JOB SUMMARY

About OPSS
Do you care about the safety of products and want to protect people and places? Can we use your skills, knowledge and experience to enable UK business to thrive? If the answer is yes, then we would like to hear from you!
We are the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS), part of the Department for Business & Trade (Previously the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy). We are here for the purpose of making regulation work to deliver real world impact. Regulation is a powerful Government tool to address market failures, influence behaviour and promote positive action. Crafted and delivered well, regulation can be an enabler of growth, innovation and efficiency.
Since early 2018 we have been building a positive and creative team that enjoys a position of influence and respect within an organisation that continues to grow, most recently with the addition of construction products regulation planned.
Our primary purpose is to protect people and places from product-related harm, ensuring consumers and businesses can buy and sell products with confidence.
Further information can be found on our website here
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission’s recruitment principles. We embrace diversity and promote equality of opportunity. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. There is a guaranteed interview scheme (DCS) for people with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
We are Inclusive
We are fully committed to being an inclusive employer and ensuring equal opportunities. We are keen to make our workforce as diverse as possible and recognise how important inclusivity is to achieve the best outcomes. We hope to attract applications from all underrepresented groups.
We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation if required to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform crucial job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.

JOB DESCRIPTION

Are you the type of engineer or technical specialist who wants to apply their knowledge to challenges and opportunities posed by engineering or new technology? Do you want to work on projects that will help us to create legal frameworks that support innovation while keeping people and places safe? Do you want to understand how new technology can help us to regulate the whole product lifecycle? Are you interested in carrying out research on what advances in technology OPSS needs to be aware of short, medium and long term to continue to protect consumers from harm and deficit? If any of these appeal, then this role may be for you!
Collaboration across OPSS is key for this role. The role will involve working closely with the OPSS Research team, Enforcement/Regulatory teams, Policy and many other teams across OPSS to support their requirements and OPSS priorities.
You will have the opportunity to support the Office’s aims and goals by representing it at internal and external meetings with key partners including industry bodies / trade associations, standards / accreditation bodies and academia. Some travel to other OPSS and stakeholder sites across the UK will be required.
This role attracts a Government Science and Engineering function technical pay improvement at Specialist level.

SKILLS & EXPERIENCE:

We would love to hear from you if you have:

• A degree or post graduate qualification in an appropriate engineering subject such as Mechanical Engineering, Electrical or Electronic Engineering, Product Design Engineering.
• Experience of working with the application of new or nascent technology and communicating this work to a multi-disciplinary and diverse audience.
• Experience / qualifications in project management or technology-related subjects.
• An understanding of the product safety legislative processes within the UK.
• An awareness of international product safety technology innovations either in products or regulation.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

We’ll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• GSE Technical Skills: Technical oversight and management: Being an intelligent customer https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/61a605f2e90e07043d677dd0/gse-career-framework-v2.pdf

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £41,156, Department for Business and Trade contributes £11,922 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• 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 recognise the challenges that people with (multiple) protected characteristics may experience on the job market and in their career progression. We are fully committed to being an inclusive employer and ensuring equal opportunities. We are keen to make our workforce as diverse as possible, and we hope to attract applications from underrepresented groups, including ethnic minorities, people with a disability, and people with gender diverse identities.
Please refer to the attached candidate pack for further information on our benefits.
Things you need to know

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)

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

The job holder will be required to provide support to the Engineering Lead in the OPSS Technology Team by a combination of:

• Lead on areas of research and / or collaboration with organisations on new technologies that are either present within consumer products or could be used to better regulate consumer products.
• Work across OPSS to understand the needs of the organisation in the area of consumer product technology and / or regulatory technology – speaking with other teams to understand their goals and outcomes and translating those into workstreams for the Technology Team.
• Utilise links with the wider academic and technical communities to ensure that the work of the team is informed by the latest scientific/engineering thinking.
• Participate in horizon scanning in new technology areas ensuring that OPSS’ actions remain relevant where new technology is introduced.
• Engage with OPSS stakeholders, teams in the wider department, manufacturers of consumer products and other regulators, to learn what activities they are undertaking with new technology and bring back best practice to the Technology Team.
• Support the Engineering Lead in creating their new function in this new team by adopting and where appropriate creating appropriate processes and procedures.

This role may be considered as a secondment opportunity. Please reach out to the hiring manager listed at the bottom of this advert to discuss.

• Candidates that do not quite meet the standard for this role may be offered a position at a lower grade