal at any stage if the internal resource position changes. 

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).

People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).

People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

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)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job Contact :
• Name : Lowri Davies
• Email : Lowri.Davies@ons.gov.uk

Recruitment team
• Email : SCS.Recruitment@ons.gov.uk

Further information

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, in the first instance, you should contact recruitment.complaints@ons.gov.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission