Assistant Project Director - Subsidy Advice Unit

Location: Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, London and Manchester
Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full time / Part time / Flexible
Salary: GBP73,512 - 79,408
Join us in shaping competitive markets and driving impactful change. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is seeking at least one accomplished project delivery professional to bring leadership to multidisciplinary teams of policy, analytical and legal experts within our Subsidy Advice Unit (SAU).
About the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)
We help people, businesses, and the UK economy by promoting competitive markets and tackling unfair behaviour. Our work is wide ranging, ambitious and often new and challenging.
The subsidy control regime is a critical part of the Government's response to address key challenges facing the UK, including Net Zero, advanced manufacturing, and levelling up. While subsidies can help public authorities support businesses and achieve positive outcomes, without control, subsidies can lead to unfair advantages and distort competition.
The SAU plays a pivotal role in this landscape by providing advisory reports to public authorities nationwide, focusing on subsidies that are considered most likely to have a distortive effect on competition and investment in the UK. Thus far, our reports have covered various sectors, including energy, transport, housing, urban regeneration, tourism, and culture.
The role
As an Assistant Project Director within the SAU, you'll embrace substantial responsibility, leading multidisciplinary teams to deliver high-quality, impartial reports within tight deadlines. You'll manage relationships with public authorities from 'pre-referral' stages and throughout report preparation, navigating a fast-paced environment that attracts significant interest and scrutiny.
Assistant Project Directors also contribute to the effective operation of the SAU and its Senior Leadership Team. You will undertake management responsibilities and play a key role in helping shape and drive forward the team's direction, as well as support and coach individual team members.
About you
We're seeking candidates with a proven track record in delivering complex projects at pace successfully within regulatory fields or economic or regulatory policy areas.
The ideal candidate will possess strong analytical skills, capable of interpreting data and evidence, exercising sound judgement, and mitigating risks effectively within the broader context. Your experience will include leading diverse teams, fostering staff development, and achieving results within challenging timelines as well as adept stakeholder engagement. Additionally, the ability to quickly grasp knowledge of the subsidy control regime and unfamiliar markets or policy areas is essential. Prior knowledge of subsidy control would be advantageous.
What we can offer you
The CMA is a hugely diverse, rewarding and stimulating place to work - an opportunity to work for the public good and to stretch and develop yourself in doing so while also having considerable flexibility when it comes to how and when you work. We offer generous benefits, including an excellent pension scheme with an average employer contribution of 27%, at least 25 days leave (increasing to 30 over five years), and generous maternity/paternity leave provision. You can also take advantage of interest-free season ticket loans, and cycle to work scheme.
To find out more about this opportunity and about working for the CMA, please click on the APPLY button.
Closing date for applications: 23.55 on Monday 18th March 2024.
Like many other organisations, we operate a hybrid working model with a mix of office and home working. We believe this supports us to deliver our best work while allowing the flexibility to maintain balanced and healthy lives.
The CMA are an accredited Disability Confident Employer, and we are an equal opportunities employer, welcoming suitably qualified applicants from all backgrounds. We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles.