Scottish Funding Council
Assistant Director, Funding Policy (Grade M1)
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Application Deadline: 23 August 2026
Department: Investment & Research
Location: Edinburgh - Hybrid
Compensation: Grade M1 £66,924 to £78,930. Civil Service Pension with Employer Contribution of 28.97%. Flexible Working Hours. Hybrid Working.
Description
Our ambition is for Scotland to be the best place in the world to learn, educate, research and innovate, so that all of our nation can flourish.
Our purpose is to create and sustain a world-leading system of tertiary education, research and innovation that changes lives for the better, enriches society and supports sustainable and inclusive economic growth.
We are recruiting two new Assistant Directors to provide policy input into the development and maintenance of SFC’s approach to its core formula funding allocations, one with a focus on college funding and one with a focus on university funding.
Key Responsibilities
- Reporting to the Deputy Director, Tertiary Education Funding, and working closely with analytical colleagues, develop policies for funding allocation model development including implementation strategies.
- Participate in cross SFC work on funding policy development, ensuring that any changes are clearly communicated with impacts on other areas of SFC’s work understood.
- Work with the wider sector on the approach to allocating funding, participating in working groups and producing policy papers.
- Working with the fellow Assistant Director, Funding Policy, ensure read across between the approach to college and university funding, exploring and developing synergies where appropriate.
- Work with the analytical colleagues on implications of changes to areas such as populations, demographics, demand and skills needs for future funding allocation models.
- Draft papers for SFC Executive Team Committees and Board on developing SFC’s approach to allocating funding.
- Develop implementation strategies for changes to funding allocation models ensuring that changes are appropriately phased and communicated in advance.
- Liaise with the Scottish Government on potential change in funding allocation models, ensuring that they are aligned with Government policies.
- Monitor the impact of changes in funding allocations models, to inform further development.
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Skills, Knowledge and Expertise
It is important through your CV / Cover Letter that you give evidence of proven experience of each of the following essential criteria:
Essential
- A proven track record in the development and implementation of policy, with the ability to think strategically, flexibly and creatively while demonstrating good judgement in response to complex issues.
- Experience of working in a funding/finance environment.
- Excellent communication, presentation, interpersonal and influencing skills with an ability to build and maintain strong relationships at all levels.
- Solutions-focused with excellent problem-solving, analytical and critical thinking skills.
- Ability to foster a culture of trust and co-operation, and team working with strong customer and results focus while being politically aware with highly effective networking skills.
- Highly motivated/enthusiastic and driven with high level of personal resilience to remain effective in changing business circumstances.
- Decisive in making well thought-through decisions and ability to work independently and take the initiative.
- Analytical thinker able to interpret information and statistical performance analysis for both internal and external purposes.
- Confident and competent in a range of IT applications including Microsoft Office applications.
Desirable
- An understanding of the Scottish further and higher education landscape and the role of SFC within this.
Terms and Benefits
- Normal full-time hours of work are 35 per week. We will consider flexible working arrangements. A flexi-time system is in operation.
- Annual leave entitlement of 30 days pro-rata, plus public and privilege holiday entitlement of 13 days pro-rata.
- A flexible approach to hybrid working, giving you flexibility to work from home anywhere in the UK for some of the time while also maintaining regular in-person contact with colleagues.
- Annual pay review: approved within the framework of the Scottish Government’s Public Sector Pay Policy and negotiated with our recognised trade union, Unite. Salaries are reviewed annually in April for employees who commence employment prior to 1 October in the preceding year.
- Eligibility to join the Civil Service Pension Scheme. With its low member contribution rates and generous employer contributions, this gives you a secure, inflation-proof pension for life with no investment uncertainty. Details of contribution rates together with further details of the pension benefits are available on the Civil Service Pensions website. There is also the option of a Partnership pension account.
- Support for continuous professional development: as a part of SFC, we are dedicated to providing comprehensive support for continuous learning and professional development. Civil Service-Learning curriculum has thoughtfully designed to cater to various learning preferences, allowing employees to engage in a manner that best suits their needs. All our educational resources are conveniently accessible through the CSL website.
- Support for health and wellbeing, including generous occupational sick pay, free access to confidential advice and support through our 24/7 Employee Assistance Programme, Special Leave (paid and unpaid), a contribution to learning outside work through our Lifelong Learning Fund, free winter flu vaccination, and access to occupational health support.
- We provide support to SFC employees with Volunteering Days.
- Support for travel to and from work, including a salary sacrifice cycle loan scheme, cycle storage and shower facilities, an interest-free loan for bus or rail season tickets and free office car parking for employees on a first-come basis.
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Although most salaried roles are advertised as full time positions (35 hours a week), we are happy to discuss part-time or compressed hours to suit a candidates circumstances. We also operate a flexible working scheme to work around a candidate's other commitments such as caring responsibilities.
We will consider secondment applications for most salaried fixed-term or temporary positions and in many cases also for salaried permanent positions. If you are interested in applying on a secondment basis and this option is not explicitly mentioned in the job advert, please contact recruitment@sfc.ac.uk for further information.
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