Senior Policy Officer

Location: Any SMF City (Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle). We are currently operating a hybrid of office and home working for staff across all cities.

Salary: £29,900 plus £2,200 London Weighting if applicable

Contract and hours: We are looking for the right candidate and we envisage this being a full-time role (37.5 hours per week), but we’re open to conversations regarding flexible or part-time work. Permanent contract. Occasional evening or weekend work may be required, for which time off in lieu will be given.  

Closing Date: 23:59 PM on Sunday 27th October we anticipate interviews being held on Monday 4th November 2024. 

About the role
Your role will be central to achieving our three-year strategy, which is focused on:  

1.  developing our programme so it makes a bigger difference, and is available to more young people  
2.  influencing system changes that lead to progress towards equity of, who gets in, who gets on and who belongs – in education and employment 

Based in our Advocacy and Campaigns team the Senior Policy Officer will be responsible for delivering our Social Mobility Employer Index and support the development of our wider policy positions and campaigns work. 

Growing the influence and impact of the Index is a key strategic priority within ambition two, and this role will help achieve that by ensuring we continue to develop our knowledge and to influence and improve employer-led social mobility. You’ll be responsible for project managing and delivering core components of the Index including the marking, design and delivery of the survey, which we use to gather employer data and the feedback reports, which we share with entrants. You’ll ensure the documents evolve with best practice and in line with our work with young people. Working with others you’ll deliver the annual key findings report, ultimately helping improve employer led social mobility in the UK. 

Alongside the Index you’ll play a key role in developing policy positions for our political influencing campaigns. You’ll support our internal knowledge hub, drawing insights from our Aspiring Professionals Programme, wider research and focus groups with our young people and share external developments to ensure we have robust, youth-led positions. You’ll analyse evidence and help carve out our unique point of view on how we can improve social mobility in the UK.  

Key Responsibilities

• Lead on the project management and delivery of the Index including development of policy positions and best practice, questionnaire design, employer feedback reports. 
• Lead the annual review of the Index assessing the impact it’s had on driving employer behaviour and update our measurement and evaluation metrics accordingly. 
• Ensure documents are reviewed annually and updated to reflect the latest best practice and insights from our wider interventions.  
• Co-ordinate the different individuals and teams working across the Index to deliver the annual key findings report. 
• Utilising our political monitoring service and our relations with employers, stay across updates from key stakeholders such as the Social Mobility Commission, the wider sector and employer research, utilising these insights to update our policy positions and develop our advice to employers.    
• Undertake rapid scans of various types of data and evidence; produce summaries of the main findings and implications for policy and generate ideas for further policy opportunities. 
• Present findings internally and support fundraising colleagues with the insights, tools, and knowledge to develop new products that can influence employer behaviour.  
• Create resources for the wider organisation to ensure our evidence base and policy positions are understood, up to date and consistently used across teams.  
• Attend relevant conferences, stakeholder meetings and gather intelligence, raising our profile and influencing where appropriate.  
• Support the Campaigns Officer (media) and Campaigns Officer (public affairs) with the insights required for political and media interventions. E.g. briefing MPs and creating briefing materials for media interviews. 
• Administrative tasks as needed.  

Essential skills and experience

• Experience of developing policy positions for an organisation. 
• Experience in translating research into insights and using that to inform positions. 
• Experience of analysing and interpreting data sets to develop policy positions.  
• Excellent written and oral communication and influencing skills.  
• Experience of project management.  
• A problem-solving mindset - you assess the quality of your own ideas and ask questions about others’ ideas and proposals, devising solution options with costs/benefits and risks where appropriate. 
• You set high standards, actively seek and act on feedback and lead the team efforts to continuously improve. 
• You are outcome focused - You define your work in terms of outcomes rather than time spent and encourage others to do the same. 
• Planning and organising - You manage and work effectively with stakeholders to reach desired outcomes; you identify and escalate potential timeline issues in a timely manner proposing solutions. 

Desirable experience:  

• Experience of hosting focus groups and co-creating policy positions with young people.  
• Experience working in a policy role focused on social mobility. 
• Experience working in agile. 

Benefits

25 days holiday per year pro rata, plus bank holidays. 5% Employer contribution to pension calculated using NEST’s current thresholds for ‘qualifying earnings’ following successful probation period, in line with auto-enrolment pension requirements. 

How to Apply

There are two components to the application process. To apply, please submit your application to Pinpoint by 23:59 PM, Sunday 27th October.   
 

a) A cover letter outlining your previous experience and your suitability for the role  
 

b) In no more than 500 words, summarise what works for improving belonging for those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds in the civil service, and what steps you would take to maintain up-to-date knowledge of this and communicate the relevant aspects to colleagues.   
 

We intend to have one virtual interview lasting one hour to understand your experience and ambitions for the role and get to know you personally. You will not be required to do a task for the interview. Please let us know if you have any reasonable adjustments. We expect interviews for this role to take place on Monday 4th November. 
 

Please note that we do not accept CVs or generic applications.