Senior Principal Analyst – Close Combat OR Lead

Are you passionate about delivering high impact analytical research? Do you want to make a difference to the way Defence and Security operates and how it protects the UK, and our armed forces, from real world threats, both at home and abroad?

Dstl’s Land Analysis Group supports the Army, the Ministry of Defence and wider Government through the delivery of impartial evidence-based studies, ensuring intelligent decision-making is at the heart of UK Defence and Security. As the Close Combat OR Lead Analyst you will be part of a team that works with industry, academia and international partners to develop and evaluate exciting new force and system capabilities. Our analysis primarily helps the Army in designing its future force, developing and testing new capabilities, and informing major equipment investment decisions.

Our work is critical; we need your help to help us now and into the future.

Dstl recognises the importance of diversity and inclusion as people from diverse backgrounds bring fresh ideas. We are committed to building an inclusive working environment in which each employee fulfils their potential and maximises their contribution.

We particularly welcome female and ethnic minority applicants and those from the LGBTQI community, as they are under-represented within Dstl at these levels.

This role is for a Senior Principal Analyst (Dstl Level 7).

In this role you will:
•    Take responsibility for, and ensure that customer deliverables are of a robust analytical standard, that can be interpreted and acted upon by senior military customers and decision makers.
•    Provide timely, impartial, evidence-based advice to customers to enable them to make informed decisions representing “best value” and a return on investment.
•    Help build and sustain the reputation of S&T through relationship building and engagement with S&T users.
•    Provide regular inputs and reports to Programme Managers on technical progress, together with evidence-based advice and guidance to shape future programme level development and anticipate future technical demands and priorities.
•    Liaise with suppliers as required by the programme(s) in order to ensure that requirements are clearly understood, and that the best of academia and industry is harnessed to deliver programmes (especially for Stance A programmes, where Dstl adds value to what is provided by outside suppliers through its understanding of context and use).
•    Ensure the Group is agile and prepared to deliver the correct capability mix of tools, models, methods and people for the future.
•    Support Team Leaders by providing technical guidance and mentoring to help develop Group staff in line with the Divisional strategy and future capability needs.

Our analysts use and develop Operational Research techniques, such as simulation and modelling, wargaming (manual and computerised), optimisation, data analysis, statistics, and facilitated workshops (e.g. MCDA), in order to analyse the impact and effectiveness of different technologies, concepts and policies. 
 
This role sits within the Close Combat Analysis Team. It provides systems expertise and a variety of diverse techniques to deliver Operational Research, experimentation, demonstration and discovery to provide decision support on Dismounted and Mounted Close Combat. Your role in particular will be required to enhance and build the Mounted Close Combat operational research capability, including the development of models and methods to support this.

We recognise the unique skills and aspirations of our staff and are able to present them with an unparalleled range of opportunities to develop both the UK’s military capabilities and themselves.

As a leader in Defence you will help shape, role model and bring to life the ‘One Defence’ mindset that will enable us to deliver our vision and strategic objectives. Your leadership style must be inspiring, confident and empowering. Working at every level of our organisation to break down silos, unite teams and create a culture that is trusting, collaborative, innovative, diverse and inclusive. Enabling us to deliver with pace and agility through the skills, commitment and empowerment of our employees and military colleagues.

We are looking for someone who has:
•    Substantial experience of leading teams to deliver analytical studies.
•    Substantial experience of developing the technical skills of project team members.
•    Evidence of technical leadership from a range of studies utilising both quantitative and qualitative Operational Research techniques and skills.
•    A good understanding of the Land Environment domain, together with an appreciation of the current and future challenges that it faces.
•    A desire to apply analytical rigour and evidence-based decision making to customer deliverables that will be used to shape highly critical future Field Army and wider MOD decisions.
•    The ability to understand both the strategic and operational customer space, and translate this into future direction that aligns with both the Dstl and DST strategies.
•    The ability to effectively engage and lead junior analytical staff, and work effectively alongside other senior members of staff within Dstl.
•    The ability to effectively and clearly communicate technical and analytical information to senior Army and MOD customers.

For full details and the skills and experience required please see the attached role profile.

Important Information
Our work in Defence, security and intelligence requires our employees to be UK Nationals who are able to gain a high level of security clearance to undertake the projects we are involved in to protect us from security threats. For this reason, only UK Nationals will be able to apply for this role. If you are an international or dual-national candidate, and you think you have the skills we need, please consider applying to any of our government, security or Defence partners.

This role will require full UK security clearance and you should have resided in the UK for the past 5 years. For some roles Developed Vetting will also be required, in this case you should have resided in the UK for the past 10 years.

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

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Leadership
• Delivering at Pace
• Communicating and Influencing

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

• Analysis

Dstl’s full range of great benefits can be found in the information pack which includes:

• Financial: An excellent pension scheme starting from 26% employer contribution (find out more here). In Year Rewarding Achievement bonuses and thank you vouchers. Rental deposit scheme and cycle to work scheme.
• Flexible working: Full flexibility working options include alternative working patterns, compressed hours, job shares and annualised hours. Remote working may be available dependent on role.
• Flexible working hours: Ability to bank hours in a 12 month reference period including the ability to accrue and use 3 days per calendar month.
• Annual leave: 25 days pro rata (rising to 30 after 5 years) plus 8 public holidays with the ability to buy/sell 5 additional days per annum.
• Family: Maternity, adoption or shared parental leave of up to 26 weeks with full pay, an additional 13 weeks statutory pay and a further 13 weeks unpaid
• Learning and Development: Dstl encourages and supports charterships, accreditations and provides employees access to fully funded apprenticeships up to level 7 (Masters Degree). Dstl will pay for 2 memberships with relevant bodies/institutions. Employees also have access to Civil Service Learning.
• Facilities: Onsite parking, EV Charging points, restaurants, cafés and gyms.

The information pack can be found attached to the job specification on Civil Service Jobs. 

Our Diversity Networks

We have a number of support networks to ensure all employees feel supported at work. These include the following:

• Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Network
• Race, Faith and Culture Network
• Parents and Carer Support Network
• Alternative Working Network
• Gender Equality Network
• New Starters Network
• Enabled Network, for people with visible and non-visible disabilities.

This job is not open to candidates who hold a dual nationality.

Job contact :

• Name : Dstl Recruitment Team
• Email : Dstlrecruitment@dstl.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : dstlrecruitment@dstl.gov.uk