Senior Strategic Engagement Lead

Job summary

Do you excel at building strong, productive relationships and thrive on collaborating with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders to achieve shared goals?

Do you have strong leadership skills that you can bring to this role with the ability to coach and mentor your team, motivating them to perform and exceed expectations?

If so, we have an exciting opportunity for you to join our team at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) and we'd love to hear from you!

The Place Engagement Team leads MHCLG’s engagement with local authorities and MSAs in place. We understand local government and place and how national policies come together in a locality.

The Place Engagement Team collates and shares local intelligence from places to support MHCLG in delivering minister’s priorities, improving policy making and improving places for the people that live there.

As a Place Engagement Lead you will:

• provide the bridge linking local government (both MSAs and local authorities) with MHCLG and the communities we serve
• build and maintain trusted relationships with Chief Executives and Local Authorities across your area by working collaboratively with them
• prioritise and make strategic choices about where to engage to support places to improve
• lead on a policy area and work with policy and delivery colleagues to improve policy making in MHCLG and in some cases across government
• have the opportunity to line-manage 3 direct reports as part of this role and task management will also be required

Regular travel across Liverpool City Region and Lancashire will be required to meet local authorities and other stakeholders and attend visits and events. You will occasionally be required to attend other MHCLG locations, including Manchester / Darlington / London / Wolverhampton, for team meetings and directorate events. Travel and expenses will be paid for all travel outside of your normal office location.

Job description

You will have the ability to:

• plan, prioritise and develop trusted relationships with MSAs and local authorities in your patch. You will represent the department at key meetings and co-ordinate engagement between places and other MHCLG officials
• lead for the Team on a policy area(s), developing your knowledge of the policy, building relationships with the relevant policy team, developing a network with other Strategic Engagement Leads to understand the implications and impacts in places and feeding that back to policy teams to shape development and delivery
• produce high quality local intelligence about the impact of government policies on place and use your relationships and influence with partners across central and local government to shape local outcomes
• follow up with priority actions generated from engagement on a strategic basis, to support the positive feedback loop to policy-makers and specific programme design/delivery leads
• work closely with other MHCLG officials to support the delivery of key Departmental priorities such as local government reform and devolution
• lead and support ministerial briefings on regional risks and opportunities and ensure a high-quality service on parliamentary business and ministerial/senior visits
• make a positive contribution to the culture of the Team and department, looking for ways to improve how we work and support colleagues
• deputise for and support Deputy Directors and / or G6s in their responsibilities as appropriate
• line manage three SEOs and task manage others as required

Person specification

• Ability to develop and maintain trusted relationships with internal and external stakeholders and to discuss and disseminate a wide range of complex policy and delivery to both expert and non-expert audiences.
• Proven leadership skills and the ability to collaborate with others across MHCLG and other government departments to advocate and deliver an evidence-based response to risks/issues/opportunities.
• Excellent written and verbal communication and influencing skills. Able to produce quality drafts at pace, translating complex policy or place detail into simple, short and strategically consistent briefs and speeches.
• Able to make strategic choices and prioritise to juggle a demanding portfolio of relationships while working at pace across a wide geographical area, with different competing priorities.
• The ability to lead on a policy area, getting up to speed quickly, bringing in others and building a network and able to adopt a holistic, collaborative approach to using local insight to inform Whitehall policy development and delivery.
• Excellent line and/or task manager – able to give good quality feedback, delegate effectively, and support and develop junior colleagues from a diverse range of backgrounds.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £56,167, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government contributes £16,271 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

At MHCLG we offer many benefits that range from tailored career pathways and flexible working to MyLifestyle Childcare Voucher and Cycle to Work Schemes. For more information, please click 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

Application and Selection
The application process will be split into 2 stages, testing the following Success Profiles:

Behaviours , Strengths

Stage 1: Sift

• Behaviour: Seeing the Big Picture (Lead Behaviour)

• Behaviour: Delivering at Pace

• Behaviour: Making Effective Decisions

• Behaviour: Developing Self and Others

There is a 250-word limit per question.

When writing your application, remember:

• the assessor won’t be reading your answers sequentially

• do not assume that the same assessors will have read all of your answers

• if talking about something in your first answer, make sure that you write the second answer as if you had not written the first (and so on!)

Most of our campaigns utilise multiple assessors and so it is possible that each of your answers would be viewed by different assessors.

In the event that we receive a large number of applications, we may conduct an initial sift using the lead behaviour listed in the advert. Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift or progressed straight to interview.

Stage 2: Interview

• Behaviours: Seeing the Big Picture, Making Effective Decisions, Developing Self and Others, Delivering at Pace.

• Strengths: The strength-based questions will require natural responses from the candidates.

Sift and Interview Dates

Sifting is envisaged to take place the week commencing 2nd February 2026.

Interviews are envisaged to take place the week commencing 23rd February 2026 and are currently being held in person in Manchester. This could be subject to change.

How We Recruit

Find out more about our recruitment processes here.

• Applying

• Sifting

• Interview

• Interview Results & Feedback

• Reserve List

• Near Miss

• Civil Service Grades

• We are a DCS, RIS & GPTWV employer

• Reasonable Adjustments

How to Apply

Find out everything you need to know before applying here.

You must review the following information from the MHCLG Career's Site before submitting your application. This step is essential to ensure your eligibility for the role and that your application is completed correctly.

• Security Clearance Requirements

• Civil Service Nationality Requirements

• Right to Work

• Artificial Intelligence

• Civil Service Code and Recruitment Principles

• CV Declaration

• Sponsorships

• Salary and Grade

• Existing Civil Servants

• Conflict of Interest

• Location and Flexible Working

• Fixed Term Contracts

• Internal Fraud Database - Internal Fraud Register

• Appeals and Complaints

• Conflict of Interest

Security Clearance Requirements

National Office:

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

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 : Katie Munro
• Email : katie.munro@communities.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : recruitment@communities.gov.uk

Further information

If you are unsure about any part of the process or require additional information about the post to enable you to progress your application, you should speak to the Resourcing team - recruitment@communities.gov.uk. Candidates can appeal at any stage of the recruitment process if they believe there has been:

a procedural irregularity

an infringement of the Civil Service equal opportunities policy

exceptional circumstances which were not notified to the interview panel which might have affected performance on the day.

It is important to note that these are appeals about the process not the decision. In the first instance, an appeal should be directed to the MHCLG Resourcing Hub at recruitment@communities.gov.uk.

If the MHCLG Resourcing Hub is unable to satisfactorily resolve your complaint, you may contact put your complaint in writing to the Civil Service Commission, Room G8,1 Horse Guards Road, London, SW1A 2HQ or by email to: info@csc.gov.uk.