diff --git a/src/pydata_sphinx_theme/assets/styles/sections/_sidebar-primary.scss b/src/pydata_sphinx_theme/assets/styles/sections/_sidebar-primary.scss
index 6bae4e752..30bcc19e6 100644
--- a/src/pydata_sphinx_theme/assets/styles/sections/_sidebar-primary.scss
+++ b/src/pydata_sphinx_theme/assets/styles/sections/_sidebar-primary.scss
@@ -146,22 +146,23 @@
     // If it has children, add a bit more padding to wrap the content to avoid
     // overlapping with the <label>
     &.has-children {
-      > .reference {
+      .reference {
         padding-right: 30px;
       }
     }
   }
   // Navigation item chevrons
   label.toctree-toggle {
-    position: absolute;
-    top: 0;
-    right: 0;
+    flex: 0 0 auto;
+
+    margin-right: -1rem; // align with right edge of the sidebar
+
     height: 30px;
     width: 30px;
 
     cursor: pointer;
 
-    display: flex;
+    display: inline-flex;
     justify-content: center;
     align-items: center;
 
@@ -191,6 +192,12 @@
       right: 0em; // aligning chevron to the right
     }
   }
+
+  .toctree-collapsible-header {
+    display: flex;
+    justify-content: space-between; // sends the link and collapse/expand chevron to opposite sides of the flex box
+    align-items: baseline; // for TOC entries that span two or more lines, ensures that the chevron is aligned with the first line
+  }
 }
 
 /* Between-page links and captions */
@@ -208,7 +215,7 @@ nav.bd-links {
     }
   }
 
-  li > a {
+  li a {
     display: block;
     padding: 0.25rem 0.65rem;
     @include link-sidebar;
@@ -222,13 +229,16 @@ nav.bd-links {
         margin-left: 0.3em;
       }
     }
-  }
 
-  .current {
-    > a {
+    &.current {
       @include link-sidebar-current;
       background-color: transparent;
     }
+
+    &:focus-visible {
+      border-radius: 0.125rem;
+      z-index: 10; // needed so that adjacent UI elements (such as the collapse toggle) don't partially cover the focus ring
+    }
   }
 
   // Title
diff --git a/src/pydata_sphinx_theme/toctree.py b/src/pydata_sphinx_theme/toctree.py
index 629b62e72..b1a9f091c 100644
--- a/src/pydata_sphinx_theme/toctree.py
+++ b/src/pydata_sphinx_theme/toctree.py
@@ -370,6 +370,11 @@ def add_collapse_checkboxes(soup: BeautifulSoup) -> None:
         if not element.find("ul"):
             continue
 
+        header = soup.new_tag("div", attrs={"class": "toctree-collapsible-header"})
+        link = element.find("a")
+        element.insert(0, header)
+        header.insert(0, link)
+
         # Add a class to indicate that this has children.
         element["class"] = classes + ["has-children"]
 
@@ -388,7 +393,7 @@ def add_collapse_checkboxes(soup: BeautifulSoup) -> None:
         if "toctree-l0" in classes:
             # making label cover the whole caption text with css
             label["class"] = "label-parts"
-        element.insert(1, label)
+        header.insert(1, label)
 
         # Add the checkbox that's used to store expanded/collapsed state.
         checkbox = soup.new_tag(