Senior Technical Officer Global Health Security

Job responsibilities

• The Senior Technical Officer will join the Global Health Security team within UKHSA's Global Health Protection Directorate. The team strengthens UK health security by ensuring UKHSA's global-facing work is coherent, evidence-led and supports UK readiness and decision-making. As a strategic and technical function, it supports coordination, prioritisation and delivery across UKHSA's global health security activities.
• The post holder will support planning, coordination and monitoring across the Global Health Security programme, maintaining delivery plans, tracking milestones, managing actions, risks and dependencies, and communicating progress to stakeholders. The role requires a structured approach to programme and project management.
• A core aspect of the role is developing effective relationships across UKHSA, wider government and external partners. The successful candidate will work with senior stakeholders, supporting collaborative delivery and shared objectives across organisational boundaries.
• The role combines coordination with direct technical contribution. The post holder will lead or support high-priority technical work with subject matter experts, developing and quality assuring evidence-based briefings, summaries, reports and papers supporting decision-making and UKHSA's global health security objectives.
• The successful candidate will support governance and senior meetings, including convening meetings, coordinating contributions, preparing papers and records, and tracking actions to completion. The role requires excellent communication skills and the ability to present complex information clearly to senior audiences.
• The post holder will engage with international stakeholders, including multilateral organisations and priority bilateral partners, supporting coherent UKHSA engagement, capturing insights and translating these into practical actions supporting UK priorities. They will work with global strategy and partnership teams to align activity with UKHSA's global and domestic objectives.
• The role includes supporting consistent approaches to delivery, monitoring and reporting, maintaining templates, trackers and tools for programme management, information sharing and organisational learning. The post holder will support continuous improvement, strengthening ways of working and applying lessons learned.
• This fast-paced role requires managing competing priorities, responding to emerging issues and changing deadlines while maintaining quality and professionalism. The post holder may support time-limited projects or surge activities across the Directorate and wider agency. Success will be demonstrated through high-quality outputs, strong stakeholder relationships and improvements in how UKHSA plans, delivers, monitors and learns from its global-facing work. Occasional national and international travel may be required.

Essential Criteria:

• Educated to a minimum of Bachelors degree level or equivalent experience within a health science subject (human health, animal health or environmental health), international development or another relevant field.
• Demonstrable experience of developing and maintaining effective stakeholder relationships and working collaboratively with others to achieve shared goals, including with senior colleagues and partners
• Significant project or programme management experience, including planning, tracking delivery to milestones and managing actions, risks and dependencies.
• Experience, appreciation and understanding of the public health, wider health or public sector and awareness and interest in international and global health issues
• Ability to work effectively within a team, respecting others and learning from their contributions, with a strong commitment to equality, equity and inclusive ways of working (including cultural sensitivity and self-awareness).
• Excellent interpersonal, presentation and communication skills (oral and written), including drafting clear briefings and written product, and quality-assuring contributions from others for senior audiences.
• High level of IT literacy in MS Office software packages

Desirable Criteria:

• Understanding of UK government departments and intergovernmental organisations involved in global health activities
• Demonstrable global health or international health project delivery experience including working with government departments and international partners at all levels
• Demonstrable experience supporting senior governance processes, including commissioning inputs, drafting high-quality papers/records for senior decision makers, and tracking actions through to completion.
• Experience working in a matrix environment, coordinating delivery across multiple teams without direct line management authority.

Selection Process Details

This vacancy will be assessed using a competency-based framework which will assess your qualifications,knowledgeand experience and / or skills and abilities outlined in the essential criteria.

Stage 1: Application & Sift

Competency Based

You willbe requiredto complete an application form. You will be assessed on the listed 7 essential criteria, and this will be in the form of a:

• Application form (Employer/ Activity history section on the application)
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