Government & Policy Sector Resources & Research

Government & Policy Week might be over, but for you it could be the start of an exciting career in this sector. As part of UCL Careers’ Government and Policy Themed Week we have created this guide to provide a list of useful resources to help prepare you for the events and to continue your research into the sector.

Whether you want to join the Civil Service Fast Stream, work for your local authority, specialise on policy within a think tank, charity, union or pressure group, or pursue one of the hundreds of options within the public sector, this sector can be a rewarding and challenging place to start your career.

Key starting points

Finding information on the range of different graduate level roles available will help you get a better understanding of your different options and how to succeed once you get there. Using Careers Tagged, an online careers resource UCL Students have access to, we have compiled job profiles to inform and inspire your search.

These will provide key information on areas such as:

• Main duties / responsibilities for the role
• Expected salary information (starting and potential earnings)
• Professional development, training and career prospects
• Typical working hours
• Entry requirements (formal qualifications and skills)
• How to get work experience
• How to identify key employers and where to search for job vacancies
• Case studies of people working in these roles

View job profiles on Careers Tagged:

• Government job profiles (e.g. Civil Service & Diplomatic Service)
• Politics job profiles (e.g. Public Affairs Consultant & Local Government Officer)
• Policy job profiles (e.g. Social Researcher & Trade Union Research Officer)
• Public sector job profiles (e.g. Community Development Officer & Firefighter)

Professional organisations and other bodies

Many public sector professional body websites will produce career guides aimed at student / graduate level jobseekers, providing an insider’s view on how to start your policy career. They will also provide information for their members on areas such as events, news on current trends and future developments for the sector.

Keeping up to date with news through sites like these is useful for building your commercial awareness which recruiters look for in job applications.

The Careers Tagged Government & public sector professional bodies listing below will highlight major players in this sector and explain what sorts of information each one provides that might be useful to you when planning your policy career. They will also provide support with navigating these sites to find the student focused content.

Employer directories and job vacancy sites

Through ‘myUCLCareers’, thousands of organisations target UCL students and graduates by advertising a range of job vacancy types including work experience / internships and full time graduate level roles.

Try some of following searches on the myUCLCareers Vacancies tab:

• Current government and policy sector job vacancies (using the ‘Occupational area’ filter for ‘Policy and Government’
• Quick search for terms such as: Policy; Politics; Political; Future Leaders; Security; MP; Community; Council; Westminster; Strategy.

Employers may also promote recruitment / networking / skill development events both on and off campus. View and search upcoming events on myUCLCareers.

On your account you can also use the organisation search tool to identify recruiters by ‘occupational area’ who have a connection with UCL Careers.

Many recruiters won’t directly target UCL students through myUCLCareers, so it’s also worth expanding your search by looking through listings of the government and policy sector:

• Policy directory
• Policy directory
• Think Tank directory
• Government job sites
• Policy job sites
• Civil Service Fast Stream

Students’ Union UCL

Club and societies and UCL are another great place to get a taste of government & policy. Taking part in events and society committees can showcase your enthusiasm to future employers and give you access to informative and fun events, often featuring partners from this sector. Search the Students’ Union UCL website for all available clubs and societies. Here are just a few:

• Public affairs & social service society
• Labour society
• Conservative society
• Liberal Democrat Society

Government & Policy Sector Themed Week

If you missed some events during our annual Government & Policy sector week or would like a reminder of what happened, the Themed Week resources section of our website will provide a mix of lecturecast recordings, speaker profiles and event summaries which will include top tips from all those involved with the week. Current resources are from last year’s programme but content from this years events will be published soon.

Government & Policy Sector Mentoring

Following the Themed Week, you might also want to explore the ‘UCL Alumni Online Community’ to identify UCL graduates who are now working in this sector and who are happy to provide support for UCL students.

We hope this gives you a good start for researching this varied and critically important sector. Don’t forget, these rules can be applied to any sector you choose, so let your curiosity guide you! If you need any further help, whether you want to discuss options, improve your applications or anything else, visit the UCL Careers website to see how we can help.