Strategic Prioritisation & Insight Advisors

Job summary

Discover what it’s like to work in a compliance role that makes an impact. Could you help us shape a stronger, fairer future? Your next career move starts here.

These roles offer a unique opportunity to shape how HMRC tackles the UK’s biggest tax compliance risks. The latest estimates show a £59bn ‘Tax Gap’ – closing this gap is the first of HMRC’s strategic objectives.

Compliance Strategy Delivery (CSD) sits at the centre of Customer Compliance Group, shaping how we understand and respond to these challenges. We bring together strategy, insight and delivery to ensure HMRC focuses on the areas that matter most.

CSD is a small, high-profile Directorate where curiosity, creativity, challenge and collaboration are encouraged. Our work directly informs senior decision-making and drives real-world outcomes.

You’ll join our newly formed Strategic Prioritisation and Insight (SPI) team. This is an exciting opportunity to help build a team from the ground up, working across Grade 6-led areas of Tax Risk Analysis and Strategic Prioritisation to influence HMRC-wide decisions.

Roles will support delivery across a range of priority projects. Working flexibly across different work areas, collaborating with colleagues from a range of disciplines to solve complex problems and produce high-quality analysis, advice and insight.

You will support delivery of projects that shape HMRC’s strategic compliance priorities.

You’ll bring together data, analysis and insight to answer critical questions such as:

• Where are the most significant compliance risks?

• What should HMRC prioritise to have the greatest impact?

• How can we improve the evidence that underpins these decisions?

Your work will help senior leaders understand risks, choices and trade-offs. This includes:

• Analysing complex data and evidence, understanding both its strengths and limitations

• Translating analysis into clear, actionable insight for decision-makers

• Developing options, evidence summaries and advice products that support clear recommendations

• Developing the tools, methods and evidence we use to assess and mitigate risk

• Communicating complex issues in a clear and compelling way

You’ll be comfortable working with ambiguity, applying judgement and collaborating across teams to deliver high-quality outcomes.

Job description

The job requires individuals to operate at the interface of policy, strategy and evidence. SPI includes two G6-led programmes on ‘Tax Risk Analysis’ and ‘Strategic Prioritisation’. Postholders will: support and deliver projects across these programmes; produce clear evidence, policy or engagement products; work with senior colleagues and stakeholders; contribute to programme planning; and contribute to wider corporate, business and people objectives.

You will work in a collaborative inter-disciplinary manner. You will be allocated work according to both the fit to your professional skillsets plus projects that will provide stretch – with support in place to promote your learning and development. You will have opportunity to develop new skills by working across areas in a collegiate and supportive environment.

To illustrate our work, below a list of anticipated SPI projects. Successful candidates should expect to work primarily in one of these areas while also developing experience across the wider team.

- Provide support to strategic cross-HMRC compliance prioritisation by e.g. structuring evidence (provided by others), testing implications and developing business options that enable clear, defensible recommendations for senior decision-makers.

- Help shape, prepare and land cross-HMRC tax compliance prioritisation advice with senior audiences, turning agreed advice into clear, compelling and resilient messages.

- Support SPI’s evidence function including accessing, interpreting and analysing data to support HMRC’s strategic prioritisation function. For example, triangulating sources and quantifying scale and uncertainty in tax risk hypotheses using data from HMRC’s management information systems models and existing structured analyses.

- Support delivery and improvement of a residual tax risk model, including through stakeholder workshops, evidence gathering, quantitative inputs and clear explanation of what the model can and cannot support.

- Support horizon scanning, evidence synthesis and strategic insight products that explain emerging risks, external trends, uncertainty and confidence for prioritisation decisions. For example, appraising 3-10 year macro-economic futures and trends in technology-enabled and AI-driven influences on the tax system.

We are also currently recruiting a number of vacancies in the team – these vacancies align with the SO posts. Candidates are welcome to apply for both G7 and SO roles, reference number 474108.

Person specification

We particularly encourage applications from groups currently underrepresented in our workforce and we are committed to creating an inclusive working environment where everyone can thrive.

Key professional skillsets:

Our roles are designed to bring together people with different professional backgrounds. We welcome applications from candidates with experience in policy, strategy, analysis, operations or related fields, and we encourage multi-disciplinary working across the team.

You should be able to demonstrate capability across, or depth in at least one of, the following key professional skillsets:

1. Evidence into strategy and improvement – Experience collaborating with stakeholders to apply evidence and business insight to strategy, prioritisation and decision-making. For example: Responding to political, economic and organisational contexts; Applying judgment to complex decisions and uncertainty; Providing senior advice and recommendations including business recommendations from data and evidence; proposing recommendations when evidence is incomplete.

2. Applied quantitative data analysis and insight - Working with management information systems or large quantitative databases. Understanding approaches to and the strengths and limitations of using quantitative data in strategic decision-making – including knowing when and how to triangulate with qualitative evidence. Experience in appraisal and/or modelling techniques. Experience in analytical assurance.

3. Macro-economic trends and horizon scanning - Using structured futures and foresight techniques e.g. environmental scanning or scenario planning. Analysing and applying macro-economic trends to strategy contexts. Experience applying forward looking insight into strategic decision making that impacts policy, strategy, direction or decisions.

Essential Criteria

- Clear communication skills, including the ability to explain complex or technical issues clearly to non specialist audiences and produce concise written analysis, advice or briefing material.

- Ability to work effectively with others, collaborating with policy, operational and analytical colleagues. This includes to understand different perspectives and support shared outcomes.

- Analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to use or interpret quantitative and qualitative evidence, identify key issues, explain risks, and provide insights.

- Sound judgement, including the ability to distinguish between evidence, interpretation and judgement, and to be transparent about assumptions and uncertainty.