Deputy Director - Turnaround

This advert is for current internal applicants only. External applications will be closed.

Grade E3: £75,183 per annum
Contracted Hours: Full-time 37 hours per week
Contract Type: Secondment opportunity for up to 12 Months to drive turnaround activity across priority areas.
Location: Homebased, with travel as required
Closing Date: Thursday 13 August 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 role with purpose at a pivotal moment for the organisation, you've found it.

As Deputy Director - Turnaround, you will play a critical role in helping CQC deliver its improvement and recovery objectives. Working at the centre of our turnaround programme, you'll lead high-priority interventions that strengthen performance, reduce organisational risk and help build a more effective, sustainable organisation for the future.

This is an exciting opportunity to work across CQC's most significant improvement priorities, partnering with senior leaders to ensure plans are translated into tangible outcomes and lasting change.

Picture this

• You are leading some of CQC's most important turnaround activity, bringing people together across teams and functions to focus on the priorities that matter most.
• Working closely with Directors, Deputy Directors and senior stakeholders, you provide leadership, challenge and support to ensure improvement plans are deliverable, risks are actively managed and progress remains on track.
• In your first year you might have:
• Led a major turnaround initiative that successfully stabilised performance in a priority area, delivering measurable improvements against agreed objectives.
• Established clear governance, reporting and accountability arrangements that gave Executive Team and Board colleagues confidence in the organisation's recovery plans.
• Worked across multiple directorates to align activity, remove barriers to delivery and create a stronger focus on performance and outcomes.
• Developed and implemented key organisational improvement interventions that helped embed new ways of working and support long-term sustainable change.
  

The role

• Reporting directly to CQC’s Director of Finance, Commercial, Workplace & Performance, you will:
• Lead a defined portfolio of turnaround activity, ensuring delivery remains focused on the organisation's highest priorities.
• Provide leadership across multidisciplinary teams and stakeholders to drive improvement and deliver agreed outcomes.
• Develop, shape and oversee turnaround plans and interventions, ensuring they are practical, deliverable and focused on measurable impact.
• Establish effective governance, reporting and assurance arrangements that provide transparency and confidence in delivery.
• Identify, assess and manage risks and dependencies, ensuring issues are addressed quickly and escalated where appropriate.
• Provide high-quality reporting and updates to Executive Team, Board and governance forums on progress, performance and risks.
• Work across organisational boundaries to align priorities, build engagement and ensure successful implementation of improvement activity.
• Support the development of a culture focused on accountability, delivery, continuous improvement and outcomes.

Show us

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

Strategic leadership and turnaround delivery
A proven track record of successfully leading complex change, turnaround, recovery or organisational improvement activity in a large, complex environment. You'll be able to establish priorities, maintain focus and deliver outcomes in challenging circumstances.

Stakeholder engagement and influence
Exceptional relationship-building and influencing skills, with experience of working closely with senior leaders to gain buy-in, navigate complexity and deliver results through others.

Governance, risk and performance management
Experience of establishing robust governance, reporting and assurance arrangements, alongside strong skills in managing performance, risks, issues and dependencies across complex programmes of work.

Change and organisational improvement
Experience designing and implementing improvement interventions that drive performance, strengthen ways of working and support sustainable organisational change. You'll be comfortable operating in ambiguity and bringing clarity, structure and direction to complex challenges.
Apply today and be part of CQC’s work to strengthen health and care, making a real difference for people across England.

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?

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. 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.

You can read the full details of the role in the Job Description

If you’d like to have an informal chat about the role you can contact – Evan Haselwood, Director of Finance, Commercial, Workplace & Performance (FCWP); Evan.haselwood@cqc.org.uk. For general enquiries, please email recruitment@cqc.org.uk.

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. See our ED&I page for more about this.
We welcome applications from everyone, and colleagues can find support and community among our many employee networks. This includes people of any:

• Age
• Sex
• Gender identity or expression
• Sexual orientation
• Religion or belief
• Ethnicity
• Disability

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.

A Note on AI

AI tools can be great for research and refining ideas, but we want to learn about you. If you use AI or Chatbots to help you with your application, keep these points in mind:

• AI can support research, structuring and refining your writing, but your application must reflect your real skills and experience.
• Spell-checking and condensing word counts are great ways to use AI effectively.
• Do not copy and paste AI generated answers. These will not help you stand out; remember we want to hear about your skills and experience.
• Providing false and insincere examples goes against our core values of honesty and integrity and may lead to your application being withdrawn or termination of your employment.