Strategic Manager - Integrative Secretariat

UK Research and Innovation

Salary: £45,272 per annum
Hours: Full time 
Contract Type: Open Ended.
Location: Polaris House, Swindon (hybrid working available)

Closing date Sunday February 2nd 2025 

This is an exciting opportunity to join the Investment Planning and Strategy (IPS) group at the heart of UKRI. The IPS group works in an integrative way to harness the collective expertise across UKRI to set overall strategy for the organisation, lead investment planning, develop our impact evidence base and increase resilience and sustainability in the R&I system. We work collaboratively alongside colleagues in DSIT and other government departments, building the case for investment in R&I and to ensure UKRIs investment portfolio as a whole has the maximum impact on the economy and society.

The Integrative Secretariat Function:

This role is based in the new Integrative Secretariat Function that supports the Board and Executive in delivering UKRI’s Strategy and key priorities. The team is responsible for the effective operation of the UKRI Board, Executive Committee and their sub-committees – providing a professional end-to-end secretariat function. The function has a critical integrative role, acting as a key interlocutor to help make strategic connections and join up decisions so they are brought forward to the Board and committees in a timely manner. With oversight right across UKRI’s strategic and operational portfolio, this new team will build excellent relationships and collaborate with all councils and the corporate hub, ensuring a good understanding of relevant and dependant issues to support a ‘one UKRI perspective’. The team will have an integrative approach to delivery, working seamlessly with Strategy teams, corporate functions, CEO office, private offices and others to enable strategic forward planning supported by timely, complementary and collective decisions to ensure we are an effective and efficient organisation.

Job Purpose

The Strategic Manager is a critical role within the Integrative Secretariat Function that connects organisational strategy with the core day-to-day activities of the team, ensuring they are aligned and prioritised, delivering quality outputs with high impact. This is a demanding position at the heart of the organisation, providing individuals with exposure right across UKRI, its scientific communities and Government partners. 

A key part of this role is to coordinate the information flow between the Board, committees and senior management to enable and support joined-up decision-making and effective management of key strategic issues. The Strategic Manager will also help manage the day-to-day activities of team, ensuring the delivery of an efficient and dynamic secretariat service.

The Strategic Manager is a varied and challenging role, which requires you to be able to build trusted relationships with stakeholders, deliver at pace, communicate and collaborate effectively with exceptional attention to detail. The role requires a high level of strategic awareness and plays a critical role in UKRI’s success and has a direct impact on the delivery of its key priorities.

Key responsibilities of the role include to:

• Support the delivery of an efficient and dynamic secretariat service through the management of a full range of