Environmental Strategy And Policy Specialist

Position type: Permanent

Job reference: 353316

No. Vacancies: 1

Location: Birmingham (B5 4UA) or London (E14 4HD) based with hybrid working

Salary: £36,918 - £44,000

Closing date: 02 June 2024 at 23:55

Are you passionate about shaping the future of water regulation and environmental policy? Look no further! Ofwat, the Water Services Regulation Authority, is seeking an Environment Strategy and Policy Specialist to join our dynamic Environment team. 

We’re Ofwat – a non-ministerial government department responsible for regulating the water sector in England and Wales. We are at the source of everyday life. We help the sector build trust and confidence with customers, the environment and wider society: keeping water flowing, bills affordable and helping ensure the health of our rivers and waterways.

Our work is high-profile and fast-moving, within a dynamic and agile environment. The work that you’ll be involved in every day will help us to deliver our strategy, to make us the regulator we want to be and help the sector to deliver for customers and society. 

This is an exciting new role in an expanding team. You will have the opportunity to support with the development of areas of Strategy and Policy. These will include building our new Horizon Scanning system to ensure we are ahead of the curve for emerging environmental pressures and helping to shape our Environmental Outcomes work by developing strategic oversight of issues such as WINEP and Water Quality monitoring. You will also have the opportunity to work on a range of environmental issues across the team.

This is a unique and exciting opportunity for someone with experience of Horizon Scanning and/or experience of working on Environmental Strategy or policy within the water sector looking to gain experience whilst working within the regulatory sector. The successful candidate may come from a variety of professional backgrounds and is likely to have experience in policy and strategy gained from working in, for example, Government, third sector regulators, utilities or the contracting sector.

• Meaningful Impact: Your work will play an important role in delivering the wider environmental policy objectives of Ofwat’s strategy.

• Innovative Work Environment: From becoming the first Civil Service organisation to achieve ‘Smarter Working’ status, to gaining our prestigious ‘Smarter Working Maturity’ award, we’ve consistently demonstrated our commitment to embracing innovative ways of working. Ours is a culture of trust, flexibility, autonomy, collaboration, and innovation.

• Development Opportunities: We are a learning organisation, and you will have opportunities to develop your knowledge and experience, and to consolidate your skills set. We have a well-supported, agile working environment, and have a trust-based culture intended to help empower you and enable and support you to succeed within Ofwat.

• Work-Life Balance and Flexible Working: Based in either our London or Birmingham Office, our people do their best work when given freedom over where, when, and how they work. Which is why we trust our teams to balance meaningful collaboration in the office with the flexibility of working from home.

• Excellent employer pension contribution ranging from £10,695 to £12,746 per annum. 

• 25 days’ annual leave, increasing to 30 with each year of service, plus bank holidays and an extra 2.5 days of privilege leave. 

• Access to exclusive discounts on a variety of goods and services, including retail outlets, theatre tickets, holidays, insurance, and a gym membership. 

• Fees paid for membership of relevant professional bodies.  

• Up to 3 volunteering days per year.  

• Recognition vouchers scheme rewarding your hard work. 

• Generous shared parental leave and pay supporting your family life. 

• Experience with Horizon Scanning and/or experience working on Environmental Strategy or Policy within the water sector.

• Experience of developing policy and strategy products such as policy briefs, strategies, and designing and facilitating workshops.

• Academic or professional experience of wider environmental issues and good knowledge/understanding of those related to the water industry.

• Experience of building and maintaining constructive working relationships with a diverse set of internal and external stakeholders to understand their needs, expectations, and priorities, and to influence and collaborate effectively to deliver desired outcomes.

• Experience of formulating, presenting, and writing clear and concise evidence-based advice to inform policy making, decision building and recommendations, for a range of audiences and to encourage and respond to constructive challenge to build confidence in decision-making.

• Creates Clarity;

• Makes Relationships Count;

• Adaptable Thinker;

• Champion and Leader of Change.

Attributes as per Ofwat’s Framework for Success for Senior Associate Grade.