About the job

Job summary

Are you passionate about delivering high impact analytical research? Do you want to make a difference to the way Defence and Security operates and how it protects the UK, and our armed forces, from real world threats, both at home and abroad?

Dstl’s Land Analysis Group supports the Army, the Ministry of Defence and wider Government through the delivery of impartial evidence-based studies, ensuring intelligent decision-making is at the heart of UK Defence and Security. As the Close Combat OR Lead Analyst you will be part of a team that works with industry, academia and international partners to develop and evaluate exciting new force and system capabilities. Our analysis primarily helps the Army in designing its future force, developing and testing new capabilities, and informing major equipment investment decisions.

Our work is critical; we need your help to help us now and into the future.

Dstl recognises the importance of diversity and inclusion as people from diverse backgrounds bring fresh ideas. We are committed to building an inclusive working environment in which each employee fulfils their potential and maximises their contribution.

We particularly welcome female and ethnic minority applicants and those from the LGBTQI community, as they are under-represented within Dstl at these levels.

Job description

This role is for a Senior Principal Analyst (Dstl Level 7).

In this role you will:
•    Take responsibility for, and ensure that customer deliverables are of a robust analytical standard, that can be interpreted and acted upon by senior military customers and decision makers.
•    Provide timely, impartial, evidence-based advice to customers to enable them to make informed decisions representing “best value” and a return on investment.
•    Help build and sustain the reputation of S&T through relationship building and engagement with S&T users.
•    Provide regular inputs and reports to Programme Managers on technical progress, together with evidence-based advice and guidance to shape future programme level development and anticipate future technical demands and priorities.
•    Liaise with suppliers as required by the programme(s) in order to ensure that requirements are clearly understood, and that the best of academia and industry is harnessed to deliver programmes (especially for Stance A programmes, where Dstl adds value to what is provided by outside suppliers through its understanding of context and use).
•    Ensure the Group is agile and prepared to deliver the correct capability mix of tools, models, methods and people for the future.
•    Support Team Leaders by providing technical guidance and mentoring to help develop Group staff in line with the Divisional strategy and future capability needs.

Our analysts use and develop Operational Research techniques, such as simulation and modelling, wargaming (manual and computerised), optimisation, data analysis, statistics, and facilitated workshops (e.g. MCDA), in order to analyse the impact and effectiveness of different technologies, concepts and policies. 
 
This role sits within the Close Combat Analysis Team. It provides systems expertise and a variety of diverse techniques to deliver Operational Research, experimentation, demonstration and discovery to provide decision support on Dismounted and Mounted Close Combat. Your role in particular will be required to enhance and build the Mounted Close Combat operational research capability, including the development of models and methods to support this.

We recognise the unique skills and aspirations of our staff and are able to present them with an unparalleled range of opportunities to develop both the UK’s military capabilities and themselves.

As a leader in Defence you will help shape, role model and bring to life the ‘One Defence’ mindset that will enable us to deliver our vision and strategic objectives. Your leadership style must be inspiring, confident and empowering. Working at every level of our organisation to break down silos, unite teams and create a culture that is trusting, collaborative, innovative, diverse and inclusive. Enabling us to deliver with pace and agility through the skills, commitment and empowerment of our employees and military colleagues.

Person specification

We are looking for someone who has:
•    Substantial experience of leading teams to deliver analytical studies.
•    Substantial experience of developing the technical skills of project team members.
•    Evidence of technical leadership from a range of studies utilising both quantitative and qualitative Operational Research techniques and skills.
•    A good understanding of the Land Environment domain, together with an appreciation of the current and future challenges that it faces.
•    A desire to apply analytical rigour and evidence-based decision making to customer deliverables that will be used to shape highly critical future Field Army and wider MOD decisions.
•    The ability to understand both the strategic and operational customer space, and translate this into future direction that aligns with both the Dstl and DST strategies.
•    The ability to effectively engage and lead junior analytical staff, and work effectively alongside other senior members of staff within Dstl.
•    The ability to effectively and clearly communicate technical and analytical information to senior Army and MOD customers.

For full details and the skills and experience required please see the attached role profile.

Important Information
Our work in Defence, security and intelligence requires our employees to be UK Nationals who are able to gain a high level of security clearance to undertake the projects we are involved in to protect us from security threats. For this reason, only UK Nationals will be able to apply for this role. If you are an international or dual-national candidate, and you think you have the skills we need, please consider applying to any of our government, security or Defence partners.

This role will require full UK security clearance and you should have resided in the UK for the past 5 years. For some roles Developed Vetting will also be required, in this case you should have resided in the UK for the past 10 years.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £55,014, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory contributes £14,853 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.As part of the application process, you will need to provide a 500 word ‘statement of suitability’ showing through your experiences why this is the job for you.

We want you to have your best chance of success in our recruitment process, so If at any stage of the application process you would like help or assistance please contact the Dstl Recruitment Team dstlrecruitment@dstl.gov.uk and we will do all we can to support you.

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

Open to UK nationals only.

This job is not open to candidates who hold a dual nationality.

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.