36 Policy Jobs in North West

Job summary

Would you like to be a driving-force behind some of the biggest capital infrastructure projects in the UK and Europe, which will help secure UK energy security, and contribute to the UK’s net zero ambitions for decades to come? This is your opportunity.

Nuclear power has a key role to play in the UK's energy mix and is at the forefront of debates on how to address the UK's energy needs. By generating reliable low-carbon power at all times of day and regardless of the weather, nuclear provides a firm foundation for a lower-cost, more reliable and more secure electricity system, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and the vulnerability of consumers' energy bills to their volatile prices.

The directorate oversees HMG’s interests in Sizewell C (SZC), Hinkley Point C (HPC) and Sizewell B (SZB). SZC is a new large gigawatt nuclear power station being built in Suffolk, as an above-ground replica of HPC. Once operational it will generate enough electricity for 6 million homes for more than 50 years, making a huge contribution to UK energy security, with significant benefits for UK jobs and businesses.

A Final Investment Decision on SZC was taken in July 2025, with the Regulated Asset Base funding model – a first for a new nuclear project – commencing in November as new private investors assumed their stakes in the project. The Nuclear Projects Delivery team is responsible for navigating strategic, commercial, regulatory and technical challenges to progress SZC in HMG’s roles as Shareholder, Policy Sponsor and Debt Provider. The team is also responsible for assuring the delivery of HPC and is currently involved in negotiations with EDF to extend the life of Sizewell B (SZB).

This work, at the cutting edge of the Government’s energy policy delivery, is exciting and fast-paced, dealing with varied and complex issues in a complex multifaceted stakeholder, commercial and legal environment.

Job description

We are seeking candidates with strong policy and project delivery backgrounds. This is a stretching role providing exciting opportunities for professional development through involvement in large scale nuclear projects, including access and exposure to senior stakeholders in/outside Government. This is a unique opportunity to be at the heart of net zero projects of cross-generational significance.

The team prides itself on having a warm, supportive culture, drawing on a unique range of experience and expertise to ensure individual and collective wellbeing at all times, and to allow the space needed for personal development whilst pursuing our collective objectives.

Working closely with the Technical and Shareholding Deputy Directors, this role sits at the centre of the Nuclear Projects Delivery Directorate, providing strategic leadership across policy, communications, and reporting for three of Government’s most significant nuclear projects. It combines high-profile policy development with operational oversight, supporting delivery across a complex and politically sensitive portfolio.

The postholder will lead on a broad and evolving set of policy issues, ensuring the Department is well-positioned to respond to emerging challenges and opportunities. This includes shaping the Government’s response to the Fingleton review, external scrutiny, such as Public Accounts Committee inquiries, and leading engagement with organisations such as the Office for National Statistics to determine classification decisions that have significant fiscal and governance implications. The role also drives the development of key frameworks and mechanisms, including shareholder agreements, subsidy assessments, and approaches to recycling Government returns to consumers.

Alongside policy leadership, you will oversee a high-performing communications function responsible for managing a significant volume of Parliamentary questions, Freedom of Information requests, correspondence, and briefing. This requires ensuring accurate, timely, and consistent messaging on complex and often high-profile issues, while maintaining strong relationships with Ministers, senior officials, and external stakeholders.

The role also has responsibility for reporting and assurance across the portfolio, ensuring that information provided by project companies supports Government reporting requirements, including ORB and GMPP processes, and meets high standards of quality and timeliness. In parallel, you will oversee adviser contract management, ensuring that external expertise is effectively commissioned and managed to support robust decision-making.

A key expectation of the role is to establish the team as a centre of excellence for nuclear financing and policy insight, supporting not only the Nuclear Projects Delivery Directorate but also wider nuclear teams. This involves building capability, sharing best practice, and contributing to the development of cross-cutting policy and strategy.

You will lead a team of approximately 15 staff across three Grade 6-led areas, fostering a collaborative, high-performing culture. The role requires strong leadership, strategic judgement, and the ability to operate confidently in a fast-paced, complex environment with multiple senior stakeholders across Government, regulators, and industry.

Overall, this is a critical leadership role at the heart of delivering major nuclear infrastructure, combining policy, communication, and delivery oversight to support successful outcomes on nationally significant projects.

Key policy issues include:

• Ensuring that our projects are fully benefitting from the government reform agenda for project delivery (eg Fingleton, Corry, Infrastructure Planning Act) and working across relevant other government departments and policy teams to identify and help resolve policy and regulatory blockers.
• Working with SZC to develop a Framework Agreement in line with their classification status.
• Developing and agreeing a mechanism to recycle HMG profits to consumers.
• Representing the Department on the SZC Liaison Committee (with Ofgem) and overseeing the secretariat function for the SZC Government Senior Forum and the Debt Forum as well as leading engagement with Ofgem on policy issues.
• Putting in place arrangements for Monitoring and Evaluation of SZC.
• Determining the business as usual processes for HMG to oversee the SZC Funded Decommissioning programme and the Government Support Package.

The Communications team deals with a high volume of correspondence, FOIs, Parliamentary questions and briefing requests that you will oversee.

On top of this you will establish the team as a centre of excellence for nuclear financing, supporting not just with the NPD team but other nuclear teams.

The team is currently comprised of three Grade 6 led teams and an overall team size of approximately 15 people.

Person specification

It is important that, through your CV and supporting statement, you provide evidence of the professional skills, breadth of experience and personal qualities for this post.

The successful candidate will demonstrate the following:

Essential Criteria

• Inclusive Leadership & Capability Building- A proven track record of leading, inspiring, and developing multi-disciplinary teams — including leading other managers — to help them reach their full potential. Experience driving productivity, establishing clear accountability, and fostering a supportive, resilient, and inclusive team culture.
• Proactive Policy-to-Delivery & Systems Thinking- A proactive, self-starting approach to policy development, with experience using policy and strategic levers to actively support and unblock delivery. A proven ability to align policy with overarching strategic objectives by identifying critical interdependencies and navigating a complex landscape.
• Energy Sector or Complex Systems Expertise- Working knowledge of the UK energy system, or a similarly complex, highly regulated, and capital-intensive sector. Strong analytical skills and sound strategic judgement, with the ability to quickly grasp and navigate complex, technical, and fast-moving subject matter.
• Major Project Oversight & Cross-Boundary Collaboration- Experience working on, or providing strategic oversight for, major capital infrastructure or high-value projects. Outstanding collaborative skills, with a track record of working across organisational boundaries — including closely with other departments and external partners — to deliver shared outcomes.
• Senior Stakeholder Influence & Managing Scrutiny- Excellent communication skills and a track record of successfully negotiating and influencing at the most senior levels, including Ministers, executives, or Board-level stakeholders. The resilience to manage a high volume of public accountability work under intense scrutiny and pace.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £86,000, Department for Energy Security & Net Zero contributes £24,914 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 Energy Security and Net Zero 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. Senior Civil Servant (SCS) staff are expected to aim for closer to 60% of the time at an office or non-home based location 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

To apply for this post, you will need to complete the online application process outlined below. This should be completed no later than 23:55pm03/08/2026 As part of the application process you are asked to complete the following:

1.A CV setting out your career history, highlighting specific responsibilities and achievements that are relevant for this role, relevant achievements in recent posts, together with reasons for any gaps within the last two years.

2.A Statement of Suitability (no more than 1000 words) explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular reference to the essential criteria in the person specification.

3.Shortlisted candidates will be invited to undertake an assessment as part of this recruitment prior to a final interview panel:

• A staff engagement exercise: a structured exercise which involves shortlisted candidates facilitating a discussion with a selection of staff from the Department on a given topic.

These assessments will not result in a “pass” or “fail” decision. Rather, they are designed to support the panel’s decision making and highlight areas for the panel to explore further at interview.

1. Final Interview

For further information on the application process and an overview on what toexpect, please visit the Civil Service Careers 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 DESNZ Candidate Guidance. A DESNZ 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.

Overview of the Process

Government Recruitment Service will acknowledge your application and advise you of the outcome of the sift meeting. Depending on the number of applications received there may be a second stage sift.

Applications will be sifted to select those demonstrating the best fit with the post against the criteria set out in the person specification. Please ensure you keep this in mind when writing your CV and supporting statement.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview.

Arrangements for interview

The final selection panel interview will be held in person in London, Specific arrangements will be confirmed.

Candidates are required to prepare a presentation for their interview, they will be given at least one week’s notice of the subject.

Expenses incurred by candidates during the recruitment process will not be reimbursed by the Department except in exceptional circumstances and only when agreed in advance.

Indictive Timeline

Please note that these dates are only indicative at this stage and could be subject to change. If you are unable to meet these timeframes, please let us know by contacting scscandidate.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk. Please ensure you quote the job title and reference number in your email.

Interviews will be held in Person. Candidates are asked to note the timetable, exercising flexibility through the recruitment and selection process. The anticipated timetable is as follows:

Advert Closing Date – 23:55 Monday 3rd August 2026

Shortlist Announcement – W/C 17th August

Assessments – W/C 24th August

Interviews – W/C 7th September

Reserve lists

If we receive applications from more suitable candidates than we have vacancies for at this time, we may hold suitable applicants on a reserve list for 12 months, and future vacancies in the Civil Service requiring the same skills and experience could be offered to candidates on the reserve list without a new competition.

Further Information

If you have any questions about applying for this role or want to discuss the role further with the vacancy holder, please contact

scscandidate.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Please ensure you quote the job title and reference number in your email.

Eligibility

The post is advertised to suitably qualified people in the external market and to existing Civil Servants and those in accredited Non Departmental Public Bodies.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise.

As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.

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

Recruitment team

• Email : desnzresourcing.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 desnzresourcing.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 at: https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/contact-us/

Attachments

Deputy Director of Policy and Government Function CIP (1) Opens in new window (pdf, 1087kB)DESNZ - Template Accessibility Pack (2) Opens in new window (docx, 217kB)