Lead Investment Analyst at Government Commercial Agency in Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool, Newport (Gwent), Norwich

Job summary

Available Locations

Liverpool, Newport, Norwich, Glasgow or Birmingham.

The following locations listed below are restricted to contracted GCA staff already based in one of these offices:

London, Bristol, Manchester or York.

External applicants are not eligible for these sites. If you select one of these locations as an external applicant your application will unfortunately be withdrawn.

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Every year, the Government Commercial Agency invests in strategic projects and change initiatives, but how do we ensure every pound delivers genuine, long-term value for the public? As the Lead Investment Analyst, you will step directly into this gap, transforming complex economic analysis and theory into robust business cases that withstand commercial and political pressures.

In this role, your value to the nation is direct and measurable. Through rigorous application of the Green, AQuA, and Magenta books, you won’t just be reviewing numbers; you will be safeguarding public funds and ensuring that high-level strategic decisions are backed by undeniable, high-quality evidence.

Job description

Job Summary

As a newly established function within the Government Commercial Agency (GCA), the Research, Evaluation and Analysis team is responsible for supporting GCA and our wider government customers in delivering against government strategy including the five missions and policy impact on customers and supplier behaviour.

The Lead Investment Analyst is a critical role focused on professionalising the use of economic and social research standards across the organisation. Working closely with the Transformation Directorate and Finance, Planning and Performance Directorate (FPP) you will lead on embedding Green Book and Magenta Book principles within GCA, ensuring our commercial decisions and project and programme initiatives are underpinned by robust, evidence-based business cases.

Person specification

Key Accountabilities:

• You will act as the lead economic advisor for the Investment Analysis team, defining the analytical strategy and ensuring all outputs meet rigorous professional standards.
• Provide direct management and talent development for a multidisciplinary team, including Government Economic Service (GES) and Government Social Research (GSR) Fast Streamers.
• Serve as the GCA custodian on the Green and Magenta books, reviewing and supporting the development of Economic Business Cases and evaluation strategies.
• Act as the professional client during economic business case design and appraisal, and evaluation design (Process, Impact & Value for Money), for complex projects and programmes. Providing thought leadership and assuring adherence to the Green and Magenta Book standards.
• Co-design proportionate evaluation frameworks (Process, Impact & Value for Money), providing analysis and metrics, to ensure GCA delivers value for the nation.
• Act as the professional lead for economic business case design and appraisal, supervising the application of techniques such as monetisation, discounting and sensitivity analysis to produce high-quality Cost-Benefit Analysis.
• Proactively partner with Senior Responsible Owners, Transformation, FPP, and other internal directorates to identify information needs and translate unfocussed requests into effective designs.
• Evaluate and integrate information from diverse sources to present clear, logical conclusions to senior non-specialists, assisting them in discerning trends and drawing actionable implications.
• Work with the Head of Research, Evaluation & Analysis to develop and own the Investment Analysis Team strategy. Ensuring the strategies are aligned to the broader government missions and organisational objectives.
• Lead quality-assurance processes, for business case design and appraisal, in line with the AQuA Book, ensuring modelling stands up to external scrutiny.
• Act as one of the final technical signatories for economic inputs into business cases, ensuring they are 'Treasury-ready' and can withstand National Audit Office (NAO) level scrutiny.

Essential Criteria (to be assessed at application stage):

• Must be a badged member of the Government Economic Service (or eligible to pass the board) with an established track record delivering economic evidence to Green, AQuA, and Magenta Book standards
• Deep knowledge of micro/macroeconomic theory, including expert-level Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA), applied industrial organisation, market framework analysis and complex Theory of Change evaluation models
• Skilled in (or able to lead teams using) statistical programming (R, Python, SQL, SPSS, Stata) and data visualisation tools (PowerBI, Tableau, R-Shiny) to translate complex data into clear dashboards
• Proven ability to lead, coach and maintain a cohesive culture across a geographically dispersed, multidisciplinary analytical team while supporting career development and the wider GES network
• Ability to synthesise complex analysis, anticipate future evidence needs, and effectively influence senior stakeholders to ensure analytical evidence carries weight against commercial or political pressures.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Leadership
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing
• Making Effective Decisions

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Analysis & Application
• Quantitative & Data Skills
• Economic Appraisal & Evaluation

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £59,877, Government Commercial Agency contributes

£17,346 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme.

Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

Valuing our people:

• Competitive salary
• Generous pension scheme
• A discretionary non-contractual performance related bonus
• Working remotely in addition to working in advertised office location
• Flexi time scheme (available for B1-B6)
• Minimum 25 days annual leave to a maximum service related 30 days excluding bank holidays

Want to make a difference? Find out more about the rewarding work that we do in our candidate pack .

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service D&I Strategy.

We want to make our recruitment process accessible to everyone, so if there is any way that we can support you, please contact recruitment@gca.gov.uk

Working flexibly, delivering outcomes

GCA operates a smarter working model that balances flexibility with collaboration. Successful candidates are expected to spend at least 26 days per quarter (approximately 2 days per week, pro-rata) at their contracted office, another GCA site, or off-site for meetings. For the remainder of the time, you may work from home or another suitable location that meets business needs.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window) , and will assess your Behaviours and Technical skills.

Selection Process

Please note that should there be a tie at interview, the lead success profile is Leadership.

A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months, which the Civil Service may use to fill future suitably similar vacancies across government for candidates who are considered appointable following interview. Should you be placed on a reserve list and want to be removed please contact recruitment@gca.gov.uk .

Please note that as part of this recruitment process, if you are unsuccessful at the interview stage but are close to the benchmark score you may be considered for and offered a role at a lower pay band within the same job family.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a standard (or equivalent) criminal record check.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window) .

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window) .

People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window) .

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the

Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window)

and the

Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window) .

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available.

You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Recruitment team
• Email : recruitment@gca.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : recruitment@gca.gov.uk

Further information

Our recruitment processes are underpinned by the principle of selection for appointment on merit on the basis of fair and open competition as outlined in the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles details of which can be found at http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles, and you wish to make a complaint, you should contact recruitment@gca.gov.uk in the first instance.

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