Quantum Policy Advisor - Skills and Industrial Policy

Job summary

DSIT

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

Quantum technologies are set to transform how we solve some of society’s biggest challenges - from securing communications and accelerating drug discovery to revolutionising navigation and sensing. As one of six priority frontier technologies in the UK’s Industrial Strategy, quantum is central to the government’s ambition to drive national renewal through innovation, economic resilience, and global scientific leadership. The Office for Quantum sets the overall strategy, drives the policy outcomes, and oversees the collaborative delivery of our landmark National Quantum Technologies Programme, in close partnership with other government departments, delivery bodies, and industry.

You will play a leading role in designing and delivering policy as part of our National Quantum Technology Programme. The next phase of the programme, which was announced as part of a £2bn package, is focused on delivering clear outcomes and commitments: accelerating development, supporting adoption and deployment, strengthening commercialisation pathways, and helping more UK quantum companies and capabilities scale into real-world use.

As the National Quantum Technologies Programme scales, with a growing focus on implementation and delivery, we are expanding the team to bring in two additional Policy Advisors at SEO level.

Quantum Industrial Policy Advisor:

The Quantum Industrial Policy Advisor role will focus on tackling complex policy questions centred around how we deliver our objectives around establishing the UK as a world leader in quantum computing and quantum technologies more broadly, including which capabilities we seek to anchor in the UK, how we best strike a balance between industrial scaling and fostering the next generation of innovation and R&D, and understanding which wider Government enablers can be used to positively impact the quantum sector. The role will draw upon technical information, quantitative analysis, and expertise from a broad range of experts and will involve working with both programme delivery partners and cross-government stakeholders.

Quantum Skills and Infrastructure Policy Advisor:

The Quantum Skills and Infrastructure Policy Advisor role will primarily focus on leading the development and implementation of policy interventions to support the growth of the UK quantum skills base, with a strong emphasis on delivering on the recommendations of the June 2025 UK Quantum Skills Taskforce Report. This will include:

• Leading work with analysts, UKRI, relevant technology leads within the Office for Quantum Domestic & Growth Team, and sector stakeholders (such as UK Quantum) to develop a systematic understanding of current and likely future workforce requirements for the UK quantum sector and current gaps.

• Leading engagement with key stakeholders such as universities and learned societies to ensure that skills offerings meet industry and academic workforce requirements at all levels (e.g., apprenticeships, undergraduate and masters' degrees, PhDs, etc.). This includes leading policy support for the Centre for Quantum Commercialisation Skills.

• Ensuring that cross-government skills initiatives such as TechFirst, Diversity in Tech, and the global talent visa scheme deliver on the requirements of the quantum sector.

A key part of this role will be ensuring that skills requirements are considered across all Office for Quantum policy initiatives, developing a clear strategy for delivering the workforce required to drive our Modern Industrial Strategy objectives for the UK quantum sector.

Alongside this, you will also support the Quantum Networking and Infrastructure Lead in identifying and delivering the enabling infrastructure required to drive the growth of promising UK quantum company growth and anchor greater investment from international companies in the UK. This will include consideration of infrastructure across the development cycle, from early research facilities, to prototyping, piloting, and commercial manufacturing. Your role will be focused on:

• Leading development of a clear mapping of regional quantum strengths and industry clusters, to inform infrastructure funding priorities.

• Ensuring that funded quantum infrastructure supports a workforce pipeline for relevant local industry.

• Pro-actively identifying potential gaps in the provision of technicians and other critical staff at key UK quantum facilities, and leading engagement with relevant stakeholders to develop a strategy to resolve this.

We are looking for candidates who are confident communicators and project leaders, able to manage their time across multiple priorities, work with seniors to manage a smooth decision-making process, deliver concise written and verbal briefing, and work effectively across organisational boundaries. Successful candidates should enjoy being creative in developing proposals to tackle complex and multi-faceted policy problems and confident in putting forward and defending their ideas, even where there is a more limited or ambiguous evidence base, whilst also being open to constructive challenge.

These roles do not require a specific background or expertise in quantum. These are high-impact roles ideal for someone who thrives on complexity, collaboration, and shaping national priorities. You’ll work on policy issues at the intersection of technology, investment, sovereignty, and security, helping the team to navigate the key choices and trade-offs that shape the future of the UK and global quantum ecosystem. We welcome applications from individuals of all personal and professional backgrounds to play a key part in our team.

Person specification

Key Responsibilities

1. Developing policy proposals: Working with complex, and often incomplete, information and analysis and conflicting/competing stakeholder views to develop well-informed policy proposals that clear deliver on strategic objectives.

2. Driving delivery: Leading projects effectively and confidently and driving cross-government and cross-sector collaboration to push forward implementation of policy initiatives and deliver tangible progress against strategic objectives.

3. Briefing seniors: Producing concise senior official and Ministerial briefings and advice using plain language, drawing upon strong written communication skills to present a clear rationale for policy proposals and enable seniors to make timely decisions.

4. Cross-government collaboration: Building relationships and influence across the Office for Quantum, DSIT, wider government and delivery partners – especially UKRI, HMT, and the wider science and innovation community – to manage interdependencies, coordinate actions, resolve blockers and support joined-up delivery.

5. External engagement: Account managing the team’s relationships with a set of companies, sharing knowledge across the team and wider Government to ensure a strong understanding of needs of the UK quantum sector that feeds into policy design and delivery.

Essential criteria

• Good judgement and problem-solving skills, with the ability to think creatively in developing proposals to tackle multi-faceted policy challenges, bring structure to ambiguity, prioritise effectively, and support decision-making in a complex policy and delivery environment.

• Proven ability to build and maintain effective working relationships across teams and organisational boundaries, and to work collaboratively with a wide range of stakeholders to support policy development and delivery.

• Experience effectively engaging with and influencing external stakeholders to support shared objectives and successful delivery.

• Strong verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to present complex information in an accessible way for senior stakeholders, quickly develop high-quality advice to inform decision-making, and a strong understanding of how external messaging can best support policy objectives.

• Confidence in interpreting complex and sometimes incomplete data, drawing out strategic insights, and linking analysis to broader policy and delivery objectives to enable informed decision-making.

• A proactive and resilient approach, with the ability to take ownership, adapt to changing priorities, and maintain momentum on priority delivery activity.

• Strong organisational skills, with the ability to manage multiple strands of work at once, maintain grip on detail, and deliver high-quality outputs at pace in a fast-moving environment.

Desirable criteria

• Experience in education, industrial, investment, research infrastructure, and/or national security policy.

• Experience in frontier technology policy.

• An interest in science and technology.

Behaviours

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

• Making Effective Decisions
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £44,620, Department for Science, Innovation & Technology contributes £12,926 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).

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.
• A hybrid office/home based working model where staff will spend a norm of 40-60% of their time in the office (minimum of 40%) over a month with flex dependent on balancing business and individual need.

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.

As part of the application process, you will be asked to complete a CV, personal statement and a number of behavioural statements.

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 set out how you meet the Essential Criteria for these roles, not the Behaviours listed.

Your personal statement should provide an evidenced demonstration of how you meet each of the Essential Criteria and what outcomes you achieved. We are particularly interested in how you would be able to effectively adapt your approach to tackle novel challenges.

Applications will be sifted on behavioural statements, CV, and personal statement.

In the event of a large number of applicants, applications will be sifted on the lead behaviour statement - Making Effective Decisions, only.

Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift, or progressed straight to assessment/interview.

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

Interviewees will be asked to deliver a presentation; further details will be provided nearer the time.

To help you to prepare for your interview, for this campaign behaviour questions will be shared in advance of interview if you are successful at sift stage. These questions should be treated as confidential and should not be shared.

The interview panel may ask you other questions which will not be shared with you in advance, including any follow-up questions, and other elements listed in the job advert, for example, experience, abilities, strengths and technical skills. The panel will be looking for examples of your own work, experience, and ability so do try and avoid using AI written answers without any human oversight.

Sift and interview dates

Sift and interview dates to be confirmed.

Further Information

For further information on National Security Vetting please visit the Demystifying Vetting website.

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 /Disclosure Scotland 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.

For further information on the Disclosure Scotland confidential checking service telephone: the Disclosure Scotland Helpline on 0870 609 6006 and ask to speak to the operations manager in confidence, or email Info@disclosurescotland.co.uk

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.Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security 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 : Stephen Richardson
• Email : Stephen.Richardson@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)