Senior Trade Policy Advisor (12-month maternity leave cover)

SEO

Judicial and Legal Services Policy

The Judicial and Legal Services Policy Directorate is recruiting temporarily for an SEO Senior Trade Policy Advisor for a period of 12 months as maternity leave cover. This campaign is open to current civil servants on level transfer and suitable candidates on promotion.

The role is being offered on Detached Duty for staff within the Ministry of Justice or Loan terms for staff in HMPPS or from other government departments.

Location:

Successful candidates will have the option to be based at one of the following locations:

• 102 Petty France, London

• 5 Wellington Place, Leeds

Occasional travel between the two locations may be required. We offer a hybrid working model, allowing for a balance between remote work and time spent in your base location (102 Petty France or 5 Wellington Place Leeds).

Ways of Working

At the MoJ we believe and promote alternative ways of working, these roles are available as:

• Full-time, part-time or the option to job share

• Flexible working patterns

If we receive applications from more suitable candidates than we have vacancies for at this time, we may hold suitable applicants on a reserve list for 12 months, and future vacancies requiring the same skills and experience could be offered to candidates on the reserve list without a new competition.

We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, including groups currently underrepresented in our workforce and pride ourselves as being an employer of choice. To find out more about how we champion diversity and inclusion in the workplace, visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice/about/equality-and-diversity

Salary

Existing Civil Servants will have their salary calculated in accordance with the Department’s pay on transfer / pay on promotion rules.  

Security Clearance

This role requires National Security Vetting given the access to sensitive information afforded by the job role. You can find more information by reviewing the information held in the following links:

United Kingdom Security Vetting: Applicant - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The vetting charter - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

In addition, there is a minimum UK residency requirement set by the Cabinet Office which is dependent on the security level required for the role.

This role requires SC clearance. To be eligible to apply, candidates must already hold at least SC clearance.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ)

MoJ is the largest government department, employing over 90,000 people with a budget of approximately £10 billion. Each year, millions of people use our services across the UK - including at 500 courts and tribunals, and 133 prisons in England and Wales.

Further information can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice

The Work of the Legal Services Growth, Trade and Promotion team

Legal services are key to economic growth, contributing over £42bn to the UK’s economy in 2025, as well as underpinning global trade and investment across a whole range of other sectors. The UK’s world-leading legal services sector is helped by the international prestige of English common law and London’s position as a global centre for dispute resolution. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is responsible for supporting the UK legal services sector to thrive domestically and internationally.

The Legal Services Growth, Trade and Promotion team at MoJ play an important role in Government’s growth mission by working to ensure UK legal services, courts and English and Welsh law remain world leading. We do this by representing UK legal services’ interests internationally and promoting the UK legal services sector around the world.

Senior Trade Policy Advisor

The MoJ’s legal services trade work is wide-ranging and very varied. The successful candidate will lead the department’s work on tackling market access barriers in priority jurisdictions which will involve working with other government departments and British Embassies and High Commissions around the world, as well as external stakeholders including professional bodies and regulators from the UK legal sector. This work is likely to include working on Free Trade Agreements and other established government-to-government trade dialogues.

The successful candidate will work strategically and with others to spearhead work to achieve departmental and HMG trade objectives which benefit the UK legal sector. Additionally, the role will include working on cross-cutting trade projects where the MoJ has legal services equities.

The role offers an excellent opportunity for a high performing, self-motivated policy professional to lead an exciting and challenging programme of work, which has a high level of Ministerial interest.

Skills and Experience

Essential:

• Excellent stakeholder engagement skills and the ability to build relationships quickly across Government and externally.

• Demonstrated capability to think creatively and independently drive forward work.

• The ability to provide clear written and oral briefing, sometimes on complex areas, to Ministers and senior officials.

• Strong prioritisation skills and the ability to make effective decisions on how to make best use of your resources to handle time-sensitive work to achieve both short- and long-term results. 

• Ability to work flexibly with a willingness to take on new challenges.

Desirable:

• An understanding of the justice system and legal services sector. 

• An understanding of international trade policy (particularly relating to services) or trade promotion.

Candidates applying from HMPPS should note that the Ministry of Justice does not have the same conditions of employment as HMPPS. It is the candidate’s responsibility to ensure they are aware of the terms and conditions they will adopt should they be successful.

The MoJ is proud to be Level 3 Disability Confident. Disability Confident is the approach through which we offer guaranteed interviews for all people with disabilities meeting the minimum criteria for the advertised role as set out in the job description.

Application process

You will be assessed against the Civil service success profiles framework.

You must ensure that any evidence submitted as part of your application, including your CV, statement of suitability and behaviour examples, are truthful and factually accurate. Please note that plagiarism can include presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own.

Experience

You will be asked to upload a Statement of Suitability of no more than 500 words stating what you would bring to the role, with reference to the Skills and Experience listed above.

Behaviours

During the application process you will be asked to provide an example of how you have met the following behaviours (see Annex A for more information):

• Communicating and influencing (lead behaviour)

Please also refer to the CS Behaviours framework for more details at this grade:

CS Behaviours 2018

Should we receive a large number of applications, we will sift primarily on the statement of suitability and lead behaviour of communicating and influencing. Successful applicants will then be invited to an interview, testing both behaviours and strengths.

Candidates invited to Interview

Please note that interviews will be carried out remotely.

You will be assessed against the following behaviours at the interview stage where you will be asked to provide examples of how you have demonstrated them. In addition, you will also be asked strength-based questions. Ahead of the interview, you will be asked to complete a short, written task.

Behaviours:

• Communicating and influencing

• Working together

• Making effective decisions

• Delivering at pace

It may help to use one or more examples of a piece of work you have completed or a situation you have been in and use the WHO or STAR model to explain:   

• WHO - What it was? How you approached the work/situation? What the Outcomes were, what did you achieve? Or

• STAR - What was the Situation? What were the Tasks? What Action did you take?  What were the Results of your actions?

Strengths:

It is difficult to prepare for strength type questions. However, you can think through your answers, focus on your achievements and aspects you enjoy and decide how these can be applied in the organisation and role. While strengths questions are shorter and we do not expect a full STAR response, the panel is interested in your first reaction to the question and information or reasoning to support this. Further information on Civil Service Strengths can be found here.

Ahead of the interview, you will be asked to complete a short, written task.

Interviews are expected to take place July 2026.

Contact information  

Please do get in touch with Joshua.horsman@justice.gov.uk if you would like to know more about the role or what it is like working in our team.

Annex A - The STAR method

Using the STAR method can help you give examples of relevant experience that you have. It allows you to set the scene, show what you did, and how you did it, and explain the overall outcome.

Situation - Describe the situation you found yourself in. You must describe a specific event or situation. Be sure to give enough detail for the job holder to understand.

• Where are you?

• Who was there with you?

• What had happened?

Task - The job holder will want to understand what you tried to achieve from the situation you found yourself in.

• What was the task that you had to complete and why?

• What did you have to achieve?

Actions - What did you do? The job holder will be looking for information on what you did, how you did it and why. Keep the focus on you. What specific steps did you take and what was your contribution? Remember to include how you did it, and the behaviours you used. Try to use “I" rather than “we" to explain your actions that lead to the result. Be careful not to take credit for something that you did not do.

Results - Don’t be shy about taking credit for your behaviour. Quote specific facts and figures. Explain how the outcome benefitted the organisation or your area. Make the outcomes easily understandable.

• What results did the actions produce?

• What did you achieve through your actions and did you meet your goals?

• Was it a successful outcome? If not, what did you learn from the experience?

Keep the situation and task parts brief. Concentrate on the action and the result. If the result was not entirely successful describe what you learned from this and what you would do differently next time. Make sure you focus on your strengths.