Education Policy Designer

**Details**:
**Reference number**:

- 302175**Salary**:

- £37,593- National pay band minimum £37,593. London pay band minimum £41,435.- A Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 27%**Job grade**:

- Senior Executive Officer**Contract type**:

- Permanent**Business area**:

- DFE - Schools Group**Type of role**:

- Digital
- Policy**Working pattern**:

- Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time, Compressed Hours**Number of jobs available**:

- 2Contents

Location

About the job

**Benefits**:
Things you need to know

Location
- Manchester, North West England, M1 2WD : City of Westminster, London (region), SW1P 3BTAbout the job

**Job summary**:
At DfE, we are proud of the commitment we make to diversity and inclusion and of the progress we have made. We have active & vibrant staff networks, special leave policies and workplace adjustments put in place for those who need them. We are continuing to build a diverse DfE, in an inclusive environment which nurtures and realises potential in all, at all levels.

Equality and Diversity - Department for Education

The Becoming a Teacher (BaT) policy team’s mission is to secure ‘excellent teachers for every child’. Our work focuses on a wide range of solutions from in-house digital systems to policymaking and stakeholder engagement. One thing that is consistent throughout all our work is being user-led to ensure out interventions work as effectively as possible for people who want to become teachers.

Initial Teacher Training (ITT) recruitment is an exciting area of work which attracts strong ministerial and external interest. In this area, you will have the opportunity to really make a difference to the lives of children, young people, students, and teachers.

This is an exciting opportunity to join a high profile and unique policy team at the Department for Education. The Becoming a Teacher Policy Design Team combines policy and digital delivery to implement user-centred interventions that aim to meet the needs of students and teachers. We are a multi-disciplinary team of policy and delivery professionals with strong links to digital and analytical colleagues. We take an agile approach, working closely with user researchers and analysts to collect evidence and insight directly from our users, and digital services, which can then be reflected in our policy approach. You do not need previous digital experience, however a desire to learn more about Agile and user-centred design will be important.

**Job description**:
As a Policy Designer you will lead on:

- Developing policy initiatives to improve and optimise the recruitment of teacher trainees. This work will involve agile policymaking and user-centred design, working collaboratively with delivery teams and data specialists to generate and test policy/service improvements and interventions.
- Leading stakeholder engagement with universities, schools, and their representative groups.
- Leading on briefing requests, ministerial engagement, private office correspondence and responding to Freedom of Information requests.
- Creating a diverse, inclusive, supportive culture that stimulates innovation and enables high-performing teams to build and sustain high quality delivery.
- Playing an active role in the burgeoning DfE digital/policy community sharing your learning and celebrating progress made by other people and teams.

**Person specification**:
**Essential Criteria**:
You will need to call on a wide range of skills and experiences to ensure that your work is a success which includes some essential skills:

- Experience in developing policy - both to achieve quick wins and longer-term change.
- Excellent stakeholder management skills with the ability to build relationships quickly to progress work whilst maintaining clarity of thought and objectivity.
- Strong written presentational skills with the ability to communicate complex material in a straight-forward and compelling manner to seniors, including the Permanent Secretary, Ministers, and Secretary of State.
- Strong ability to use qualitative and quantitative data to answer complex delivery questions at pace.

**Desirable Criteria**:
It’s desirable that you have experience of:

- Working in an Agile context, embedded in digital teams, maximising the impact of policy by working jointly with delivery.

Desirable criteria will only be assessed in the event of a tie break situation to make an informed decision.

**Benefits**:

- Alongside your salary of £37,593, Department for Education contributes £10,150 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.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 Se