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Background: The UK Space Agency

The UK Space Agency (UKSA) is an executive agency of the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT) and provides technical advice on the government’s space strategy, supporting the UK space sector to deliver the government’s vision.

Space is a part of everyday life. Satellites underpin our national economy, from agriculture and banking to aviation and shipping, and support our national security. Space science provides critical data to understand and address global challenges such as climate change, while missions to explore our solar system unite nations and advance humanity’s horizons.

We support a thriving space sector in the UK, which generates an annual income of £16.5 billion and employs 47,000 people across the country.

Through our portfolio of programmes and projects, we encourage the development of national space capabilities and are an early-stage investor in space research and development. We also promote the UK space sector’s interests and achievements; make connections to join up industry and academia; and represent the UK in international space programmes.

We have a powerful global voice, partnering with institutions across the world, including the European Space Agency.

More information about the Agency is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/uk-space-agency

To discover more please watch this film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbZZ-o0IkVU

Our Inclusive Environment

We have an inclusive culture to make UKSA a brilliant place to work where our people feel valued, have a voice and can be their authentic selves. We value difference and diversity, not only because we believe it is the right thing to do, but because it will help us be more innovative and make better decisions.

We offer first-class flexible working benefits, excellent employee well-being support and a great pension. We are fortunate to have a range of excellent staff networks and are proud to be a Disability Confident Leader employer. We will support talented people from all backgrounds to build a career and thrive.

We actively welcome applications from anyone who shares our commitment to inclusion.

Context

The Spaceflight Programme is a high priority within the UKSA and across government. Working closely with colleagues from the Department for Transport (DfT) and others, it aims to enable businesses to offer new services from UK’s first spaceports: launching small satellites and offering sub-orbital space flights for research and tourism.

The programme aims to unlock significant new benefits from these services, including a share of the estimated £15bn small satellite launch opportunity by the end of the decade, new local economic activity around spaceport site(s), and new highly skilled jobs in space science and technology.

Establishing launch capability in the UK is an exciting and challenging task. Our success will depend on the effective delivery of a complex programme of work involving a diverse stakeholder community. This requires effective management and planning, for which the post holder will be a key enabler.

More information about the programme can be found in our ‘LaunchUK’ prospectus here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/launchuk-prospectus

Purpose, Aims and Objectives

The Project Support Officer role covers a diverse range of activities to support the delivery of the programme’s objectives. The purpose of the role is to support the smooth running of the Spaceflight programme by supporting the Project Managers and wider PMO to deliver effective programme management processes with a particular focus on reporting, finance and supporting production of the Full Business Case for the second phase of the Spaceflight Programme.

The programme team is split across two main locations (London and Swindon) and includes resources from the Department for Transport; as well as having interfaces with many other departments. The post holders will have an important role to play in ensuring that coherence is sustained across the team.

The role requires detailed engagement and close working across the programme, in particular supporting the benefits monitoring and management, project management and detailed scheduling and planning capability for a number of projects. In addition, working with the wider PMO team to ensure the effective delivery of programme boards, maintenance of the project and MSP programme plans, Plan On A Page (POAP), risk and issue registers etc, and underpinning both programme and project level governance, in particular the Full Business Case.

The post holder will report to the Project Support Officer and will be based in one of the UK Space Agency locations in London or Swindon; with travel to the other UK Space Agency locations and potentially travel to other parts of the UK as required. This role is aligned to the Project Support Officer Role 2 (HEO) in the Government Project Delivery Profession’s Project Delivery Capability Framework.

This role may qualify for a Project Delivery Pay Enhancement of Project Delivery £1500 PA (for a successful candidate with the right skills, experience and qualifications). The individual must meet the eligibility criteria for Government’s Project Delivery profession and demonstrate their commitment to maintaining these skills through registering with the Government Online Skills Toolset and continuing professional development.

A recognised qualification(s) in project and programme management, such as Prince 2 Practitioner, APM PMQ, MSP Practitioner is required to be eligible for this allowance.

Key responsibilities

The post holder, working closely with the other members of the Programme Management Office and relevant project teams, will:

• Support the effective management of the programme, working closely with members of the PMO and Project Teams to drive the delivery of this complex programme.
• Support the management of effective management approaches across the programme – including planning and scheduling, benefits monitoring and management, governance, reporting, risk management, and financial controls. This includes providing secretariat functions for the project and programme boards and producing accurate governance forward looks.
• Support the development and maintenance of high quality, accurate and useful project and programme artefacts to inform the management and assurance of the programme and support effective decision making. This will include project plans, RAID logs, management information and reports, contributing to briefings and supporting the programme manager with central PMO functions.
• Be a PMO team champion for specific areas of expertise such as Assurance and Benefits. Oversee and continually improve current systems to align with best practice and add value. Engage with wider agency transformation centres of excellence representing the programme and feeding in expertise and opinions. Identifying, applying and sharing best practices for programme and project management with teams and colleagues across the UKSA.

And additionally:

• Maintain relationships across the programme and with third parties as required
• Bring skills to bear in the broader programme on an ad-hoc basis when required, according to the workload across the team.
• Develop and maintain competence in programme and project management, including the use of IT enabled tools for schedule and risk management.
• Identify opportunities for continued learning and development.
• Contribute more broadly to the aims of the UK Space Agency through wider corporate contribution on an ad-hoc basis as opportunities arise.

Skills, knowledge, experience and qualifications

• The post holder should have experience of working within Government programmes or project delivery teams and be competent with the tools and techniques associated with project and programme planning and management. Specifically, the programme uses MS Project for planning and the MS Office suite (Word, Excel, Outlook, Powerpoint) regularly, which the successful applicant will need to be able to use with confidence.
• Professional qualification(s) in project and programme management are essential, and opportunities exist to undertake further training.

Essential criteria

• Experience of working within a PMO or project management experience.

Desirable criteria

• Professional qualification(s) in project and programme management, such as Prince 2 Practitioner, APM PMQ, MSP Practitioner.

Technical competencies

• Risk and issue management, the ability to systematically identify and monitor risks & issues, planning how to mitigate / respond to those risks and issues and implementing the responses.
• Governance, the ability to clearly define roles, responsibilities and accountabilities and establish controls and approval routes appropriate to each stage of the project to monitor project progress and compliance.

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Working Together
• Delivering at Pace
• Making Effective Decisions

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

• Risk and issue management
• Governance

UKSA offers a competitive mix of benefits including:

A culture of flexible working, such as job sharing, homeworking and compressed hours.

Automatic enrolment into the Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 27%

A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by 1 day per year up to a maximum of 30.

An extensive range of learning & professional development opportunities, which all staff are actively encouraged to pursue.

Access to a range of retail, travel, and lifestyle employee discounts.

A generous maternity/paternity and adoption leave package.

This job role may be suitable for hybrid working, which is an informal, non-contractual and voluntary arrangement, blending a balance of attendance in the workplace (your permanent duty station which is based on business assessment of where the work is best done) and working from home, or elsewhere, as a personal choice (if the role is suitable for this). If you are successful, any opportunities for hybrid working will be discussed with you prior to you taking up your post.

The internal roles rules apply to existing Civil Servants, i.e., level transfers move on current salary or the pay range minimum, transfers on promotion move to new pay range minimum or receive 10% increase. Either case is determined by whichever is the highest.

Job contact :

Name :
Tanya Gurung
Email :
tanya.gurung2@ukspaceagency.gov.uk

Recruitment team

Email :
uksarecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk