Policy Officer

Job summary

We are recruiting two Policy Officer roles within the Regulation and Social Care Directorate. One post is based within the Corporate Safeguarding Team, and the other within the Policy Team.

Led by the National Director, Regulation and Social Care, the Directorate is responsible for developing policy and guidance for the inspection of children’s social care services and the regulation of children’s social care and early years provision. Our work ensures that regulation and inspection are effective, proportionate, and make a positive difference to the lives of children, young people and adult service users.

Both roles offer the opportunity to contribute to high‑profile regulatory and inspection frameworks that protect and promote children and young people’s safety.

Post 1: Policy Role – Corporate Safeguarding Team

The team promotes positive safeguarding practice across Ofsted by developing and delivering a range of activities designed to identify organisational learning and strengthen practice. The team works closely with colleagues across the Directorate, regions and all remits to ensure learning from critical incidents is identified and that actions taken in response are robust, timely and effective.

Candidates applying for this post must demonstrate:

• A well‑developed understanding of children’s safeguarding policy and practice
• Experience of successfully supporting or delivering project work
• The ability to work collaboratively across teams and remits

This experience may have been gained through, for example, working within a Local Safeguarding Children Partnership or similar safeguarding environment.

A good working knowledge of policy and inspection framework development is also required, ideally within the Early Years or Social Care remits.

Post 2: Policy Role – Policy Team

This post is based within the Policy Team, contributing to the development of regulatory and inspection policies and frameworks for children’s social care and early years provision. The role involves working closely with internal and external stakeholders to ensure that policies are evidence‑led, clearly articulated and support high‑quality inspection and regulation.

Candidates should demonstrate:

• Experience or strong interest in policy development, particularly within a regulatory or inspection context
• An understanding of children’s social care and/or early years provision
• The ability to analyse evidence, contribute to policy development, and communicate effectively with a range of stakeholders

Civil Service Judgement Test to be completed by 5pm on 29 April 2026.

Before submitting your application, you will be required to complete a judgement test, which you must pass in order to proceed.

Job description

Please refer to the job specification for further information on the job description.

Person specification

Please refer to the job specification for further information.

Qualifications

Educated to degree level or equivalent (desirable)

Behaviours

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

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Making Effective Decisions
• Working Together
• Managing a Quality Service
• Delivering at Pace

Technical skills

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

• Proven track record of producing high quality work to tight timescales, including providing effective administrative support to meetings and policy development.
• Experience of building positive and effective relationships and credibility with internal and external stakeholders and team members
• Understanding and successful application of strong IT skills, including use of the Microsoft Office suite, and the ability to learn new programs quickly.
• Good knowledge of the social care and/or early years remits, and of the policies which underpin our work.
• Proven written and verbal communication skills.

We only ask for evidence of these technical skills on your application form:

• Proven track record of producing high quality work to tight timescales, including providing effective administrative support to meetings and policy development.
• Experience of building positive and effective relationships and credibility with internal and external stakeholders and team members
• Understanding and successful application of strong IT skills, including use of the Microsoft Office suite, and the ability to learn new programs quickly.
• Good knowledge of the social care and/or early years remits, and of the policies which underpin our work.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £37,524, Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills contributes £10,870 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Full details of the benefits available can be found in our Ofsted Offer brochure.

Ofsted is devoted to equality, diversity and inclusion. Within our Ofsted Strategy 2023-2027 we have stated that we will improve the representation of under-represented groups across the organisation and publish our progress on this annually. We are always looking to expand on our diverse workforce by recruiting candidates from varied backgrounds and differing experiences. We are proud to be a Disability Confident – Leader, we continually engage with our 5 staff networks for protected characteristics, and highlight the work of our Equalities,Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Group. We ensure all candidates are treated with fair and open competition, with all appointments being made on merit and we use our Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) to provide assurance to all candidates of this.

Ofsted is committed to maintaining employee health and wellbeing, whether it is physically, emotionally, financially or socially, and offers a range of benefits to support employees in this. Such benefits include the option to join the Civil Service Pension Scheme, professional and personal development opportunities, 32.5 annual leave days per annum (plus eight days public holiday) and access to counselling and advisory services.

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, Experience and Technical skills.

Application and shortlisting:

The selection panel will assess your application based on your evidence you have provided against the essential/desirable criteria as set out in the job specification.

Use the STAR model (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to present your evidence.

You will also be asked to provide information within the “Employer/Activity History” section of the application form. This information is equivalent to the information you would provide on a CV setting out your career history (this may be used in the sifting process).

If we receive a high number of applications, an initial sift will be conducted based on the following lead criterions:

• Proven track record of producing high quality work to tight timescales, including providing effective administrative support to meetings and policy development.
• Experience of building positive and effective relationships and credibility with internal and external stakeholders and team members.

Applicants who meet this initial eligibility criterions will be invited to progress to the next stage of the selection process. If required, a further full sift will be undertaken, where all applications that passed the initial sift will be assessed against the complete set of essential criteria outlined in the job description.

Assessment and interview:

Candidates who pass the benchmark at the shortlist stage will be invited to an assessment and interview where you will be assessed against a mixture of the Civil Service behaviours and on the technical/experience skills as detailed in the job specification.

Assessment and interviews will be held during the week commencing 25 May 2026 at either at one of the Ofsted offices, as stated in the advert, or remotely via Microsoft Teams.

Details of the interview format and assessment will be provided closer to the interview date.

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.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 : People Services Delivery Team
• Email : jobs@ofsted.gov.uk
• Telephone : 03000 131 487

Recruitment team

• Email : jobs@ofsted.gov.uk

Further information

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles, and you wish to make a complaint, you should email Ofsted recruitment at jobs@ofsted.gov.uk in the first instance. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission at: https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/recrutiment

Attachments

Job specification - Policy Officer - SC and Regulation Opens in new window (pdf, 196kB)