How can I explain a demotion in a potential interview?

[JamieNotJames]

I'm currently job hunting.
A couple of years back I requested a step down in role and responsibility due to various reasons. Reasons mainly being unable to cope with workload / unachievable expectations of boss. Boss micro managing to a point that no matter what I did it was wrong and it was beginning to affect my mental health and felt I was letting my team down.
Also my kids were little and I was spending too much of my evenings and weekends working and so re-evaluated my priorities.

How can I explain this step down in position in a potential interview without sounding that I can't handle pressure.

The jobs I'm applying are at my current level with no people management.

Do you even need to explain it? They probably won't even ask anything that remotely leads to you having to explain it.

And if they do ... just say you prioritised your home life for a while

I would go with the kid thing and say now they are older and self-sufficient you really want to get your career back on track and regain your previous levels of responsibilities.

Depends if this applies, but a lot of people go into a management role because they were good at their job and then find all their time is taken spent on management and they miss the old work - for example they’re a lawyer and great at the legal work, so get promoted to a position where they’re supervising/managing others, then find they miss doing purely legal work. If that potentially applies to you then you could say you’d understood the role would be a spread of x work and management, but it turned out to be 90% management and that just isn’t where your passion lies.

I've done loads of interviews and I don't think I've ever had to talk through my CV in that way. Most are done on competency based questions now, e.g., how would you handle this situation, or tell me your experience of doing xx.

This. It’s the perfect excuse, and also true.

Why would you even need to disclose this specifically? I wouldn't even necessarily put it on your CV - if you worked at company x for 5 years, 2 in the higher role and 3 in the lower, I'd just make the job referenced to the later role without specifying the change.

If you have to include it for some reason, how obvious is the lower level? I mean, you can be Head of The World's Smallest and Least Important Team and the next job is Junior Member Of the Most Important and Highly Qualified Team and the job titles might be lesser but anyone in the know would know that the second job is the same/better than the first.

If it's somethign like ranked roles in military or NHS or something, then sure, if asked, just say that you needed time tfor caring responsibilities and requested a role with less responsibility blah blah.

Exactly
Just be your best self.
If they like you , they'll want you regardless.
And if they don't it won't matter.

Why would you need to explain it? Is it on your CV as a demotion?

I echo PP and say that you spent time with your children when they were young but now you are back to your previous level of responsibility.

That isn't a demotion, a demotion suggests you were stepped down into a different post because of your capability. What actually happened is that you made a decision that at that point in your life it wasn't the right role for you. I have been seconded for the last year into a HoS role and decided not to apply for the permanent position because my work life balance was completely out of whack and I will be stepping down into my substantive role of service manager. When I come to apply for another role if asked will just explain I wanted a better work life balance.