Vacancies

We’re undergoing an exciting period of change and growth at OPSS, and there’s never been a better time to join us. Below you can find our current vacancies, which are updated regularly.

About the Team

We are the OPSS Digital and Technology team, and we build digital services focused on product safety and regulation.

Our team is a mixed team of civil servants and contractors that collaborate in agile service teams working on user centred designs.

We have an exciting portfolio of services that have internal and external users and there are already further services in our pipeline for future development.

This is an exciting time to be at OPSS Digital. As a fast-growing area of the Department for Business and Trade, we’re raising compliance standards across the board and making a real-world impact on millions of lives nationwide.

We are looking for a business support role to help us effectively manage our growing portfolio of work through project support and reporting. The role will also have the opportunity to deliver a crucial role in our Technology area, supporting the implementation of end user computing for office staff in Birmingham.

OPSS has sites in Birmingham, London, and Teddington. This role is based in our Birmingham office but there maybe be a need to travel to our other sites on occasions.

About the Role

As our Business Support Officer, you will support the team across a number of workstreams, ensuring adherence to service standards, key performance indicators and associated service level agreements. You will work in conjunction with colleagues to:

  • Undertake senior level administrative tasks to ensure the effective delivery of Digital work-strands.
  • Act as the first contact point across OPSS, for office-based queries, problem solving and using initiative to support and guide colleagues, escalating issues where appropriate.
  • Undertake the collation and reporting of statistics for the Digital team.
  • Develop team processes and procedures to ensure they reflect the current working environment.
  • Ensure service standards and all SLAs are adhered, utilising resource and work allocation to support the requirements of the team.
  • Leading your own development in line with the Digital Skills and Proficiency Matrix.
  • Support Major Incidents across OPSS in a reactive manner.
  • Work closely with senior management and colleagues across the Office to support the development and refinement of IT services in place.
  • Provide reassurance and information to increase OPSS colleagues’ confidence.
  • Utilise all resources available ensuring that work being undertaken is completed at the most appropriate level.
  • Using your experience in the role you’ll be able to feed into the wider strategic direction we choose to take OPSS in with guidance and support from your manager.  Can you contribute to a team to build services to help people? If yes, we want to hear from you!
  • We also nurture talent and offer a broad range of learning and development opportunities that will help you thrive in your role.

We work hard to maintain a positive working culture and are committed to helping you fulfil your potential. We value diversity and provide an open, inclusive, and encouraging environment to help you do your best work.

The Operational Support Unit (OSU) is the ‘front door’ to the office, and we are a high-demand front-line team. We deliver outstanding customer service to both our internal and external customer base, providing reassurance and building confidence through our response to enquiries and everyday engagement with colleagues.

We work diligently to support other functional teams across OPSS, undertaking administrative duties to support our regulatory obligations and delivering our purpose. We are also responsible for developing, implementing, and supporting processes to underpin multi-functional activities.

Job description

You will support the team across several work-streams, ensuring adherence to service standards, key performance indicators and associated SLA. You will work in conjunction with your colleagues to:

  • Support the undertaking and processing of all work-streams that the team deliver on behalf of OPSS.
  • Following procedure for handling of evidence received for testing and be willing to undertake a forklift licence course to support this task.
  • Be willing to attend other required courses such as manual handling and red snapper evidence training.
  • Respond to, record, signpost or resolve all enquiries received to OPSS.
  • Undertake all administration tasks associated with work-streams.
  • Undertake the collation of statistics for all enquiries and work-streams.
  • Ensure all work is completed within service standards and service level agreements, advancing issues if vital.
  • Develop knowledge of key work-streams to enable you to become a subject matter authority to support colleagues.
  • Chairing and management of the administration of Team Meetings.
  • Leading on own development in line with the OSU Skills a Development Matrix.
  • Support to Major Incidents across OPSS in a reactive manner.

Regulatory Design and Governance is a small team reporting to the Deputy Director for Product and Sectors Regulation.

We play a pivotal part shaping regulation that protects the safety of people and places across a huge range of products, from construction to common household goods, and that protects our environment through the life-cycle of goods from production to disposal. Collaborative working is an essential part of our approach, drawing on the expertise of colleagues in enforcement, science and technical, analytical and legislation roles. We scrutinise new regulatory functions to make sure they fit with OPSS’s strategic direction, purpose and objectives.

The team works in collaboration across government by providing regulatory expertise to other departments and their policy teams.  We work with policy teams to ensure that we have effective regulatory obligations and powers in place in order to support the policy objectives, and the team is responsible for the ongoing development of a governance framework to underpin these activities. Our work is often fast-paced and must adapt to new or changing priorities.

The role provides the unique opportunity for the ideal candidate to not only make an impact in OPSS by supporting the ongoing development of OPSS’ impact as a regulator, but also to support wider government priorities by providing regulatory expertise to other departments.  The ideal candidate will bring a structured approach to problem-solving and strong interest in tackling new and complex issues in a way that offers pragmatic solutions to regulatory problems.

Regulatory Design and Governance is a small team reporting to the Deputy Director for Product and Sectors Regulation.

We play a pivotal part shaping regulation that protects the environment and safety of people and places, supporting OPSS’ growth as a national regulator of products. This covers a breadth of products, from construction to common household goods, over their life-cycle from production to disposal. Many of these new enforcement roles are delivered in partnership with other government departments, adapting government policy to on-the-ground enforcement. Collaborative working across departments and with OPSS colleagues is an essential part of approach, drawing on the expertise of colleagues in enforcement, science and technical, analytical and legal teams.

We require a Health & Safety Officer to lead and shape our internal systems and processes, embracing a culture of continuous improvement and ensuring OPSS continues to deliver a high-quality technical service. You will have a strong focus on providing knowledge and direction on the safe operation of the laboratory facilities and you will develop and maintain safety systems to drive improvements. This is a key post at our newly refurbished Teddington site, working closely with our lab-based and estates functional teams to ensure the safe operation of our laboratories.

The role will be based in Teddington and working arrangements will be agreed with the vacancy manager and in line with the requirements of the role. This is a laboratory-based role that requires a minimum of 80% office attendance.

The Metrology Policy team within OPSS leads on the of policy of legal metrology legislation to ensure that goods are sold by accurate weights and measures and deliver consumer confidence in our daily purchases of products such as food, drink and fuel.  It is a wide, high impact area with UK consumers spending around £300 billion each year on goods sold by weight or measure.

The team develops and formulate policy, delivering evidence-based solutions and robust advice for Ministers, whilst supporting business to meet their obligations and ultimately protecting consumers and ensuring they have confidence in the products they buy.

The Government has announced that the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) will host the new national regulator for construction products, driving the improvement of safety and performance standards and ensuring compliance with construction product regulations.

​OPSS has begun operating under existing regulations and is currently transitioning to become fully operational under new legislation.   The Business Compliance Team is the team responsible for setting and establishing OPSS’ approach to drive business compliance with the construction product industry. We lead on the delivery of high-quality regulation of construction products placed on the UK market.

​The Construction Products Business Area is looking to appoint a Grade 6 Assistant Director of Business Compliance to work in partnership with the existing Assistant Director.

​The ideal candidate will be able to demonstrate strong leadership skills and efficiencies at developing and maintaining positive working relationships with a broad range of colleagues and external partners.

​This role can be based either in Birmingham or Teddington only.

The Strategic Planning and Performance team is responsible for planning, monitoring, and reporting on performance across OPSS. As a team, we are passionate about helping the organisation to deliver effectively, while also ensuring that colleagues are aligned with our processes.

We are a small team, with developing ways of working; if you are dynamic and flexible then this role offers an excellent opportunity to put those attributes to use!

About the role

The Strategic Planning and Performance Officer will report to the Strategic Planning and Performance Lead and will work closely with other OPSS teams, including Resource Management. You will work on a range of activities which will ensure OPSS has a clear strategic framework for delivery of our activities and our use of resources, which meets the outcomes and objectives set out in the OPSS strategy.

We require a Laboratory Manager to lead a team of technical experts and help shape the function and vision for our testing facilities. You will apply your strong expertise to manage the delivery of relevant work programmes, acting as lead reviewer to ensure laboratory policies and outputs provide effective outcomes and impact for the organisation. Your contribution will be critical in ensuring that our staff can work in the most functional and safe laboratory environment, enabling them to deliver a high-quality and efficient service. This is a key post at our newly refurbished Teddington site, requiring close collaboration with other evidence and operational teams to ensure the effective, efficient and safe operation of our laboratories. It is crucial you can communicate clearly to colleagues at all levels and can translate technical findings so they can be readily understood by non-technical audiences.

This is an exciting position for a functional team leader in our Risk Team, which is part of the Targeting branch within the Evidence Impact Area.

The Risk Teams role is both internal, conducting risk assessments of non-compliant products and ensuring that OPSS is risk-based in how we conduct our regulatory activities; and external, ensuring that the UK’s system for identifying, assessing and managing consumer product risks is working effectively, and taking action to improve the system.

You will have the opportunity lead to shape the work of the Risk Team and the work of the Office more broadly, and in doing so will work with a wide variety of teams across OPSS and lead some of our most high-profile activities and challenges. You will be encouraged to use your expertise to deliver robust, creative and effective strategies and solutions to problems. You will be part of a dynamic, energetic and professional team.

Business Analysts support our service teams by analysing problems and opportunities in our services to produce solutions and improvements to our services. You’ll work with stakeholders to identify opportunities and benefits that our services can bring and look to ensure that they are implemented

​We need excellent Business Analysts to take a lead role in our projects and ensure that our services deliver clear and tangible benefits to the business and our stakeholders. If you enjoy delivering improvements to processes and benefits to stakeholders then we want to hear from you!

We are the OPSS Digital and Technology team, and we build digital services focused on product safety and regulation.

Our team is a mixed team of civil servants and contractors that collaborate in agile service teams working on user centred designs.

We have an exciting portfolio of services that have internal and external users and there are already further services in our pipeline for future development.

This is an exciting time to be at OPSS Digital. As a fast-growing area of the Department for Business and Trade, we’re raising compliance standards across the board and making a real-world impact on millions of lives nationwide.

We are currently looking for an Associate Product Manager who will be expected to use their knowledge of user needs and business goals to frame problems and set priorities for their delivery teams.

The Roles and Our Team 

​About the Roles

​There are six roles being advertised across the following team:

Products and Sectors Regulation

​The Products and Sectors Regulation Team enforce a range of product, environmental and energy efficiency regulations across a wide variety of product types in a number of different sectors. We are working towards providing a regulatory environment in which businesses have the confidence to invest and grow whilst ensuring that consumers and the environment are protected. We do this by taking a risk-based and proportionate approach to our regulatory activities, in accordance with the Regulators’ Code. We are continuing to build our regulatory capability, our ways of working, and our staff’s expertise.

Product Regulation Team:

We deliver a comprehensive market surveillance programme engaging with businesses, auditing technical documentation, inspecting manufacturing process, undertaking product sampling & testing, and carrying out investigations to ensure products comply with Eco-design and Energy Labelling Requirements.

​We ensure that products meet minimum energy efficiency standards, and that energy labelling is accurate, to ensure consumers save money on energy and make informed purchasing decisions. We use intelligence to prioritise key business sectors and develop our strategies to raise levels of compliance across those sectors.

​We are looking for two experiences regulators to join our team and take on a new challenge. You will be well supported in our well-resourced experienced team, and the work you will undertake will be both varied and challenging. There is also opportunity to develop mentorship skills by supporting our apprentices as they develop during their studies.

​If you are passionate about protecting consumers, holding business to account and working as part of a committed team, to make a difference, then we would love to hear from you.

Environment and Supply Chain Assurance Team:

Timber supply chains are regulated to ensure harvesting practices are legal, encourage sustainable harvesting practices and support global forest governance.  This role will involve Investigating and enforcing the UK Timber Products placing on the Market Regulations (UKTR) to prevent trade in Timber that is illegally harvested and help businesses understand their obligations under the regulations.

Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) and End of Life Vehicles (ELV): 

​This role involves the protection of the environment through the enforcement of regulations, which ensure that electronic equipment or vehicles do not have excessive levels of certain hazardous substances and are dealt with correctly. This is part of a small team that undertake compliance checks of products placed on the UK market, including reviewing testing and conformity documentations, undertaking test purchasing and removing non-compliant products from sale as necessary.

Waste Electrical & Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and Battery Takeback:

​This role involves the protection of the environment through the enforcement of regulations, which ensure that businesses who sell portable batteries, electrical and electronic equipment have systems in place to take back the waste items and make sure these are dealt with by approved waste treatment companies. This is within a small team that undertake compliance checks on businesses, including working with partners, other regulators and trade associations to support business compliance.

​We are looking for 3 regulators to build upon this thriving work environment, supported by colleagues, sharing knowledge and collaborating to achieve a common goal. Our work ethic contributes to a positive and motivated team dynamic.  If you would like to join us in making a valuable difference and are ready to embark on a rewarding journey, playing a pivotal role in our success then we encourage you to apply.

Vacancies open to existing Civil Servants

We have some fantastic opportunities for the right candidate. Please note that the roles below are only open to existing Civil Servants.