Policy Adviser, Local Growth Plans and Mayoral Engagement and Regional Growth Strategy Adviser

Job summary

About HM Treasury

If you’re interested in making a difference to people’s lives, the Treasury can offer you an exciting opportunity to influence decision making that affects the whole of the UK. Working at the heart of government, we collaborate across government to promote responsible public spending and drive strong and sustainable economic growth.

Our work ranges from protecting customers through the regulation of the financial sector, helping to reduce carbon emissions and creating a greener economy, to promoting British trade around the world and supporting people across the country on jobs, growth and more.

We are part of the Darlington Economic Campus, a cross-government hub bringing people together to tackle key national issues while working closer to the communities we serve.

Job description

These 2 roles are at the heart of the government’s growth mission, working closely with MHCLG, across Whitehall and with local areas to support regional growth. The postholders will join at an exciting time, with regional growth having recently been named by the Chancellor as one of her three ‘big bets’ to deliver growth, with work ongoing both internally and externally to deliver the Fiscal Devolution Roadmap for Autumn and deliver on the commitments in March’s Northern Growth Strategy publication.

These roles offer the successful candidates the opportunity to work on high profile domestic priorities, with keen interest from the Chancellor, No 10 and ministers across Government, and to have a genuine impact on lives across the country. They would suit someone flexible, creative, and persuasive: you will have the opportunity to dip into a wide range of policy fields to bring together disparate work across government departments into a unified strategy and narrative, necessitating the building of strong working relationships in HMT and further afield. Amongst this, there is potential to lead on discrete workstreams, like shaping the strategy on mayoral engagement and delivery of Mayoral Strategic Authority’s local growth plans (Role 1) and efforts to improve regional spend data across Government to support better policy making (Role 2).

Role 1 - Policy Adviser – Local Growth Plans and Mayoral Engagement (LGR)

This role focuses on enabling economic growth and strong public services through local leadership. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to shape their portfolio, based on the key accountabilities listed below:

1. Leading HMT’s engagement with Mayoral Strategic Authorities (MSAs): You will work closely with MHCLG to build and deliver HMT’s engagement strategy with mayors and their officers, including advising on senior and ministerial engagement around fiscal events and for set piece moments throughout the year via working groups with MSAs.
2. Ensuring local government is set up to deliver growth: Working collaboratively with teams across the Treasury, central government and local government, you will guide central government’s approach to supporting Mayoral Strategic Authorities and other local partners to deliver growth. This will include using your relationships with local stakeholders to understand their needs and working across departmental boundaries to ensure central government’s offer addresses these. One example of this is ongoing work with the Northern Growth Strategy team as they design and deliver strategic the Northern Growth Strategy
3. Support on broader policy development: Working collaboratively with teams across Treasury, central and local government to develop policy local growth, including delivery of Local Growth Plans, and providing input on the role of local leaders in policy work across the department.
4. Stakeholder engagement: The postholder will need to build excellent relationships within MHCLG, the Treasury and local government. The successful candidate will need to engage with senior officials, ministers, industry leaders, and external experts on English devolution to inform the Treasury’s position. The postholder will also support external engagement for senior officials and ministers with high quality briefing.
5. Provide Treasury Ministers with high quality advice: This can be a busy branch, especially at fiscal events. You will develop and analyse policy and spending options, drawing together spending and financial issues, economic policy and local governance questions, to work at pace to advise HMT Ministers on a wide range of issues.

Role 2 - Regional Growth Strategy Adviser (HPC)

This role will support on implementing the government’s regional growth strategy across HMT and other departments, and on delivering key spatial interventions like the Northern Growth Corridor and wider Northern Growth Strategy. Responsibilities can be tailored according to development needs and wider team priorities, but could include:

1. Leading on several key policy areas’ interaction with the regional growth strategy (e.g. culture, energy, skills), liaising with the spending teams and representatives from the relevant department, and working with these partners to develop a package of announcements that supports the regional growth strategy and northern growth corridor.
2. Developing a cross-government workstream to deliver better regional spend data. The postholder will assess departmental capability and work with partners in MHCLG to invigorate efforts across departments to deliver better regional tracking of spend, both day-to-day and at spending reviews.
3. Providing Ministers with high quality advice and briefing: This can be a busy branch, especially with the recent focus on regional growth, and at fiscal events. You will develop and analyse policy options across key geographies, drawing together spending and financial issues, economic policy and local governance options, to work at pace and advise HMT Ministers on a wide range of issues affecting regional growth. This could bring together a small package of announcements centred on a specific place to, co-ordinating department-wide input for the consideration of SpAds and ministers.
4. Co-ordinating regional input at fiscal events. This will include leading the department’s regional brief, engaging SPADs and press office to bring together a government-wide product for ministers.
5. Contributing to branch leadership: Alongside your day-to-day responsibilities, you will be expected to contribute to a positive culture in the team that enables everyone to develop to their full potential and deliver to a high standard.

The regional growth strategy is the government’s approach to solving long-lasting geographical divergences in productivity, opportunity, and outcomes. It cuts across almost all domestic policy fields, and the successful candidate will work closely with colleagues covering transport, innovation, business support, culture, defence, and others, and as such this post is a potential springboard for future Grade 7 roles due to their high profile and cross-cutting nature.

Please express a role preference in your application which, should you be successful, will be considered but not guaranteed.

Candidate Drop-In Session

The hiring manager will be running a candidate drop-in session to give you greater insight about the role and HM Treasury, and ask any questions you might have. If you would like to join us, use the link below to join the call at the right time.

Friday 3rd July 2026 @ 11:00 - 11:30Join the meeting here

If you would like to speak to the hiring manager informally prior to the closing date, please contact Jessica.Morris@hmtreasury.gov.uk for the LGR role and Samuel.Lamont@hmtreasury.gov.uk for the HPC role.

Visa sponsorship is not available for this role.

Person specification

Application Stage

Application Form

Applications should consist of a CV including your employment history, and a 750-word personal statement setting out how you meet the shortlisting criteria below. Your CV and employment history won’t be scored. It’s used to give context to your application and support discussions at interview.

The panel will review applications and invite those that best demonstrate evidence of the shortlisting criteria for interview. Please keep this in mind when writing your application.

Please note that only applications submitted through Civil Service Jobs will be accepted.

1. Ability to develop strategy across a range of policy fields, considering the interaction between multiple levels of government.
2. Ability to communicate effectively with senior leaders and break down complicated information.
3. Ability to build good relationships with colleagues from many different teams, departments and external stakeholders – and use these connections to drive goals forward.

Interview Stage

If you are successful at the application stage, you will be invited to interview where you will be assessed against the following criteria:

• Strengths
• Behaviours:
• Communicating and Influencing
• Delivering at Pace
• Making Effective Decisions
• Seeing the Big Picture

Interview Task / Presentation

Prior to your interview, we will contact you about a task / presentation that the panel would like you to deliver as part of the assessment. Further details will be communicated to you nearer the time.

Behaviours

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

• Communicating and Influencing
• Delivering at Pace
• Making Effective Decisions
• Seeing the Big Picture

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £43,090, HM Treasury contributes £12,483 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

• Generous Annual Leave - 25 days (rising to 30 after 5 years), plus public holidays and the King’s birthday.
• Outstanding Pension Scheme - Defined Benefit pension with employer contributions of 28.97%
• Parental Leave Packages - Including 6 months’ occupational pay for maternity/adoption, shared parental leave options.
• Flexible & Hybrid Working - Options include part-time, job-share, compressed hours, flexitime, and hybrid working (where business needs allow).
• Advance Schemes & Discounts - Rental deposit, cycle-to-work, SmartTech, season ticket loans, and access to HM Treasury’s benefits portal for a wide range of discount codes.

You can review HM Treasury’s full offer here.

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.

Candidate Guidance

Please review the candidate guidance for an overview of the Success Profiles and STAR approach, along with top tips for applications and interviews.

Recruitment Timeline

• Closing date: Thursday 9th July 2026
• Shortlisting: From 10th July 2026
• Interviews: w/c 20th July 2026

This timeline is indicative and may be subject to change. We will inform you if there is a substantial change to the recruitment timeline.

If your contact details change at any time during the selection process, please ensure you update your Civil Service Jobs Profile.

Reserve Lists

You will be placed on a reserve list if your application is successful, but we cannot offer you a role immediately. Where more than one location has been advertised, candidates will be posted in merit order by location. You will be asked to provide your location preference on your application form. Please note that a place on the reserve list does not guarantee an offer.

If you are offered a role in your first preferred location and you decline the offer or are unable to take up the post within a reasonable timeframe, you will be removed from the reserve list, other than in exceptional circumstances.

Those on the reserve list may also be approached for similar roles at a lower grade. If you are offered a role at a lower grade and choose to decline, you can remain on the reserve list.

Internal Fraud Database Check

Candidates cannot apply to roles in the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5-year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government.

Successful candidates will be subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database. This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This also applies to those who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences had their employment continued. Any applicant’s details held on the database will be refused employment.

National Security Vetting

Everyone working with government assets must complete Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) checks. Additionally, successful candidates will be subject to National Security Vetting. The level of security vetting required for this role is Counter-Terrorist Check.

To allow for meaningful checks to be carried out, applicants will need to have lived in the UK for at least 3 out of the past 5 years. You will be asked to provide residency information within your application form, and eligibility for national security vetting will be checked once the advert closing date has passed. In certain circumstances, for example if you have been working abroad on a government posting, a lack of residency would not be a bar to security clearance however the Department will need to consider eligibility on a case-by-case basis once the advert closing date has passed.

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).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 : Jessica Morris
• Email : jessica.morris@hmtreasury.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : hrrecruitment@hmtreasury.gov.uk

Further information

Complaints Process: Our recruitment process is underpinned by the principle of appointment based on fair and open competition and appointment on merit, as outlined in the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles. If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with these principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should in the first instance contact HMT by email at: hrrecruitment@hmtreasury.gov.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive, you can contact the Civil Service Commission, which regulates all Civil Service recruitment.

Attachments

466179 Policy Adviser, HPC and LGR teams - Role Profile Opens in new window (pdf, 186kB)