Diary Manager and Assistant Private Secretary

Job summary

At DSIT we’re all about improving people’s lives by maximising the potential of science & technology.

We accelerate innovation, investment and productivity through world-class science, research and development.

We use technology for good by ensuring new and existing technologies are safely developed and deployed across the UK, with the benefits more widely shared.

We are driving forward a modern digital government which gives citizens a more satisfying experience and their time back.

We do all this to enable the Government’s 5 national missions: kickstarting economic growth, making Britain a clean energy superpower, taking back our streets, breaking down barriers to opportunity and building an NHS fit for the future.

Above all, we focus on improving people’s lives. Whether it’s researching new treatments for disease, developing better batteries, reducing burdens through better public services, keeping children safe online, and much more, outcomes for citizens are at the heart of what we do.

Our Inclusive Environment

We offer flexible working benefits, employee well-being support and a great pension. We are enormously proud to be a Disability Confident Leader employer. We support candidates with adjustments throughout our recruitment process. Information about disability confidence and just some examples of the adjustments that you can request can be found in the reasonable adjustment section below.

Find Out More

We regularly run events where you can find out more about the department and tips for the application and interview process. You can sign up for upcoming events here: https://forms.office.com/e/Jae3B4w7xm

You can also follow our LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/dsitcareers/

Job description

We are looking for talented individuals with a passion for working with others to join the Special Advisers’ and Ministerial Private Office team. This role offers an exciting opportunity to work at the very heart of the Department and gain invaluable experience of how Ministers, Special Advisers, Parliament and a large government department operate. It also provides the opportunity to work across government departments and gain insight into the inner workings of Government.

This role sits at the centre of a fast-paced political and ministerial environment, supporting Ministers, Special Advisers, senior officials, Parliamentarians and external stakeholders to help drive delivery of the Government’s priorities. You will provide vital support to the Private Office, acting as the interface between your principals, the Department and the wider Government.

The role is varied, challenging and rewarding. You will work in a high-profile environment where priorities can change quickly, requiring excellent judgement, flexibility and the ability to remain calm under pressure. You will form strong working relationships with your principal or principals and work closely with colleagues across Private Offices, senior civil servants and external stakeholders to ensure the effective management of diaries, meetings, visits and competing priorities.

As Diary Manager, you will play a critical role in ensuring the smooth operation of the office, enabling senior decision-makers to use their time effectively and strategically. Depending on the role, you may support a Departmental Minister or manage complex and fast-moving diaries for multiple Special Advisers. You will proactively coordinate meetings, visits, events and urgent requests, often at short notice, ensuring priorities are aligned with ministerial and departmental objectives.

You will work closely with Private Secretaries and wider teams to ensure meetings are well prepared, agendas and briefing materials are coordinated, and logistical arrangements are delivered effectively. The role also offers the opportunity to build strong relationships across the Department, No.10, other Government departments and external organisations.

This is an exciting opportunity for a highly organised, proactive and resilient individual who thrives under pressure and enjoys working at the centre of Government. You will be part of a collaborative team with a strong culture of supporting one another and contributing to making the office an excellent place to work.

There may also be opportunities to gain experience managing elements of a policy portfolio, supporting parliamentary engagement, commissioning requests and working closely with Ministers’ and Special Advisers’ offices to support decision-making and delivery.

Person specification

Key responsibilities:

• Manage complex and fast-moving diaries, ensuring priorities are effectively coordinated and delivered.
• Coordinate meetings, visits and engagements, including briefing, logistics and follow-up actions.
• Act as a key point of contact for internal and external stakeholders, building strong working relationships across government.
• Support the smooth running of the Private Office, including handling sensitive information with discretion and professionalism.
• Work closely with colleagues to respond to changing priorities and ensure effective use of your principal’s time.
• Be part of an out-of-hours rota.

Essential criteria:

• Excellent organisational skills, with the ability to prioritise effectively in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Good judgement and the ability to remain calm under pressure.
• A proactive and adaptable approach to work.
• Strong interpersonal and teamworking skills, with the ability to build effective working relationships quickly.

Desirable criteria:

• Experience managing a busy senior diary.
• Experience working in a Private Office, government or a similarly fast-paced environment.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Delivering at Pace
• Working Together
• Seeing the Big Picture

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £34,150, Department for Science, Innovation & Technology contributes £9,893 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology offers a competitive mix of benefits including:

• A culture of flexible working, such as job sharing, homeworking and compressed hours.
• Automatic enrolment into the Civil Service Pension Scheme, with an employer contribution of 28.97%.
• A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by 1 day per year up to a maximum of 30.
• An extensive range of learning & professional development opportunities, which all staff are actively encouraged to pursue.
• Access to a range of retail, travel and lifestyle employee discounts.

Office attendance

The Department operates a discretionary hybrid working policy, which provides for a combination of working hours from your place of work and from your home in the UK. The current expectation for staff is to attend the office or non-home-based location for 40-60% of the time over the accounting period.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths and Experience.

After submission of the first stage of your application you will be invited to complete a Civil Service Judgement Test. If you successfully pass the test, you will be invited to complete the final stage of the application.

Please complete the online tests as soon as possible (within 24-48 hours is recommended), the closing date for the tests is 23:55pm on 23/06/2026. If you fail to complete the online test before the deadline your application will be withdrawn. Guidance for the test will be available when you are invited to take the test. The tests are administered online and accessed via the CS Jobs website.

Please note: Our online test supplier will be performing scheduled maintenance between midday and 1 p.m. on 21/06/2026. You will be unable to access tests during this period.

If you are in the middle of a test when the maintenance begins, your progress will be paused. You will be able to resume your test from where you left off via your application centre once the downtime has ended. Please note that you will not be able to launch any new tests while the system is offline.

As part of the application process, you will be asked to submit a CV and personal statement.

Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.

Please use your personal statement (in no more than 500 words) to address the essential criteria listed for this role.

Please note - the CV incorporated into the application form is for information purposes only and will not be scored.

Applications will be sifted on personal statement.

The interview will consist of behaviour and strength-based questions.

Sift and interview dates

Sift and interview dates to be confirmed.

Further Information

This role is full time only. Applicants who wish to work an alternative pattern are welcome to apply however your preferred working pattern may not be available and you should discuss this with the vacancy holder before applying.

Reasonable Adjustment

We are proud to be a disability confident leader and we welcome applications from disabled candidates and candidates with long-term conditions.

Information about the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) and some examples of adjustments that we offer to disabled candidates and candidates with long-term health conditions during our recruitment process can be found in our DSIT Candidate Guidance. A DSIT Plain Text Version of the guidance is also available.

We encourage candidates to discuss their adjustment needs by emailing the job contact which can be found under the contact point for applicants' section.

If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section.

If successful and transferring from another Government Department a criminal record check may be carried out.

New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band.

A location-based reserve list of successful candidates will be kept for 12 months. Should another role become available within that period you may be offered this position.

Candidates who meet the minimum benchmark may be placed on a Reserve List for consideration for similar roles, including those at a lower grade. Candidates who narrowly miss the benchmark and are not placed on the Reserve List may still be considered for an offer in a similar role at a lower grade.

Please note terms and conditions are attached. Please take time to read the document to determine how these may affect you.

Any move to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare; for further information visit the Childcare Choices website.

DSIT does not normally offer full home working (i.e., working at home); but we do offer a variety of flexible working options (including occasionally working from home).

DSIT cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign.

DSIT holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify.

In order to process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring Service on your behalf.

However, we recognise in exceptional circumstances some candidates will want to send their completed forms direct. If you will be doing this, please advise Government Recruitment Service of your intention by emailing Pre-EmploymentChecks.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk stating the job reference number in the subject heading.

Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant’s details held on the IFD will be refused employment.

A candidate is not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5-year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government.

Feedback

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Max Bancroft
• Email : max.bancroft@dsit.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : dsitresourcing.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Further information

Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. If you feel that your application has not been treated in accordance with the recruitment principles, and wish to make a complaint, then you should contact in the first instance DSITrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk . If you are not satisfied with the response that you receive, then you can contact the Civil Service Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their web pages: Click here to visit Civil Service Commission/Complaints.

Attachments

DSIT T&Cs v1.2 Opens in new window (docx, 179kB)