Strategic Commercial Lead
| Posting date: | 01 September 2025 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £67,313 per year |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 14 September 2025 |
| Location: | Birmingham |
| Company: | Government Recruitment Service |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 424627/1 |
Summary
Do you enjoy building trusted relationships and influencing senior stakeholders to deliver impactful policy in complex commercial settings?
If so, we'd love to hear from you!
Low carbon fuels are important in reducing emissions from vehicles on the road today and will remain so in the longer term in transport modes with limited alternatives to decarbonisation such as aviation. Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is, therefore, a key technology for decarbonising aviation.
Our vision is for the UK to play a leading role in the development, production and use of SAF. Increasing the use of SAF is a key part of the government’s strategy to reduce aviation emissions. The government is looking to design and implement a revenue certainty mechanism (RCM) to help producers get the investment they need to ramp up the production of SAF in the UK. A UK SAF industry will support the delivery of emissions reductions through the SAF Mandate, help drive growth and can provide good green jobs across the whole of the UK.
Joining our department comes with many benefits, including:
- Employer pension contribution of 28.97% of your salary. Read more about Civil Service Pensions here
- 25 days annual leave, increasing by 1 day each year of service (up to a maximum of 30 days annual leave), plus 8 bank holidays a privilege day for the King’s birthday.
- Flexible working options where we encourage a great work-life balance.
Read more in the Benefits section below!
Find out more about what it's like working at DfT: Department for Transport Central - Department for Transport Careers
This is an exciting role leading on the development and implementation of an RCM. You will work alongside policy professionals to help design and deliver the RCM.
This role will draw heavily upon your commercial expertise, and will have a very visible profile both within the department and with stakeholders such as prospective SAF producers and potential investors, alongside partners across the public sector (including HM Treasury and the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero). You will be required to exercise a high degree of discretion and judgement on complex and novel commercial matters.
The key responsibilities of this role will include but are not limited to:
• Leading on providing strategic commercial advice to Ministers and senior officials, ensuring this advice considers risks, long-term policy aims and the wider political context.
• Engaging with senior stakeholders to ensure you understand the state of the SAF producer, aviation fuel and aviation sectors, ensuring these perspectives are brought into the policy design and implementation process.
• Providing effective constructive challenge to advice received from in-house and technical experts on aspects of the policy design and implementation of the RCM.
• Acting as an intelligent customer to external advisers to ensure we are providing Ministers with robust advice.
• Exercising judgement and, shaping innovative commercial solutions.
For further information on the role, please read the role profile. Please note that the role profile is for information purposes only - whilst all elements are relevant to the role, they may not all be assessed during the recruitment process. This job advert will detail exactly what will be assessed during the recruitment process.
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