Director, Advanced Manufacturing and Director, Industrial Strategy

£105,000 - £130,000

A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

Alongside your salary of £105,000, Department for Business and Trade contributes £30,418 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

We are looking for two fantastic people to join DBIST. These are both very high-profile roles leading on issues which matter to the UK economy. We are looking for people who lead with excellence across a system, work brilliantly with business and deliver results. We also expect all our teams to work collaboratively and with kindness while delivering.

Director, Advanced Manufacturing.

This is a significant role leading a Directorate of approximately 90 staff and with direct responsibility for the largest programme budgets in BIST other than those handled by Arm's Length Bodies and oversight of related investments. They will work closely with No.10, No.10 North, HMT, DfT, the Office for Investment and others in a high-profile, politically ambitious space.

The role covers advanced manufacturing as a whole but focuses on key manufacturing sectors - automotive, aerospace and batteries. It also has a watching brief on wider manufacturing and a role to support other advanced manufacturing frontier sectors.

These industries are often dominated by overseas-owned companies that can choose from competing offers and opportunities across multiple jurisdictions. The Government's challenge in open and highly competitive markets is not only to retain manufacturing in the UK but also to help it to grow, including by encouraging greater Foreign Direct Investment.

• Acting as Senior Responsible Owner (SRO) for the £4bn DRIVE35 programme and overseeing the delivery and coherence of the overall set of advanced manufacturing programmes - the £2.3bn Aerospace Technology Institute programme, £450m Battery Innovation Programme and the Made Smarter programmes.
• Owning the delivery of the Advanced Manufacturing Sector Plan, which is part of the Industrial Strategy. It names the Advanced Manufacturing Director as personally accountable for delivery of many of its individual commitments.
• Ensuring that HMG's relationships with key companies, trade bodies and fora remain productive - e.g. JLR, Nissan, Rolls-Royce, Airbus, the SMMT (automotive); ADS (aerospace) and MakeUK.
• Leading work to attract or retain key foreign investors in the AM sector (notably in automotive and batteries) to/in the UK.
• Influence wider HMG policy on trade, procurement, access to finance, regulation, tech adoption, innovation, energy and skills to the benefit of the advanced manufacturing sector.
• Ensure the implementation of the AM Jobs Plan and AI adoption plan for AM.
• Make a wider contribution to Business Group, BIST and the Civil Service as a whole.

Director, Industrial Strategy.

This is a significant leadership role, overseeing the department's signature policy with high profile engagement across CO, No.10, HMT and the wider Civil Service. The individual will be responsible for delivering the policy commitments set out in the Industrial Strategy and sector plans, holding government departments to account, and developing policy to continue support for high-growth sectors in partnership with business and local leaders across the UK..

• Lead the strategic direction and delivery of the Industrial Strategy and sector plans, ensuring alignment with ministerial priorities.
• Represent the Industrial Strategy across government, working in collaboration with responsible teams on cross-cutting policy levers and sectors and navigating conflicting interests.
• Build partnerships with business, academia and trade unions to understand and address key barriers to business growth and investment.
• Lead the policy development of energy interventions to improve UK competitiveness, including delivery of the AI Growth Zones Energy Support Scheme, working closely with HMT and DESNZ to meet legislative timescales and manage commercial risk.
• Oversee the sponsorship of the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council (ISAC), working closely with the Director of the ISAC secretariat, including any legislative programme and mandate setting.
• Chair the Industrial Strategy Programme Board, bringing together responsible SROs (at director level) for Industrial Strategy priorities to drive delivery.
• Play a strong corporate leadership role within BIST and as the leader of the Industrial Strategy Directorate - a multidisciplinary team of around 80 staff, including policy officials, programme delivery professionals and analysts.

This role will report to the Director General and is supported by the Industrial Strategy senior leadership team of five SCS.

Flexible working, Full-time

London, Darlington, Salford, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Belfast.

488238

SCS Pay Band 2

Permanent

International Trade
Senior leadership

2

The Government's modern Industrial Strategy was published in June 2025. It sets out our 10-year plan to significantly increase business investment in eight growth-driving sectors, by making it quicker and easier for businesses to invest and providing them with the certainty and stability needed for long-term investment decisions.

The Industrial Strategy is designed to help the UK seize the most significant opportunities and create the most favourable conditions in key sectors for companies of the future to emerge - those that have a transformative role to play in the clean energy transition, the tech revolution, the fundamental impact of AI on every sector, and the new geopolitics.

The Strategy will play a vital role in realising the Prime Minister's vision for reindustrialisation. It has made positive choices: backing eight sectors (IS-8) with the highest growth potential, and the frontier industries at their leading edge - and targeting the places and clusters across the UK that support those sectors, to increase national productivity, strengthen our economic security and resilience, and support our net zero transition. We will enable investment and growth in city regions and clusters across the UK where the IS-8 and foundational industries are based, with a coherent offer across nations.

The role covers advanced manufacturing as a whole but focuses on key manufacturing sectors - automotive, aerospace and batteries. It also has a watching brief on wider manufacturing and a role to support other advanced manufacturing frontier sectors.

These industries are often dominated by overseas-owned companies that can choose from competing offers and opportunities across multiple jurisdictions. The Government's challenge in open and highly competitive markets is not only to retain manufacturing in the UK but also to help it to grow, including by encouraging greater Foreign Direct Investment.

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

This is your opportunity to give examples and show how your skills and experience fit the job requirements. When writing a supporting statement, it is important that you:

• Read the job specification carefully to understand the role and its requirements.
• Structure your statement around the essential criteria listed in the advert.
• Provide evidence for each criterion, for example, if the advert says "experienced in leading high-performing and diverse teams and promoting inclusivity", explain when have you led a team, how large, what did you do to promote inclusivity, how did you handle diversity.

Please show the impact of your actions and use measurable outcomes or statistics where relevant.

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

This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise.

As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.

Successful candidates must undergo a basic (or equivalent) criminal record check.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is developed vetting (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.

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)

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