Negotiations & Corporate Advisory Head

The Group has created flexible resource ‘Hubs’ to bring together subject matter expertise, supporting the delivery of these programmes.

These roles are part of the Negotiations and Corporate Advisory Hub, which offers commercial and corporate finance expertise into MDPG policy development and leads MDPG’s negotiations with private sector projects. Team members are deployed flexibly based on the Group's needs, so you may work on both Hydrogen and CCUS projects at different stages of policy development and delivery. The duration of the specific projects you are assigned to may vary depending on business needs.

Hydrogen and CCUS are key components of the Governments’ clean power and net zero missions. The hubs have been set up in line with the civil service drive to be increasingly agile and delivery focused. As such, these roles are a fantastic opportunity to contribute to major government policies and to be part of pioneering innovative civil service operating models.

Person specification

As part of the Negotiations & Corporate Advisory (NCA) Hub, the role holder will be flexibly deployed in line with Major Decarbonisation Projects Group (MDPG) priorities to provide specialist commercial, negotiations or corporate finance skills to support policy design or project delivery across either or both Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage (CCUS) and Hydrogen sectors. While a range of relevant skills and experiences may be suitable, the role holder must bring deep expertise in at least one of the team’s key areas.

Our ideal candidate would have significant experience of the financing and/or development of infrastructure projects ideally in the energy sector; a developed understanding of commercial risk and reward allocation and strong insights into the application of these concepts in first-of-a-kind or second-of-a-kind infrastructure projects including how HMG policy and regulatory frameworks can help provide the commercial environment to support investment into the development and delivery of these projects.

Subject to the successful candidate’s experience within commercial, negotiations and/or corporate finance domains, key responsibilities may include:

• Leading on the provision of high-quality commercial, negotiation, and corporate finance advice to help shape the strategic direction of CCUS and/or hydrogen policy and ensure commercial considerations drive effective policy design and delivery.
• Ensuring risks are identified and appropriately managed, including cross-chain commercial risk, and that where relevant this insight shapes strategic decision-making across MDPG and wider HMG.
• Providing financial assurance, commercial structuring advice and bespoke commercial solutions in respect of high-value decarbonisation projects to help ensure they are investment-ready and aligned with market and regulatory realities.
• Designing, steering and delivering a coordinated negotiation strategy, overseeing multiple negotiation workstreams, and delivering innovative contractual, funding and revenue mechanisms that resolve complex delivery challenges and secure value for money.
• Providing effective leadership across teams, which may include direct line management and matrix leadership and overseeing external advisory support. Supporting colleagues’ development and knowledge sharing, including through driving the adoption of commercial and financial best practice.
• Building and managing influential relationships across government, regulators and industry, including HM Treasury, NSTA, NISTA, Ofgem and LCCC.
• Leading the production of high-impact advice for senior stakeholders and Ministers, distilling complex commercial and financial issues into clear recommendations.

As a line manager, you will be responsible for working with your members of staff to define their objectives, as well as managing their development and performance.

Essential Criteria

• Demonstrable leadership in delivering complex commercial or negotiation activity and/or corporate or project finance work, showing strong commercial judgement and the ability to drive high-quality outcomes.
• Able to build credibility quickly and influence a broad and senior stakeholder community, including external partners and delivery bodies, and able to provide authoritative commercial or financial advice to non-experts, including when faced with ambiguity or incomplete information.
• Significant experience in at least one relevant infrastructure sector: CCUS or Hydrogen, Renewables, energy production and/or transmission networks, upstream and/or mid-stream oil and gas.
• Confident in challenging assumptions, reframing commercial or financial problems, and presenting clear, evidence-based positions, enabling senior decision makers to navigate risks and choose pragmatic, commercially robust solutions.

Desirable Criteria

• Proven ability to shape and apply commercial models to policy development, commercial structures and contracts, providing insightful, solutions focused advice that influences policy direction and delivery choices.

Behaviours

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

• Leadership
• Seeing the Big Picture

Alongside your salary of £70,275, Department for Energy Security & Net Zero contributes £20,358 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.

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 and Experience.

As part of the application process