Department for Education
Policy Insights Unit Grade 6
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Cambridge (CB2 8DR), Coventry (CV1 2WT), Darlington (DL1 5QE), London (SW1P 3BT), Manchester (M1 2WD), Sheffield (S1 2FJ)
Job Summary
The multi-award-winning Policy Insights Unit is a cross-government team that develops analysis and ideas for policy. Hosted by the DfE, we operate like an in-house consultancy for the Civil Service, delivering projects for customers across government and charging them to recover our costs.
Our work spans a wide range of policy areas including health, growth, energy, justice, policing, digital transformation and government innovation. Projects typically involve a mix of engaging experts, synthesising evidence and developing policy to help customers tackle complex policy challenges.
As one of our senior leaders, you will help lead one of government's most innovative policy teams. You will oversee high-profile policy projects, develop new business, introduce new products and services, and help shape the future direction of a growing team. Working closely with other senior colleagues, you will play a central role in ensuring we continue to deliver exceptional work while increasing our impact across government.
Job Description
This is a varied and challenging leadership role that combines strategy, analysis, policy making, and business development.
- Oversee a diverse portfolio of policy projects, working with colleagues to develop compelling proposals, realistic delivery plans, accurate costings and effective project teams.
- Provide challenge, support and quality assurance, helping colleagues navigate complex policy issues and ensuring our analysis and advice is rigorous, practical and influential.
- Play a leading role in the continued growth of the Policy Insights Unit by developing new business, maintaining a healthy pipeline of work, and introducing new products, services and partnerships that increase our impact and generate income.
- Contribute to its strategic leadership by supporting recruitment, developing colleagues, improving the way we work and helping shape the future direction of the unit.
We welcome applications from candidates seeking part time or compressed working pattern. However, due to the nature of the work and the shift coverage required, the minimum number of contracted hours for this role is 30 hours per week over a 4 day period.
Person Specification
Essential Criteria
- Overseeing policy projects: helping colleagues scope, manage, quality assure and deliver a succession of high-quality policy projects for customers across government.
- Generating new business: building strategic relationships across government and beyond, maintaining a healthy pipeline of work and identifying opportunities for new projects and services.
- Developing new products and partnerships: increasing our impact and generating income by introducing new products and services, and by identifying and developing strategic partnerships across government and beyond.
- Leading organisational growth: helping grow the team in response to rising demand while improving the systems, processes and ways of working needed to support a larger organisation.
- Managing colleagues and partners: line managing several Senior Policy Advisors and relationship managing key stakeholders inside and outside government.
Technical Skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
- Scenario Task
Salary and Benefits
- Alongside your salary of £73,334, Department for Education contributes £21,244 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).
- Applicants currently holding a permanent post in the Civil Service should note that, if successful, their salary on appointment would be determined by the Department’s transfer / promotion policies.
- As a member of the DfE, you will be entitled to join the highly competitive Civil Service Pension Scheme, which many experts agree is one of the most generous in the UK.
- You will have 25 days leave, increasing by 1 day every year to a maximum of 30 days after five years’ service. In addition, all staff receive the King’s Birthday privilege holiday and 8 days’ bank and public holidays.
- Most DfE employees will be working a hybrid pattern, spending at least 60% of their time in an office or work setting. Changes to these working arrangements are available in exceptional circumstances but must be agreed with the line manager and in line with the requirements of the role.
- Travel to your primary office location will not be paid for by DfE, but travel to an office which is not your main location will be covered.
- As an organisation, which exists to support education and lifelong learning, we offer our staff excellent professional development opportunities.
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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 Experience and Technical skills.
To apply for this role, please select 'Apply Now' at the top or bottom of this advert. CV details need to be included in the template within the application form; attached or emailed CVs will not be considered.
Stage 1: Application
At sift stage, you will be assessed on your Experience in line with the essential criteria listed in the person specification section of the job advert.
To Apply For This Role, Please Provide
- A Short CV setting out your career history, highlighting specific responsibilities and achievements that are relevant for this role.
- Your Statement of Suitability – In no more than 1000 words, provide examples of how your personal skills, qualities and experience meet the essential criteria. This is not intended to be a cover letter, instead work through each essential criteria in turn. You may wish to follow the STAR technique to help focus your examples. The key things we are looking for are what you did, how you did it and what the outcome was.
To confirm, the maximum word count for the statement of suitability is 1000 words. Please adhere to this limit as anything over 1000 words will not be taken into account.
The CV and Statement of Suitability will be assessed against the essential criteria detailed in the advert.
Should there be a high volume of applicants, sifting will be restricted to just assessing personal statements.
Please note, CV details must be contained within the template on the application form. Any CV or Statement of Suitability that has been emailed to our team will not be considered.
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Application sifting will take place w/c 24 August 2026 onwards. Please note these dates are subject to change.
If you are successful at application sift stage, your application will be progressed onto Stage 2 part of the Selection process.
Stage 2: Scenario Task / Interview
The Interview Will Be a 2-part Process
Part 1: Scenario Task
At the start of the interview, you will be given a short project proposal based on the type of work undertaken by the Policy Insights Unit. You will have 15 minutes to review the proposal and prepare your thoughts before discussing your recommendations with the interview panel.
The exercise is designed to assess your ability to analyse complex issues, exercise sound judgement, identify practical improvements and communicate your thinking clearly. There is no single correct answer. We are interested in the quality of your reasoning and your ability to strengthen a proposal.
Part 2: Interview
The interview will last approximately 1 hour. You will be asked questions on the Essential criteria listed above to determine your level of experience in these areas.
Interviews will take place mid-September 2026. Please note these dates are subject to change. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Interviews will be held over video conferencing using MS Teams. If you are invited to interview, please ensure that you have access to this software and that you have your video turned on. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Important Information
In your application, please don’t include personal information that identifies you.
This means we can recruit based on your knowledge and skills, and not background, gender or ethnicity - it's called name blind recruitment (opens in a new window).
Please ensure that you remove from your application, all references to your:
- name/title
- educational institutions
- age
- gender
- email address
- postal address
- phone number
- nationality/immigration status
We reserve the right to raise the minimum pass mark in the event of a high volume or strong field of candidates.
Please be aware that this role can only be worked in the UK from the location options provided and not from overseas.
The government is committed to supporting apprenticeships, enabling people to learn and progress in a role whilst earning. We want to monitor the number of people who have completed apprenticeships who are now applying to progress further in their career and are asking this question to all candidates, on all vacancies. You will be asked a question as part of the application process about any previous apprenticeships you have completed. Your response to this question will not affect your application and it is not a requirement of the role to have completed a previous apprenticeship.
If successful and transferring from another Government Department a criminal record check maybe carried out.
In order to process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring Service on your behalf. However, we recognise in exceptional circumstance some candidates will want to send their completed forms direct. If you will be doing this, please advise Department of Education of your intention by emailing Pre-Employment.Checks.DFE
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