Senior Policy Adviser in London

The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) is responsible for promoting British trade across the world. This is an exciting time to join DBT’s Economic Security and Trade Relations Directorate General, where you will have the opportunity to shape the UK’s international trade agenda for years to come.

The Goods and Tariffs team leads on several high-profile policy areas, including determining the import tariffs the UK should apply, establishing the UK as a leader at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and other multilateral fora, and wider goods trade policies including suspensions and export restrictions. The team is therefore vital in supporting the UK’s independent trade policy, and the UK’s international reputation and position in institutions on the world stage. This is a challenging and rewarding role working at the intersection of policy and diplomacy, involving both technical and strategic work.

We are recruiting for an SEO lead for our market access pillar of work. This involves leading the UK’s work to address market access barriers facing UK exporters. Market access is also a high priority area set out in the Trade Strategy. This is a broad role which involves engaging other countries at the WTO to understand, challenge and resolve a wide range of barriers facing key UK export markets. This role also involves managing the UK’s goods negotiations with acceding WTO members, delivering high quality WTO notifications in pursuit of the UK’s commitments to transparency and overseeing UK goods policy on short supply export restrictions – part of an ongoing global debate that rose to prominence during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This is a stretching role that will require leadership in driving forward a programme of work with multiple work strands, continually building capability and understanding of tariff policy, and will potentially involve representing the department externally, and the UK Government, publicly and internationally.

The Goods and Tariffs team embraces the Civil Service’s commitment to diversity and inclusion. We work on challenging issues but in a supportive and learning environment. We champion DIT’s policies on flexible ways of working to accommodate a wide range of personal situations.

The responsibilities of these roles may include:

• Shaping the UK’s multilateral market access programme, identifying barriers to trade and working closely with post to engage other WTO members in order to resolve issues.
• Leading engagement with other WTO members as well as making specific interventions in committees, across the broad agenda of global goods market access.
• Directly representing the UK at the World Trade Organization, including with occasional travel to the WTO in Geneva.
• Working in close collaboration with teams spread across the department, building knowledge and capability around multilateral levers and building long term strategy to address specific market access issues.
• Supporting DBT’s Ministers and senior management, providing briefing and written advice where needed.
• Working collaboratively across government, including with post, and building working networks to understand and craft well-evidenced policy positions across sectors.
• Helping to develop a large evidence base to inform strategy and complex positions, through working with analysts and using stakeholder intelligence.
• Engaging with domestic stakeholders to gather evidence and to deliver DBT positions and policy with confidence.