Senior Occupational Psychologist

These two Senior Occupational Psychologist (SOP) roles are part of the Occupational Psychology Service (OPS), which sits in the Government People Group (GPG). GPG is the strategic and functional centre for the Government People Function and human resources (HR) in the Civil Service. GPG's mission is to enable and improve the delivery of recruitment, training, workplace policy, HR strategy and management excellence to over half a million civil servants.

From recruitment to retirement, GPG is at the forefront of working with ministers and departments to ensure the Civil Service is equipped to deliver for UK citizens. A shared aim of all civil servants working in the Government People Function is to support the delivery of the Civil Service People Plan .

The OPS acts as an internal consultancy to all of the Civil Service. We collaborate with government departments, functions and professions to develop and deliver high quality, customer-focused assessment products and solutions grounded in occupational psychology. We place ourselves at the forefront of assessment innovation, and are actively creating a growing range of evidence-based psychological assessment tools.

This post is part of the wider Government Occupational Psychology Profession (a recognised government specialist profession). The profession comprises over 250 members across all the major government departments and many agencies and arms‑length bodies – which makes us the largest Occupational Psychology community in the U.K. We are a vibrant community with a long history in government going as far back as, at least, World War II, as shown in the Fifty Years of Occupational Psychology in Britain.

The Head of the Government Occupational Psychology Profession is Dr Antonia Dietmann.

Building on the foundation of skills that you developed in your Masters degree, your career in the Government Occupational Psychology Profession will develop both your technical and consultancy capabilities. We welcome people from a range of different backgrounds as this helps to increase the diversity of thought and perspectives when developing solutions. Collaborating across departments and sharing learning is key to how we work.

Throughout the year there will be many opportunities to connect with other members of the profession and build the relationships that will make the most rewarding occupational psychology career. Upon joining the civil service you are encouraged to sign up to the profession.

As a Senior Occupational Psychologist, you will play a critical role in supporting our growing business offer. You will frequently be working with other members of the team on large programmes of work, but you will also be given the freedom to lead on projects independently, covering the entire consultancy cycle. You will be adaptable, flexible and dependable, with an ability to effectively prioritise and manage your time.

Some of the exciting projects you can get involved with:

• Researching and building a new skills based assessment for use in the broader civil service;
• Working alongside Lead Psychometricians to update and customise our existing assessments;
• Amending our Managerial Judgement Test to align with the new Civil Service Leadership Capabilities;
• Conducting different validations to best improve our assessments;
• Working across the government with other Occupational Psychologists in the GOPP on a wide range of exciting projects, such as conducting maturity assessments, advising and designing interview processes, leadership assessment and development construction, providing best practice advice on assessment development - and more!

You will be joining a high performing multi-disciplinary team of occupational psychologists, psychometricians and digital experts who use evidence-based practice to put the client and user at the heart of what they do. We are a team that embraces innovation to deliver better results, improved efficiency and added value, with a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion.

• Acting as a subject matter expert, providing up-to-date,…