Policy Analyst - Rural & Projects in Oxford

This role is office-based. Savills rural offices are located across the UK, and we are flexible about which local office is designated as your ‘base’. We are a nationally distributed team. We meet in London quarterly and use MS Teams weekly for team meetings. The role will require occasional travel throughout the UK and possibly beyond, involving overnight stays.

The Rural & Projects Research (R&P Research) team covers the UK. The team’s role is to provide market-leading insights across agriculture, land management, rural property markets, rural policy, and the wider rural economy. The team supports both internal R&P division colleagues and external clients - including farmers, landowners, institutions, and government agencies - through bespoke consultancy, data and policy analysis, market commentary and thought leadership. The R&P Research team focuses on four key areas of work: policy, data, research and consultancy.

As a policy analyst in the team, you will play a pivotal role in generating Savills insight by monitoring, analysing, and interpreting policy related to UK agriculture, rural property, land use and the environment. You’ll work collaboratively with researchers, consultants, and stakeholders to deliver high-quality commentary and insights that shape Savills rural advisory services and publications. This role is suitable for a trainee or early-career policy analyst and offers potential for progression. This is a role within the R&P Research team. This role reports directly to the Director of R&P Research, Data & Policy Lead.

Key Responsibilities

• Identify and monitor UK rural, agricultural, land use and environmental policies affecting farmers, landowners and estate managers.
• Develop expertise in rural affairs and emerging issues, focusing on agriculture, land use change, nature-based solutions, sustainability, energy, and water.
• Produce clear communications on policy impacts for internal and external audiences.
• Plan and undertake original research for our market leading thought leadership publications.
• Prepare and deliver presentations to a wide range of colleagues, clients and stakeholders.
• Support the Rural Research Team with detailed consultancy reports.
• Disseminate knowledge and build networks through regional office visits, attendance at relevant industry and networking events.
• Work with Savills PR and media teams to develop opportunities for information dissemination, for example, writing articles for rural publications.
• Foster internal connections via regional visits and attendance at annual strategy days.

Company responsibilities:

• Represent the firm and the department across the country in a manner consistent with the firm’s ethos, promoting the firm and its various service lines.
• To facilitate good communication between all disciplines.

In addition to the tasks described above, the job holder may be required to carry out other duties as may reasonably be required from time to time.

Skills, Knowledge and Experience

Our ideal candidate will have the drive to achieve results in a friendly manner, while maintaining superb quality and standards in line with our business expectations for world-class research. They should be able to absorb and impart factual information to others in a variety of settings and using various methods, and to work within a dynamic, rapidly evolving environment. Essentially, the person fulfilling the role will develop specialist skills, but take a generalist approach to rural issues and current affairs. Communication, the need to enjoy challenging policy developments and research questions, and a systematic and perfectionist approach to interrogating and commenting on policy. The ideal person for this position will be analytical, self-disciplined, thorough, reflective, proactive, questioning, and able to concentrate on facts, figures, and information.

Essential skills, knowledge and experience:

• Confident, with a positive outlook.
• Self-starter who relishes challenges and strives for the best.
• Work to a high specification to improve and maintain quality.
• Apply a systematic and logical approach to get things right.
• Well organised, proactive and highly motivated with the ability to work unsupervised and under their own initiative.
• An ability to work across several projects at any point in time and effectively deal with competing priorities.
• Able to relate well with a broad range of internal and external clients and stakeholders.
• An interest in building relationships and generating areas of personal research expertise.
• Enjoy the challenge of problem-solving and generating well-thought-through practical solutions.
• Able to work collaboratively with a multidisciplinary team.
• Adopt a serious and questioning manner to assess situations and come to conclusions, thus basing the process on facts and information gleaned from others.
• Adopt an accommodating and helpful manner, debate, agree and where necessary, accept the objectives set by others and work within agreed parameters to ensure tasks are completed.

Technical experience:

• Awareness of emerging policy trends across the UK.
• Awareness of agricultural policy; national policy priorities and frameworks, environmental, sustainability and natural capital themes.
• An understanding of rural economy issues.
• Clear verbal communication style.
• Highly competent and skilled with Microsoft Office, including Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Training will be provided on internal systems.
• Clear written English, delivering content in the form of flagship publications, reports, blogs and case studies.
• Ideally (but not essential), experience in various forms of quantitative and qualitative market research methods.

Assessment:

• Two-stage process with an initial MS Teams interview and then a final face-to-face interview, including a presentation.
• Personality profile.

What we offer you:

• Career and Professional Development
• 25-30 Days Annual Leave, depending on grade
• Life Assurance
• Private Medical Scheme
• Virtual GP
• Global Mobility Scheme
• Rewards Platform
• Company Pension Scheme
• Enhanced Incremental Annual Leave

Find out more about Savills offer.

Recruitment agencies

Savills only pay agency fees where we have a signed agreement in place and that agency has been previously contacted and directed by a member of our recruitment team. We do not pay agency fees when speculative and unsolicited CVs are submitted to Savills or any of our employees other than via our careers website and through our recruitment process. If this is not adhered to, agency fees will not be paid. Submission of any unsolicited CVs or proposals to Savills will be deemed evidence of full and unlimited acceptance of this approach.