Sir Robert John Devereux, KCB (/ˈdɛvəˌruː/; born 15 January 1957) is a retired senior British civil servant, who served as Permanent Secretary for the Department for Transport from 2007 to 2011,[1] and oversaw a new policy increasing the UK retirement age to 67 at the Department for Work and Pensions from 2011 until his retirement at 61 in January 2018.

[2][3] Devereux was educated at St John's College, Oxford between 1975 and 1978, before studying for a master's degree at the University of Edinburgh.

He became Permanent Secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) on 1 January 2011.

[4] In 2013, it was reported that the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, informed the Prime Minister David Cameron that he was concerned about the "concerted political briefing campaign" against Devereux over failures in the DWP's Universal Credit programme.

He was succeeded by Peter Schofield, at that point the department's Director-General for Finance, in January 2018.