Policy

Policy professionals play a central role in helping the Home Office to build a safe, just and prosperous UK. They design, develop and deliver the plans and activities that achieve the specific objectives set by government ministers.

In the Home Office, this work contributes to maintaining Homeland Security, ensuring Public Safety and managing effectively Migration and Borders. Policy work can often be both high-profile and impactful, affecting every day the lives of millions of citizens.

As a policy professional, you are likely to work closely with ministers, and you could be working with colleagues such as analysts to develop evidence-based plans, or with communications and marketing specialists to deliver focused campaigns. You may also work with lawyers to provide recommendations on complicated decisions with a legal dimension, or with digital specialists to develop new services for the public. The Home Office works closely with a wide range of partners across government and outside it too ­– including the police, fire and rescue services – and as a policy professional you may work with those bodies too.

As a knowledgeable and skilled policy professional, you’ll understand the context and background of your policy area and know how to translate objectives and priorities into delivery. Policy work can be varied, fast-paced and intellectually stimulating, but there is no single type of person that is best suited to the role. Different perspectives can help deliver better plans, and there’s always room for creativity and judgement alongside evidence and rigour.

What you could be doing

  • Policy: You could be working on a huge range of interesting policy areas, from ensuring the UK’s preparedness for cyber security attacks from hostile states, or managing marketing campaigns. You might work with policing partners to increase police numbers, or create visa routes for highly skilled migrants to come and boost the UK economy.
  • Private Office: You could be directly supporting ministers, including by commissioning and providing briefings and advice, representing them at meetings with different colleagues and teams, and ensuring delivery of different activities and priorities.
  • Parliamentary team: As a parliamentary expert, you could be helping to plan government business in parliament, briefing ministers and officials on particular topics or engagements, and co-ordinating responses to parliamentary questions and other requests for information.
  • Corporate Strategy & Performance: You could be producing and managing strategies, and tracking performance to ensure delivery of government objectives.

The benefits of working in Policy at the Home Office

Policy professionals joining the Home Office will benefit from working on projects and priorities offering almost unrivalled impact and experience. You’ll build your CV, skills and career while knowing your work really matters.

Policy professionals in the Home Office benefit from the wide variety of training available to all civil servants. We also offer you a range of targeted development activities, including a dedicated ‘policy’ development programme, monthly policy essentials sessions and regular lunchtime speaker sessions from academics and external institutions.