Working Pattern:
Full Time, Job Share
Job Summary:
The Major Decarbonisation Projects Group (MDPG) Policy Director is a pivotal role that provides strategic direction, policy authority and leadership across our group so we can deliver our objectives. The role sets the strategic policy framework, oversees policy design and legislative development and ensures that MDPG resources, capability and work packages are aligned to priorities. The role spans both Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) and Hydrogen, ensuring policy coherence across these two complex markets.
This includes steering policy for live CCUS clusters progressing through appraisal and commercial development stages, as well as shaping hydrogen production, transport and storage business models ahead of future allocation rounds. The postholder ensures cross technology consistency, particularly where CCUS availability, buildout and sequencing decisions directly impact deployment timelines and investor confidence. The role requires expert judgement on complex policy, economic, commercial and delivery issues, often with incomplete information or evolving ministerial direction. The Policy Director must balance systemwide implications, legal considerations, trade offs between competing projects, and political contexts.
The Policy Director operates at the centre of the UK’s CCUS and Hydrogen policy landscape, where both markets are moving from design to commercialisation. Live issues include CCUS cluster sequencing, readiness for future industrial capture projects, transport & storage network development, and ensuring the hydrogen production pipeline can progress through future allocation rounds. Crosscutting risks such as investor confidence, capital constraints, grid and network interactions, and supply‑ chain‑dependencies which require continuous coordination to find solutions.
The Policy Director will lead policy alignment across the hubs and functions, provide policy design authority for business models and steers the planning and development of new projects (for instance from new ministerial steers or manifesto commitments). The role postholder will be responsible for ensuring that the group has the policy capability to operate as an agile, delivery focused organisation.
Key Responsibilities
Strategic Policy Direction
* Set and communicate the strategic policy direction for MDPG, including cross-departmental commissions and SR27 projects.
* Provide policy design authority for CCUS and Hydrogen business models, legislative frameworks, and commercial strategies.
* Ensure cross‑technology consistency, particularly where CCUS and Hydrogen infrastructure interact and impact deployment timelines.
* Lead the planning pipeline for prospective projects to feasibility stage, shaping early policy before handover to Programme SROs.
* Oversee the alignment of MDPG resources and capabilities to priority work packages, ensuring flexible deployment of multidisciplinary teams.
* Drive policy alignment across hubs and functions, supporting the delivery of live CCUS clusters and hydrogen allocation rounds.
Governance & Assurance
* Support governance and assurance through the MDPG Portfolio Board, contributing to SOBC/OBC/FBC stages and value for money assessments.
* Ensure policy readiness for investment decisions and maintain oversight of non-pay budgets and staffing across the directorate.
Stakeholder Management & Communication
* Lead engagement with senior internal and external stakeholders, including DESNZ, HM Treasury, Cabinet Office, delivery partners, ALBs, and industry.
* Negotiate policy positions, represent MDPG at senior forums, and secure agreement on investment cases and legislative approaches.
Change & Improvement
* Champion capability development, professional standards, and career progression for staff aligned to the policy profession.
* Stabilise and mature the operating model, integrating new tools and data systems, and supporting
Person Specification:
Skills, experience and qualifications
The successful candidate will demonstrate:
* Proven experience leading large, multi-disciplinary teams, building an inclusive, high-performing culture, and supporting capability development across policy hubs.
* Ability to set clear direction, prioritise competing demands, and deliver outcomes in complex, high-profile environments with significant interest from senior stakeholders such as ministers or board members.
* Excellent policy judgement and influencing skills with ministers, senior officials, delivery partners, ALBs, and industry leaders; collaborative and collegiate approach.
* Deep expertise in energy policy, major project policy frameworks, government or large complex organisation legislative processes, and economic/commercial models for large-scale infrastructure.
* Strong communication and consensus-building skills, with the ability to explain issues clearly. The candidate will need to build shared understanding, and bring a wide range of stakeholders across government and industry with different perspectives along on the development and delivery of policy frameworks in CCUS and Hydrogen.
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