Tell us about your current role and what it involves

I am a Senior Policy Manager on Rough Sleeping and Inclusion Health Policy in the Civil Service. This means developing policy to improve the health and wellbeing outcomes of people experiencing homelessness and other ‘Inclusion Health’ groups (one example being people seeking asylum).

Every day is different, but a typical week might involve drafting advice and briefing for Ministers, responding to parliamentary questions and other parliamentary business, and building relationships with a wide variety of stakeholders (including other departments, charities, think tanks and academics).

What organisation are you working for?

I work in the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (established in October 2021) within the Department of Health and Social Care.

How did you find this job?

On the Civil Service Jobs website. Lots of jobs are advertised to external candidates - this is how I found my first job in the Civil Service (in Ministry of Justice) when I graduated in 2017.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

I love knowing that what I’m doing contributes to making life better for the population. It’s not always easy but contributing to vital issues in society by finding improvements to be made and developing solutions to big problems brings me satisfaction. Also, as politics nerd, I love the parliamentary side of things too!

What skills that you learnt at university have you been able to apply in your role? 

Lots!

• Using data, evidence, and a broad range of viewpoints from across a wide range of sources, to present well developed arguments on policy issues
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including presentation to sometimes big and challenging audiences
• Working to tight deadlines is a key skill in policy that university helped prepare for