About the job

Job summary

Shape the policy that delivers a greener, fairer energy system for the UK. Join Ofgem’s Infrastructure group and be at the forefront of the drive to deliver Net Zero! 

Ofgem as the industry regulator exists to ensure prices are fair, build resilience across the energy sector, facilitate infrastructure investment, and develop and deliver effective market reforms and governance arrangements. We work for consumers and with many industry partners. Energy fuels our society and our economy. That’s why our policy work is so important, and so rewarding. It protects consumers. It enables businesses. It influences the entire energy industry. And it helps to bring about the seismic societal and infrastructure changes that will be the foundations for a Net Zero future.  

These roles will sit within Ofgem’s Infrastructure group. We are responsible for designing new regulatory regimes for price controls and major projects, developing new regimes in low carbon technologies, delivering change to energy systems, wholesale markets and governance arrangements and much more.  

You will have the opportunity to work at the forefront of regulatory policy design and delivery, as part of collaborative and dynamic teams with industry leading experts. It is challenging but vitally important and highly rewarding work, and we aim to create the best possible environment for people to grow and develop their careers.   

In these roles you will proactively lead a policy area to provide end-to-end knowledge and strategic oversight to support effective decision making and continuous improvement. You will lead continuous development on your domain knowledge and work flexibly across Ofgem to ensure the delivery of organisational priorities. You will effectively communicate benefits, challenges, and trade-offs from policy proposals to Ofgem colleagues and sectoral stakeholders. Some (but not all) posts at this level act as Professional Development Leads, coaching and developing colleagues.  

To join us, need extensive experience in a policy development role showing a history of managing the input of relevant analytical, technical, and legal experts to present policy recommendations that highlight the risks, trade-offs, and wider commercial and economic considerations to decision makers. You will also be able to manage delivery, setting clear priorities, supporting others to solve problems and to seek continuous improvement. You will be able to clearly demonstrate the relevance of your work internally and externally. As well as being able to create open and inclusive engagement.  

Job description

Purpose 

Energy policy is something that touches on every aspect of our lives – at home, at work and at play. Energy fuels our society and our economy. That’s why our policy work is so important, and so rewarding. It protects consumers. It enables businesses. It influences the entire energy industry. And it helps to bring about the seismic societal and infrastructure changes that will be the foundations for a Net Zero future.  

Infrastructure 

The infrastructure group is at the forefront of this drive to deliver Net Zero. It is responsible for: 

• designing the regulatory regimes for the next round of electricity and gas network price controls (RIIO3 and ED3), as well as operating the current RIIO2 and ED2 regimes 
• designing new regulatory regimes for major projects including electricity interconnectors, offshore transmission, large electricity and gas network upgrades.  
• the development and implementation of new regulatory regimes in low carbon technologies including nuclear power, hydrogen transport and carbon capture and storage. 
• delivering the change needed to energy systems, wholesale markets and governance arrangements, including establishing the future system operator(s), network connections, charging and digitization. 
• delivering strategic system planning to help ensure future gas and electricity networks develop to meet net zero targets. 
• our in-house engineering capability to provide expert technical advice to policy teams. 
• cyber security of the gas and electricity sectors to ensure resilient companies and networks and ongoing security of supply.  

The purpose of these roles is to lead policy projects and workstreams, using your analytical and communication skills to solve complex problems and deliver significant pieces of work. You will have the opportunity to work at the cutting edge of regulatory policy design and delivery, as part of collaborative and dynamic teams with industry leading experts. It is challenging but vitally important and highly rewarding work, and we aim to create the best possible environment for people to grow and develop their careers.   

Recruitment Open Event

We are running a Virtual Open Event to give candidates the opportunity to learn more about working for Ofgem and discuss the roles we have available in more detail. This virtual event will be on Tuesday 6th February 12:30pm-13:30pm, to attend please register via: https://buytickets.at/ofgem/1135205

Person specification

Key Responsibilities  

You will be someone who:  

• Thrives in an agile fast-paced environment with a proven background of delivering benefits for consumers, communities, or society.  We value diversity of experience, and you may bring this from a range of places including (but not limited to): strategy development, policy development and regulation analysis, commercial analysis, compliance, financial management, operational delivery and/or risk management. 
• Is interested in the energy sector, including Ofgem’s role in protecting consumers, controlling prices and stabilizing the energy market. 
• Champions our culture of inclusion and encourages, supports, and celebrates the diverse voices and experiences of our colleagues, fuelling our innovation and ensuring we best represent the consumers and the communities we serve. 

Policy Development & Delivery  

• Proactively leads a policy area and provides the end-to-end knowledge and strategic oversight to support effective decision making and continuous improvement. 
• Proactively leads continuous development of their domain knowledge, policy proposals, research, technology, consumer needs and stakeholder perspectives in their policy/strategy area. 
• Works flexibly across Ofgem to ensure delivery of organisation priorities in line with business planning, guiding, supporting, and collaborating with colleagues to respond effectively to change. 
• Leads on the delivery of high quality, timely, and robust analysis of core issue/s and policy options resulting in evidence-based and deliverable recommendations. 
• Leads key projects, including responsibility for internal and external stakeholder engagement, prioritising, planning and delivering work.  
• Ensures decision makers consider relevant legislation and regulation and any specific case issues and escalates critical issues as needed to ensue delivery for consumers. 

Stakeholder Management 

• Effectively communicating the benefits, challenges, and trade-offs from policy proposals to Ofgem colleagues and sectoral stakeholders, effectively using evidence to build understanding and commitment to action. 
• Ensures effective delivery by working collaboratively across team boundaries and engaging with key Ofgem functions and relevant government departments - developing close links to manage and mitigate risks. 
• Representing Ofgem externally and building constructive stakeholder relationships to ensure challenges and issues are identified and resolved in consumers’ interests. 
• Is demonstrably accessible and identifiable to all who operate in their policy/strategy area as and Ofgem lead/expert and in turn knows who to engage to improve policy design and delivery. 

Essential Criteria

• Extensive experience in a policy development role, showing a history of managing the input of relevant analytical, technical, and legal experts to present policy recommendations that highlight the risks, trade-offs, and wider commercial and economic considerations to decision makers (Lead criteria).
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills that effectively communicate complex issues to non-expert audiences, distilling complex subject matter into relevant messages for internal/ external stakeholders at a range of levels. 
• Managing delivery: set clear goals and priorities, supports others to solve problems, overcome challenges, seeking feedback and means of continuous improvement.  
• Clearly identifies and communicates the relevance, interdependencies and strategic fit of their work to organisational priorities both internally and externally. 
• Demonstrably identifies and understands the value/contribution of internal and external partners and effectively creates open, creative, constructive, timely and inclusive engagement. 

Desirable Criteria

• Experience in one of the following areas: Energy or Regulatory policy development and implementation; Cost assessment & developer engagement; Monitoring, reporting and compliance; Programme and project management (coordination and oversight). 

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £43,650, OFGEM contributes £11,785 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

When you press the ‘Apply now’ button, you will be asked to complete personal details (not seen by the sift panel), your career history and qualifications.  

You will then be asked to provide a 1250 word ‘personal statement’ evidencing how you meet the essential and desirable skills and capabilities listed in the role profile. Please ensure you demonstrate clearly, within your supporting statement, how you meet each of the essential and desirable skills and capabilities. 

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.