CQC Interim Deputy Director of Business Change

Contracted Hours: Full time 37 hours per week

Contract Type: Secondment / Fixed Term Appointment until 31st March 2027

Location: Home-based, with travel to meetings as required

Closing Date: Friday 29 May 2026 at 11.59pm

Interview Date: TBC via MS Teams

Make a difference

Every role at CQC contributes to our mission. If you’re looking for a short‑term senior leadership role leading business change that offers real impact, visibility, and purpose, this is your opportunity. As Deputy Director of Business Change, you will play a pivotal role in shaping how change is delivered and embedded across the organisation. You’ll lead improvement and change initiatives, ensuring robust frameworks, clear prioritisation, and strong alignment to strategic and statutory priorities. This is a high‑impact role suited to someone who thrives in complex, fast‑paced environments and can bring clarity, pace, and confidence to delivery.

This role has a strong focus on prioritisation, benefits realisation, and embedding best practice, ensuring change delivers tangible outcomes and becomes part of how the organisation operates day‑to‑day. You will be a visible advocate for sharing and embedding best practice. Working closely with fellow Deputy Directors across the function, you will define, maintain, and champion standards for change and improvement, including business change and project delivery approaches, ensuring consistency, quality, and value for money.

Picture this

We are seeking an experienced and motivated leader who can:

• Lead and shape business change and improvement, ensuring robust frameworks, standards, and processes are consistently applied.
• Drive alignment between organisational priorities and change activity, ensuring statutory, governance, and assurance requirements are met.
• Champion benefits realisation, ensuring outcomes are clearly defined, tracked, and embedded into business‑as‑usual.
• Promote a culture of collaboration and learning, encouraging the sharing of best practice and continuous improvement across directorates.

The role

In this short term role, you’ll:

• Provide strategic leadership of business change activity, acting as a bridge between programmes, projects, and operational teams.
• Set clear direction and priorities across a complex change landscape, ensuring cumulative impacts are understood and managed.
• Lead, coach, and empower senior change professionals, building capability and confidence across the organisation.
• Build and sustain strong relationships with senior leaders, delivery partners, and stakeholders to enable successful implementation.

Show us

We will be looking for specific skills, knowledge and experience in your application form:

• Strong experience of portfolio, programme, and project governance in complex or large‑scale organisations.
• Proven ability to influence, challenge, and collaborate with senior leaders in high‑profile and politically sensitive environments.
• Credible senior leadership skills, with a track record of delivering improvement and change at pace while maintaining operational confidence.

How to apply

To apply for this role, please submit a copy of your CV and Supporting Statement (no more than 750-words) via the Recruitment System. Your Supporting Statement should cover the following:

• How your previous experience makes you suitable for this role?
• What strengths will you bring to the role that will have an immediate positive impact?

You will also be required to complete additional role specific questions at the beginning of your application. If you’d like to have an informal chat about the role you can contact Fiona Dolman, Programme Director on Fiona.Dolman@cqc.org.uk. For general enquiries, please email recruitment@cqc.org.uk.

Compliance

Note for internal candidates: This is a secondment/fixed term opportunity. Please read the recruitment and selection policy section on secondments. You must discuss your application with your line manager before applying. To progress your application, you’ll need to provide evidence of your right to work in the UK. Without valid right to work you won’t be eligible for the role. We are unable to offer sponsorship for this role. Some roles may also be subject to a satisfactory DBS check.

Next steps

If you apply, you’ll need to create a profile and complete an online application form. Your application will be completely anonymous. Please see our information for applicants for more details on the process. We contact every applicant to let them know the outcome of their application, so you will hear from us whether or not you are shortlisted.

The Benefits

We offer a wide range of benefits, including:

• Annual leave starting at 27 days per year, rising to 32.5 days with service, plus bank holidays (usually 8 days per year).
• Training and development opportunities.
• Wellbeing initiatives, such as gym discounts and meditation.
• NHS pension scheme, with around 14% employer contribution.
• Discount schemes (including eligibility for a Blue Light card, at a cost of £4.99 and valid for 2 years), reward vouchers, car leasing and more!

Please see our benefits page for the full list.

Equity for all

We know job descriptions can feel intimidating. Research shows they can cause some people to doubt whether they’re a good fit. This happens more often to people from underrepresented groups (e.g. ethnic minority backgrounds). If this role interests you, we encourage you to apply. Your unique perspective, skills, and experience could be exactly what we need.

We want every candidate to feel supported and able to do their best. If you need adjustments to our process, we’ll work with you to remove any barriers. Visit our accessibility page for more on this. If you’d like to chat, please contact recruitment@cqc.org.uk. Please note, if you have previously informed us of adjustments you need for interview or within your role these are not carried over and must be discussed for each individual application you make.

We promote a workplace where fairness, respect and inclusion are a priority. Diverse teams make our work better, help us deliver our mission and make our culture stronger.

Values and vision

We are guided by our core values, which shape our work and our culture.

• Excellence – being a high-performing organisation.
• Caring – treating everyone with dignity and respect.
• Integrity – doing the right thing.
• Teamwork – learning from each other to be the best we can.

We are a disability confident employer and a carer confident employer.