NHS England supports NHS organisation to deliver better outcomes for patients and communities, working to get the best possible value for taxpayers, and driving improvement across the NHS. The national level of NHS England works through seven regional teams that provide strategic leadership and oversight of their regional health system. The North East & Yorkshire Region is one of these teams and works to ensure that the NHS organisations within their geography are high performing, sustainable and delivering reform in line with the requirements of the 10 Year Health Plan. Regional teams are also accountable for regional health system performance – covering quality, access, delivery of national standards, finance, productivity, strategy and improving population health.
The Regional Director for Workforce Training and Education will play a vital leadership role in the wider health and care system in NEY, as well as working, as required, alongside the national workforce training and education function.
Please note: the NEY Region is completing an organisational restructure and this role will eventually be renamed as the Director of People and Culture in line with the rest of the Directorate.
The Director will be accountable for delivery of agreed large scale regional workforce, education and development priorities for health and care in their region, including driving new initiatives, improvements and best practice to support the overall aims of the ICBs and Providers as appropriate.
The postholder will work closely with the Regional Director to ensure that there is accountability and governance in place in relation to senior leadership across the NEY system. They will also work in a multi-disciplinary team approach with the wider Executive Team members.
The Director will be accountable for delivery of a national workforce training and education priority as agreed with the Chief Workforce Training and Education Officer.
NHS England has a wide range of statutory functions, responsibilities and regulatory powers. These are focused on supporting the wider NHS to deliver high quality care, as well as doing those things that are best done once for the whole NHS.
Our staff bring expertise across clinical, operational, commissioning, technology, data science, cyber security, software engineering, education, and commercial specialisms — enabling us to design and deliver high-quality NHS services.
In March 2025, the Government announced that NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care will increasingly merge functions, ultimately leading to NHS England being fully integrated into the department.
If you currently work within the NHS and if successful at interview, we will initiate an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR). This retrieves key data from your current or previous NHS employer to support onboarding, including competency status, Continuous Service Dates (CSD), and annual leave entitlement. You may opt out at any stage of the process.
Colleagues with a contractual office base are expected to spend, on average, at least 40% of their time working in our offices.
Staff recruited from outside the NHS will usually be appointed at the bottom of the pay band.
We cannot offer visa sponsorship for any vacancies.
The postholder will need to have highly developed specialist professional and leadership skills to ensure the level of partnership and collaboration across NHSE and wider stakeholder groups that will achieve success in the role. This leader will need to have high level strategic expertise to encompass delivery against key national strategies, such as the 10 Year Workforce Plan, EDI Improvement Plan, Framework 15, Future of HR & OD and the People Promise, as well as any additional mandates for workforce, education and training from government.
The principal task of this role will be to provide impactful leadership of the full workforce remit across the region. The postholder would do this by:
Securing strong and impactful relationships with each ICB, providers’ workforce leaders and partner organisations in workforce, education and training; Trade Unions and staff networks.
Leading an integrated workforce education and training function for the region.
Demonstrating a clear commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, leading by example.
Accountability to ensure systems to deliver improvements in the capacity and capability of the workforce across the region to meet the needs of the population served
Leading on a wide range of new initiatives to deliver improvements across all workforce training and education outcomes as defined and measured by the national workforce, training and education function.
For an informal discussion, please contact
[email protected].
You can find further details about the role, including key responsibilities and accountabilities, alongside the person specification in the attached Job Description and other supporting documents.
