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Context and challenges for Senior Civil Service roles in digital and data

A Senior Civil Service job in digital and data can vary depending on the context and challenges in your organisation.

Each contextual challenge has one of 4 levels reflecting how challenging it is: 1 being the most simple, and 4 being the most challenging.

You can use these contextual challenge levels to:

  • identify the level of potential impact or challenge that a specific Senior Civil Service role has
  • assess what job grade might be appropriate for a specific role

Not all contextual challenges are relevant for all digital and data roles.

Making digital and data decisions

Digital and data leaders are involved in decision making with different levels of impact.

Levels of digital and data decisions that leaders make
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4


Protecting data

Digital and data leaders need to ensure data is appropriately protected based on the volume of data, type of data, and the impact of this data being compromised.

Levels of impact that could result from data being compromised
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4


Protecting systems

Digital and data leaders are required to appropriately protect against different levels of impact caused by system failure or a system being compromised.

Levels of impact that could be caused by system failure or compromise
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4


Sharing data and systems

How widely technology and data is shared across different groups in your organisation can affect the challenges of your role.

Levels of data and system sharing by an organisation
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4


Enabling digital and data transformation

Digital transformation includes creating common platforms, shared technical and data infrastructure, governance, processes and ways of working.

Levels of digital and data transformation
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4


Challenges at different sizes

The size of organisation, budget and number of people that a digital and data leader has responsibility for will vary.

Each size comes with different challenges that affect what you need to do to be effective.

Challenges at different sizes of organisation, people responsibility and budget
Small Medium Large
Organisation size

Up to 1000 people.

Challenges:

  • multitasking across several roles
  • more exposure

Up to 15,000 people.

Challenges:

  • more likely for priorities to change
  • more fluid responsibilities

Up to 80,000 people or more.

Challenges:

  • broader focus or specialisation
  • more hierarchy
People responsibility

Up to 50 people.

Challenges:

  • risk of getting too involved in specific problems
  • learning to trust others to make decisions

Up to 200 people.

Challenges:

  • risk of relying on a narrow set of relationships
  • potential for people to ‘burnout’

Up to 500 people or more.

Challenges:

  • more distant from your people
  • hard to know what is really going on
Budget responsibility

Up to £5 million.

Challenges:

  • more precarious
  • dependent on others for money

Up to £50 million.

Challenges:

  • difficult to adapt to changing budget priorities
  • not enough budget to either bring in enough specialist skills or fully outsource

Up to £5 billion or more.

Challenges:

  • higher number of competing priorities
  • higher risk