PA & Administrative Support

Job summary

Do you have experience providing high-quality administrative or PA support to senior leaders?

Can you manage competing priorities while delivering excellent service in a fast-paced environment?

Are you confident building strong relationships and communicating effectively with a range of stakeholders?

If so, we’d love to hear from you!

This is an exciting time to join the Digital, Information and Security Directorate within the Department for Transport as we restructure our directorate to ensure we are ready for future challenges, building a more sustainable, skilled and in-house capability.

You'll be joining a supportive and collaborative team where you'll play a key role in enabling senior leaders through effective diary management, governance coordination and high-quality administrative support. This is a unique opportunity to contribute to the smooth running of a function that drives digital transformation across the Department.

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 Department for Transport Central - Department for Transport Careers.

Job description

As a PA & Administrative Support Officer, you will provide high-quality personal assistant and administrative support to multiple senior leaders within the Digital, Information and Security Directorate. Working as part of a collaborative team, you will help ensure the effective day-to-day operation of the Directorate through diary management, meeting coordination, governance support and stakeholder engagement.

This is a varied and fast-paced role where no two days are the same. You will manage complex diaries, coordinate meetings and boards, prepare agendas and papers, maintain action logs, support correspondence handling and provide a range of administrative services to support business operations. You'll work closely with colleagues across the Directorate, building strong relationships and delivering excellent customer service to a wide range of stakeholders.

The role offers an excellent opportunity to develop your organisational, communication and governance skills while gaining exposure to senior leadership teams and contributing to the successful delivery of departmental priorities.

Your responsibilities will include, but aren’t limited to:

• Coordinating diaries, meetings, and events for senior leaders and teams within Performance & Capability.
• Arranging logistics, preparing agendas, and distributing meeting papers to ensure effective meetings.
• Managing incoming and outgoing correspondence, including emails, calls, and written communications.
• Drafting routine communications and responding to queries on behalf of senior colleagues as appropriate.
• Coordinating and ensuring timely response to correspondence requests including; Parliamentary, Treat Official and interdepartmental questions.
• Supporting the smooth running of the directorate by helping colleagues with day-to-day administrative activities such as onboarding new starters, coordinating IT requests and supporting good information management practices.

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.

Person specification

To be successful in this role you will need to have the following experience:

• Provide effective and pro-active PA support to senior leaders.

• Provide secretariat support for boards and meetings, including; establishing forward plans, scheduling meetings, planning agendas, providing briefings for the Chair, taking minutes, collating and distributing key papers ahead of meetings to ensure decisions are well informed, and that agreed actions are tracked.

• Provide high quality and accurate general administrative support such as organising meetings, note-taking and diary management.

• Excellent verbal and written communications with experience of communicating important information clearly and succinctly, adapting communication styles to suit the needs of others.

• Experience of delivering at pace, managing conflicting priorities and ensuring that work is prioritised effectively to meet deadlines.

• Proactive customer service orientated experience with a focus on establishing trusted relationships with colleagues and stakeholders and meeting stakeholder expectations.

• Proficient user of various MS packages, e.g. Outlook and Excel.

Working hours, office attendance and travel requirements

Full time roles consist of 37 hours per week.

Occasional travel to other offices will be required, which may involve overnight stays.

This role is suitable for hybrid working, which is a non-contractual arrangement where a combination of workplace and home-based working can be accommodated subject to business requirements.

The expectation at present is a minimum of 60% of your working time a month will be spent at either your designated workplace (one of the locations cited in the advert) or, when required for business reasons, in another office/work location/visiting stakeholders. Your designated workplace will be your contractual place of work. There may be occasions where you are required to attend above the minimum expectation.

If you have a question about hybrid working, part time/job share hours, flexible working, travelling for work, or require a reasonable adjustment, please contact the Vacancy Holder during the recruitment process to avoid possible disappointment later in the process should your working arrangements not be compatible with the requirements of the role (see below for contact details).

Visa Sponsorship

DfTc does not offer Visa Sponsorship for this role.

Behaviours

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

• Communicating and Influencing
• Managing a Quality Service
• Delivering at Pace

We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:

• Delivering at Pace

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £30,485, Department for Transport contributes £8,831 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).

Being part of our brilliant Civil Service means you will have access to a wide range of fantastic benefits:

• Employer pension contribution of 28.97% of your salary. Read more about Civil Service Pensions