15167 - Prison Competition Support Officer
| Posting date: | 09 March 2026 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £33,275 to £38,316 per year |
| Additional salary information: | The national salary range is £33,275, London salary range is £36,590 - £38,316. Your salary will be dependent on your base location |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 23 March 2026 |
| Location: | UK |
| Remote working: | Hybrid - work remotely up to 2 days per week |
| Company: | Ministry of Justice |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 15167 |
Summary
Are you a highly organised, proactive administrator looking for a role where your skills truly matter? In this role you will be providing administrative support on the work to procure and mobilise private prison contracts - processes that shape the future of prison services. This is a dynamic role where you will directly support workstream leads in a demanding and fast paced environment. We are looking for someone who can manage competing priorities, work autonomously, and takes pride in delivering high-quality support. Key day-to-day duties include taking minutes for meetings and providing general secretariat support to them, managing a functional mailbox, producing and maintaining actaion and decision logs and agendas, administering shared online work areas and ad-hoc administrative tasks.
HMPPS is committed to expanding the number of UK prison places to meet expected increases in demand over the coming five years. This incorporates several projects and programmes that aim to maintain and expand capacity by building brand new prisons, expand existing prisons, carry out major refurbishments, and deploy short-term and temporary accommodation; In addition to this we are managing the exit from and transfer of contracts for existing privately managed prisons. This work will keep available and improve thousands of existing prison places and deliver a vital component of the Criminal Justice System.
The role of the Private Prison Expiry & Transfer Project & New Prisons Programme within the Prison Supply Directorate (PSD) is to manage the successful delivery of three key areas:
• Leading the delivery of the additional prison places: including new prisons, house blocks, major refurbishments, small scale investments.
• Operator Competitions: in the event of a decision to compete new or existing
Prisons including existing privately managed prisons where their contracts are due to expire and designing and running a competition in line with Government Procurement Regulations.
• Expiry and Transfer of Private Finance Initiative (PFI)/existing Private Prisons: planning and delivering the safe, efficient and effective transfer of existing private prisons (PFI and Manage & Maintain arrangements) following a competition process to a new provider once the contracts expire.
The project is currently delivering its third tranche of competitions, which covers HMP Dovegate (Staffordshire), HMP & YOI Doncaster (South Yorkshire), HMP Oakwood (West Midlands). The fourth tranche is due to start later in 2026, and the project is also developing a new Prison Operator Services Framework to streamline the delivery of future private prison competitions. Additional support will be provided for the mobilisation of the new prison HMP Welland Oaks in Leicestershire.
HMPPS is committed to expanding the number of UK prison places to meet expected increases in demand over the coming five years. This incorporates several projects and programmes that aim to maintain and expand capacity by building brand new prisons, expand existing prisons, carry out major refurbishments, and deploy short-term and temporary accommodation; In addition to this we are managing the exit from and transfer of contracts for existing privately managed prisons. This work will keep available and improve thousands of existing prison places and deliver a vital component of the Criminal Justice System.
The role of the Private Prison Expiry & Transfer Project & New Prisons Programme within the Prison Supply Directorate (PSD) is to manage the successful delivery of three key areas:
• Leading the delivery of the additional prison places: including new prisons, house blocks, major refurbishments, small scale investments.
• Operator Competitions: in the event of a decision to compete new or existing
Prisons including existing privately managed prisons where their contracts are due to expire and designing and running a competition in line with Government Procurement Regulations.
• Expiry and Transfer of Private Finance Initiative (PFI)/existing Private Prisons: planning and delivering the safe, efficient and effective transfer of existing private prisons (PFI and Manage & Maintain arrangements) following a competition process to a new provider once the contracts expire.
The project is currently delivering its third tranche of competitions, which covers HMP Dovegate (Staffordshire), HMP & YOI Doncaster (South Yorkshire), HMP Oakwood (West Midlands). The fourth tranche is due to start later in 2026, and the project is also developing a new Prison Operator Services Framework to streamline the delivery of future private prison competitions. Additional support will be provided for the mobilisation of the new prison HMP Welland Oaks in Leicestershire.