Advanced Manufacturing Analyst

The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) brings together business expertise and world-class trade negotiators under the vision of making the UK the best place to start and grow a business – driving growth, increasing jobs, and raising wages and living standards. This is a high profile, influential role to lead analysis into the Advanced Manufacturing sector.

Advanced manufacturing is central to economic growth and productivity in the UK. It is one of the Chancellor’s five priority sectors and is at the heart of DBT’s role as the department for economic growth.

In this policy-facing role, you will actively shape interventions and support for the sector, including by leading analysis to support the delivery of the recent Advanced Manufacturing Plan. You will work very closely with policy colleagues, as well as with other analysts, academics and industry partners.

The UK is a global hub for Advanced Manufacturing, with the fastest manufacturing productivity growth in the G7 between 2010-2021. Advanced manufacturing is the production processes that integrate advanced science and technology, including digital and automation, to manufacturing. The sector helps UK manufacturers create products that are meeting future technological demands and enable the UK to lead on the twin transitions of net zero and digitalisation.

The Sectors Analysis team is a busy and lively team of analysts. The team works int Advanced Manufacturing Directorate in the Business Group and we work flexibly across a wide range of exciting projects. 

The team’s work includes:  

• Work on the Advanced Manufacturing Plan that was published in November including support £4.5bn of investment into the sector.
• Work on high profile UK investment decisions in the manufacturing sector
• Detailed strategic analysis for the Battery Taskforce and to support the publication of the recent Battery Strategy
• Work on assessing the manufacturing sectors contribution to growth and productivity.
• Multiple evaluations of large funds to support the sector, including Made Smarter which supports the uptake of digital technologies among manufacturing SMEs.
• The team are at the forefront of thinking about what current economic shocks and geo-political factors mean for our major companies and sectors including work assessing the impact of the US Inflation Reduction Act and the Russia Ukraine war.

This post will be in the Advanced manufacturing and Evaluation team; a multi-disciplinary and supportive team of fourteen analysts. The team provides evidence and analysis (economic appraisal, strategic analysis, evaluation, modelling, statistics and briefing) on the Advanced Manufacturing sector. The post holder will work closely with the Advanced Manufacturing policy team.

This role supports the Advanced Manufacturing policy team and will be responsible for a leading, shaping and delivering wide range of projects to boost manufacturing competitiveness and productivity.

Initially we expect that you will be working on projects relating to the battery sector and exploring how support for R&D and innovation can best drive economic growth. Future projects are likely to include:

• Analysis of the battery supply chain. We published the Battery Strategy last year and will continue to work closely with the Battery taskforce (a high-level board of academics, industry professional and civil servants). You will develop a programme of analysis to identify opportunities and weaknesses in the UK’s Battery industry.
• Assessment of the R&D and innovation landscape for manufacturing to help ensure that the process from innovation to market is functioning. This work will both feed into the delivery of the Advanced Manufacturing Plan, as well as supporting wider work in the department to identify the best levers for economic growth.
• Cross cutting work with the wider analytical community to assess manufacturing’s contribution to productivity and how interventions can be effectively targeted.
• Development of business case and value for money assessments of key interventions in the manufacturing sector.
• You will work with the other Grade 7s to matrix manage fast streamers and other analysts in the team. There may be opportunities to directly manage staff.