Location
Aberdeen, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Darlington, Edinburgh, London, Salford
Department
Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ)
About the Job
We are delivering our mission to make the UK a clean energy superpower, with clean electricity by 2030 and accelerating the UK’s journey to net zero. Our work helps ensure clean energy for all, keep bills down and seize opportunities to lead the world in new green industries.
DESNZ Finance is at the forefront of the Department’s work, as a key enabler of the Secretary of State’s policy objectives. We are recruiting to two vital leadership vacancies in our Finance Business Partner team.
Finance Business Partner Deputy Director, Major Infrastructure and Nuclear Finance
You will be responsible for all financial advice and oversight for over £90 billion of expenditure over the Spending Review period for our Nuclear, CCUS & Hydrogen, Net Zero Innovation and International portfolios. This includes mega projects such as Sizewell C, the Carbon Capture and Storage networks, Small Modular Reactors, developing a hydrogen store and power station, fusion including the new demonstrator facility (“STEP”), the work of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and our international development finance (ODA). You will use your financial expertise to ensure the department takes the optimum path, balancing consumer and taxpayer funding. You will have a good grip on financial strategy development and on contemporary detail and challenges such as designing, funding and accounting for our hydrogen business models.
Finance Business Partner Deputy Director, Markets and Consumer Finance
You will be responsible for financial advice and oversight for DESNZ’s work with households, including the £13.2 bn manifesto commitment to the Warm Homes Plan funded at the 2025 Spending Review, and work to reduce household energy bills. You also cover DESNZ work on gas and refined products markets and security, our historical liabilities in fossil fuel extraction, and partnering work on parts of the electricity system. You will work closely with policy, delivery, other finance deputy directors, strategy, commercial and other professionals to ensure the department makes the best possible use of financial levers. The team’s work extends beyond traditional government finance and includes advising on loans and other investment approaches, regulatory finance and helping identify where non‑financial levers would reduce costs or improve outcomes.
Key Responsibilities
- Ensure SROs for policies and programmes receive excellent financial advice so DESNZ programmes are likely to succeed: meet strategic objectives, well‑planned and governed, deliverable, value for money, affordable and correctly accounted for.
- Provide the Accounting Officer with clear, balanced and pragmatic advice where action or inaction by the department presents a significant risk to his duties.
- Ensure key financial/HMT issues are brought out, understood, escalated if necessary and resolved, including liaising and negotiating with HMT.
- Improve the business’s ability to plan and forecast accurately, with clarity of the connection between finance and delivery of outputs and outcomes.
- Work with other professions, notably analysis and delivery, to provide the best integrated expert advice.
- Ensure your diverse team is engaged, motivated and delivering at its best, with a commitment to continuous improvement.
- Play a full role in the Finance Directorate’s Senior Leadership Team and wider Government Finance Function, including providing duty cover for emergencies as part of a rota.
Person Specification
Essential
- A track record of providing excellent advice at pace to secure effective delivery and value for money for the public.
- Building strong collaborative relationships at senior levels which deliver good outcomes even when objectives may be in conflict.
- Outstanding ability to communicate (orally and written) a complex financial picture with clarity and accuracy to the most senior decision‑makers, and building this capability in the department.
- Ability to be on top of the financial detail, ensuring that numbers are always right and that complex budgeting/financial rules imposed by HMT are complied with.
- Ability to develop and lead a diverse and high‑performing team, building professional capability to deliver results both in the short and long term.
- High level of resilience, managing ambiguity and challenge whilst working at pace and under pressure.
Desirable
- A full accountancy qualification (CCAB, CIMA or equivalent) is desirable, though part‑qualified applicants and those with substantial experience in public spending control will also be considered if committed to qualification.
Benefits
Alongside your salary of £81,000, the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero contributes £23,465 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme.
Other benefits include:
- A culture of flexible working, such as job sharing, homeworking and compressed hours.
- Automatic enrolment into the Civil Service Pension Scheme, with an employer contribution of 28.97%.
- A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by 1 day per year up to a maximum of 30.
- An extensive range of learning & professional development opportunities.
- Access to a range of retail, travel and lifestyle employee discounts.
- A hybrid office/home based working model where staff will spend a norm of 40‑60% of their time in the office (minimum 40%) over a month with flex dependent on balancing business and individual need.
For more information and to apply, please visit our website via the apply button below.
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