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Policy Adviser - Life Sciences Manufacturing Innovation

  • Public sector
  • Darlington
  • 12/05/2025
  • £33,015.00 - £40,110.00 /yearly
  • Permanent
Job expired!

Job Overview

Location

Darlington

Job Type

Permanent

Salary

£33,015 - £40,110 yearly

Date Posted:

12/05/2025

Expiration date:

27/05/2025

Additional Detail

Job ID

26456

Work Location

Remote and/or Onsite

Job Description

Locations: Birmingham, Cardiff, Darlington, Edinburgh, London, Salford
 
At DSIT we're all about improving people's lives by maximising the potential of science & technology.
 
We accelerate innovation, investment and productivity through world-class science, research and development.
 
We use technology for good by ensuring new and existing technologies are safely developed and deployed across the UK, with the benefits more widely shared.
 
We are driving forward a modern digital government which gives citizens a more satisfying experience and their time back.
 
We do all this to enable the Government's 5 national missions: kickstarting economic growth, making Britain a clean energy superpower, taking back our streets, breaking down barriers to opportunity and building an NHS fit for the future.
 
Above all, we focus on improving people's lives. Whether it's researching new treatments for disease, developing better batteries, reducing burdens through better public services, keeping children safe online, and much more, outcomes for citizens are at the heart of what we do.
 
Our Inclusive Environment
 
We offer flexible working benefits, employee well-being support and a great pension. We are enormously proud to be a Disability Confident Leader employer. We support candidates with adjustments throughout our recruitment process. Information about disability confidence and just some examples of the adjustments that you can request can be found in the reasonable adjustment section below.  
 
The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service D&I Strategy.  
 
Find Out More 

We regularly run events where you can find out more about the department and tips for the application and interview process. You can sign up for upcoming events here: https://forms.office.com/e/Jae3B4w7xm 

You can also follow our LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/dsitcareers/

Overview

The life sciences sector is at the heart of the government's policy agenda and is essential for driving forwards the Growth and Health Missions.

The Office for Life Sciences (OLS) is a joint unit between the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the Department for Health and Social Care. It aims to ensure the growth of the UK's life sciences sector and boost the uptake of health innovation in the NHS. This is an exciting time to be joining the team as we work towards publication of a new Industrial Strategy and Life Sciences Sector Plan.

This Policy Adviser role is an interesting and rewarding opportunity to work within the OLS Manufacturing, Access to Finance and Skills team (MAFS). Manufacturing is a key part of the sector that is vital to economic growth as well as to ensuring we have a resilient domestic supply of medical products.

The role will focus on OLS'policy work to support manufacturing innovation, which is research and development activity with the goal of improving manufacturing processes. For example, reducing the amount of time and energy it takes to produce a tablet of medicine, or reducing the amount of waste material produced when making a joint replacement.

Promoting and supporting this kind of innovation within the UK is crucial, as it leads to improvements in product affordability, quality, sustainability, and flexibility of production. It supports increased sector productivity and growth, and strengthens our ability to respond to health emergencies.

Key responsibilities

This role will play a key part in the delivery of OLS's policy and project work to support and catalyse life sciences manufacturing innovation. This ranges from supporting innovation hubs and centres around the UK to delivering grant funding programmes to help companies accelerate their innovations. We work closely with industry, academia and cross-government colleagues to ensure we deliver the best package of support for the industry at good value for the taxpayer.

The postholder will:

  1. Monitor delivery of key government investments in manufacturing innovation infrastructure (e.g. the new Oligonucleotide Manufacturing Innovation Centre of Excellence) - including assessing ongoing risks and issues, reviewing delivery progress reports, and keeping track of project finances.
  2. Support delivery of our flagship Sustainable Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Programme, including responsibility for running the programme's cross-government policy coordination group.
  3. Support research, stakeholder engagement, planning and delivery of exciting forthcoming projects and programmes that will further support life sciences manufacturing innovators.
  4. Provide policy and strategy support covering a broad range of areas - such as how we best join up and communicate the UK's manufacturing innovation offer to prospective investors; how we can most effectively boost engagement between academia and industry; and how we maximise the synergies between life sciences manufacturing innovation and engineering biology policies.
  5. Respond to reactive policy, parliamentary and ministerial requests - including producing effective briefings for ministers and senior officials attending meetings and events; responding to parliamentary questions and public correspondence; and engaging in cross-government reviews.
  6. Stand ready to support priority projects across OLS if required.

Essential Criteria

  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills - including the ability to effectively communicate complex information to a variety of audiences.
  • Excellent organisational and coordination skills - being confident handling multiple tasks and projects simultaneously, arranging and coordinating meetings, maintaining clear records and taking effective meeting notes.
  • Strong collaboration and teamwork skills - including the ability to form effective partnerships and working relationships with people both internally and externally to your team.
  • Strong research, problem-solving and decision-making skills - with the ability to analyse complex information and stakeholder views, assessing the strength of evidence and considering any potential trade-offs, to make effective recommendations.

Desirable Criteria

  • Experience working in science/innovation policy.
  • A scientific or technical background (e.g. working in academic or industrial research).
  • Knowledge of or interest in the life sciences sector.
  • Project delivery or project monitoring experience or training.

Behaviours

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

  • Communicating and Influencing
  • Working Together
  • Making Effective Decisions

Alongside your salary of £33,015, Department for Science, Innovation & Technology contributes £9,564 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology 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.

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 you will be asked to complete a CV, personal statement and behavioural statements.

Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.

Please use your personal statement (in no more than 500 words) with reference to the essential and desirable criteria, to explain how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role.

Please note - the CV incorporated into the application form is for information purposes only and will not be scored.

Applications will be sifted on behavioural statements and personal statement.  

In the event of a large number of applicants, applications will be sifted on the personal statement. 

Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift, or progressed straight to assessment/interview.

The interview will consist of behaviour questions.

Interviewees will be asked to deliver a presentation; further details will be provided nearer the time. 

Sift and interview dates

Sift and interview dates to be confirmed.

Further Information

Reasonable Adjustments

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 DSIT Candidate Guidance.  A DSIT 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. 

If successful and transferring from another Government Department a criminal record check may be carried out.

New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band.

A location based reserve list of successful candidates will be kept for 12 months. Should another role become available within that period you may be offered this position.

Please note terms and conditions are attached. Please take time to read the document to determine how these may affect you.

Any move to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare; for further information visit the Childcare Choices website

DSIT does not normally offer full home working (i.e. working at home); but we do offer a variety of flexible working options (including occasionally working from home). 

DSIT cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign.

DSIT holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify.

In order to process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring Service /Disclosure Scotland on your behalf.

However, we recognise in exceptional circumstances some candidates will want to send their completed forms direct. If you will be doing this, please advise Government Recruitment Service of your intention by emailing [email protected] stating the job reference number in the subject heading. 

For further information on the Disclosure Scotland confidential checking service telephone: the Disclosure Scotland Helpline on 0870 609 6006 and ask to speak to the operations manager in confidence, or email [email protected] 

Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant's details held on the IFD will be refused employment. 

A candidate is not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5 year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government.

Feedback

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 the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).
 
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

Recruitment team

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 [email protected].
 
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: Click here to visit Civil Service Commission/Complaints.

Attachments

DSIT T&Cs v1.2 Opens in new window (docx, 179kB)

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