Head of Portfolio - Rail Change Portfolio

Employer:

Government Recruitment Service

Location:

Birmingham

Pay:

£69,501 per year

Contract Type:

Permanent

Hours:

Full time

Disability Confident:

Yes

Closing Date:

05/03/2026

Can you lead a complex change portfolio, building strong cross-organisational ways of working and effective governance to deliver lasting outcomes?

Do you bring the experience to challenge constructively, assure delivery, and lead high-performing teams across large, multi-stakeholder portfolios?

If so, we'd love to hear from you Government is undertaking a once in a generation programme to fundamentally reform our railways, bringing most operations together under a new entity called Great British Railways (GBR) to deliver better outcomes for passengers and taxpayers.

This is an exciting time to join the Portfolio, with legislation to about to be introduced and as we take the first steps towards the wider organisational changes needed to turbocharge reforms.

This role sits at the heart of what we need to achieve, working with the Deputy Director to lead the rail change portfolio

• which includes multiple programmes run by Directors and Deputy Directors across the Department for Transport, the DfT Operator and Network Rail.

The successful candidate will demonstrate the strong leadership required to embed and operate a new portfolio management office, and ways of working across all three organisations.

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 DfTc: Project Delivery

• Department for Transport Careers The G6 will need to work effectively with the Deputy Director and an existing G6 Head of Portfolio across all the functions of the portfolio management office, setting up cross organisational ways of working that ensure the successful delivery of the change portfolio.

The successful candidate will demonstrate strong portfolio management implementation and governance, whilst remaining pragmatic and applying proportionality, helping to develop the culture needed to support the directorate and wider portfolio.

The precise division of roles between the two G6s will be defined on interest and experience of the successful candidate, but is likely to include leading the portfolio contract management function, and oversight of the governance and assurance of the portfolio.

We are looking to build our teams presence in the DfT offices in Leeds and Birmingham, and the role will require travel to London to invest the necessary time in building relationships across a number of teams in DfT, DfT Operator and Network Rail.

The G6 will provide leadership and support across Rail Change Portfolio through: The application of Government PPM (Programme and Project Management) practices to a high standard and provide PPM leadership across the wider portfolio Alongside the existing G6 and Deputy Director, act as an internal challenge function for the portfolio, through joining up portfolio components, acting to prevent siloed working and provide independent challenge of delivery plans and design decisions Effectively run the programme's governance arrangements and evolve them to meet the needs of the programme including the Director General chaired transformation board and Level 2 (Director level) governance boards for the Rail Change Portfolio (RCP). Plan and deliver assurance arrangements for the GMPP RST programme and identify and deliver the wider assurance activity needed across the rail change portfolio, including owning the relationship with the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA), the Government Internal Audit Agency (GIAA) and the Department's Centre of Excellence.

Provide leadership to the programme contract management team, including through designing procurement strategies, managing documentation and inflight contractor contract

• ensuring alignment across the portfolio.

Act as a leader across the PMO, the directorate and the wider portfolio, supporting colleagues as appropriate, and being flexible to support any new challenges which may arise.

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.

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