22155 - Deputy Principal Private Secretary to the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice in London

This vacancy is only available to existing Civil Servant employees and employees of accredited non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs). Please review the "Eligibility" section before you apply.

General Information

• Salary: £75,674 - £85,257
• Working Pattern: Full Time
• Location: London
• Closing Date: 25-Sep-2026
• Post Type: Permanent
• Civil Service Grade: Grade 6
• Number of jobs available: 1
• Reserve List: 12 Months

The Role

As Deputy Principal Private Secretary to the Lord Chancellor, you will help deliver the Department’s priorities, working in a fast-paced and exciting environment where strong team working is vital. You will gain invaluable experience at the heart of the Department’s decision-making process, working directly with the Lord Chancellor, Special Advisers, Senior officials across the department and Whitehall, and external stakeholders.

This role, working to the Principal Private Secretary to the Lord Chancellor, will have responsibility for oversight of the Lord Chancellor’s Private Office, working closely with the existing Deputy Principal Private Secretary who has oversight of the Junior Minister offices. You will need to have the personal credibility and experience to build trust and confidence with the Lord Chancellor and the wider Ministerial team, ensuring work that is sent to Ministers is of high quality and that advice, briefings and correspondence on a range of complex and challenging policy and operational issues are clear.

You will need to be an excellent leader and manager, ensuring the Lord Chancellor’s Private Office team have a high standard of pastoral care in demanding roles and that you promote join up across the team and ensure issues are escalated appropriately. Alongside oversight of the Private Office you will lead on the vitally important finance portfolio for the Lord Chancellor, working closely with key teams across the department in the lead up to next year’s Spending Review. In time you should become the key expert in Private Office on relevant issues.

This role demands excellent interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence in order to collaborate in a high-pressured environment with policy, finance, operations and other Private Office colleagues, making sure that the Lord Chancellor and SpAds are looped in on emerging issues in the right way, at the right time. This is a demanding and high-profile role in Private Office, working on critical priorities for the Lord Chancellor and has regular interaction with Number 10. This role therefore requires the ability to work at pace, navigate complicated political dynamics and engage confidently with key officials and special advisers at the centre of Government. You will be a key go between for the Lord Chancellor and the Department and must be comfortable working with colleagues at all grades.

Please note that this role requires working extended hours for which a Private Secretary allowance is payable.

Skills and Experience

Essential:

• Excellent leadership skills developed through leading teams through difficult, complex and fast paced environments.
• Brilliant interpersonal skills, able to harness your relationships to deliver through others.
• Collaborative, empathetic and inspiring team leader, knowing how to effectively work within a team, escalate issues where appropriate and work together with others to deliver work to a high standard, often delivering at pace.
• Strategic thinker, able to understand complex policy and operational challenges, see the bigger picture and navigate the political environment to engage effectively with spads and ministers.
• Effective communicator, able to distil difficult and complex messages into simple and clear recommendations, communicating in a straightforward and engaging manner, sharing information with colleagues as appropriate and taking into account different opinions and views.
• Experience of building effective professional relationships with others to identify risks and resolve issues efficiently.
• Ability to involve a diverse range of colleagues, stakeholders and delivery partners in developing suggestions for improvements and provide an effective channel of communication for the Minister with other private offices, the Department, the rest of Whitehall, Parliament and the public.
• Engaging, trustworthy and unafraid to challenge peers and senior colleagues.

Desirable:

• Knowledge of the challenges and priorities across relevant policy and ops issues would be advantageous to this role but not essential.

Behaviours assessed:

• Leadership
• Communicating and Influencing
• Delivering at Pace
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Working Together

How to apply:

Please provide a short CV and a personal statement of 750 words setting out how your skills and experience meet the essential criteria for the role. If successful at the sift stage, you will be invited to interview and you may be invited to a fireside chat with the Lord Chancellor.

As a Disability Confident employer, the MoJ offers an interview to any disabled applicant who indicates they would like to be considered for an interview as a disabled applicant and meets the minimum criteria required for the role.

If you have any queries about the role, or you wish to discuss the role prior to applying, please contact James Wrigley (james.wrigley@justice.gov.uk).

MoJ is committed to having inclusive and accessible recruitment. This includes by offering and implementing reasonable adjustments to enable disabled applicants to be considered for a job on an equal basis with non-disabled applicants.

For more information on applying for a role as a candidate with a disability or long-term condition, please watch our animated videos.