Diary Manager

Job summary

We are looking for a highly organised, proactive and resilient Diary Manager to support a group of Deputy Directors (DDs) within a fast paced Grants Delivery Directorate.

You will be part of the Private Office function, ensuring Deputy Directors are effectively supported, their time is optimised, and they are fully prepared for meetings, briefings and engagements.

Alongside diary management, you will provide administrative support to the Deputy Directors and contribute to wider Business Management functions, helping the directorate operate smoothly and efficiently.

This is a varied role requiring discretion, judgement, excellent communication skills, and the ability to build strong relationships across the directorate and with senior stakeholders.

Job description

Key responsibilities

• Proactively manage senior diaries and priorities, balancing complex and competing demands for Deputy Directors, resolving clashes early and protecting time for the Directorate’s most important work.

• Coordinate meetings and actions, ensuring they are purposeful and well‑run -arranging logistics, circulating agendas and papers, capturing decisions, and maintaining action trackers so outcomes are followed through.

• Handle commissions, clearances and urgent requests with confidence, checking submissions are complete and correctly routed, monitoring deadlines, and tracking progress to ensure timely, high‑quality responses.

• Plan and manage travel, visits and logistics, making sure arrangements are smooth, compliant and well thought through, including travel, accommodation and office bookings.

• Coordinate across teams and maintain planning visibility, working closely with Private Offices, directorates and partner teams to align plans, share key information, and maintain visibility of senior leader availability through the Directorate leave planner.

• Improve ways of working and provide flexible support, spotting issues early, resolving problems pragmatically, and suggesting improvements; handling sensitive information with discretion; and

• Providing flexible support across the Private Office and Business Management Team as priorities shift.

Person specification

Skills and experience

Essential

The below criteria are essential and will be assessed at application stage;

• Experience of managing complex diaries or supporting senior leaders, using good judgement to prioritise competing demands.

• Strong organisation skills with attention to detail, including arranging meetings end-to-end and ensuring papers/actions are handled efficiently.

• Ability to build effective working relationships with a wide range of stakeholders and communicate clearly and professionally.

• Ability to work flexibly and at pace, managing multiple tasks, and adapting plans quickly when priorities change.

• High levels of discretion, integrity and ability to handle sensitive information appropriately.

• Confident user of Microsoft Office, particularly Outlook calendar management (and Teams/Word/Excel/SharePoint).

Desirable

The below criteria are desirable only. These will not be assessed throughout the recruitment process, but will be used in the event of tied scores between candidates;

• Experience of working in (or alongside) a Private Office environment and supporting senior decision-making processes (e.g., clearances and commissions).

• Experience of minute-taking and maintaining action logs/trackers.

• Experience supporting corporate/business management activities such as planning cycles, returns, and workforce information.

• Experience of providing recruitment administrative support.

Behaviours

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

• Managing a Quality Service
• Delivering at Pace
• Working Together

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £31,778, Department for Business and Trade contributes £9,206 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).

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

We recognise the challenges that people with (multiple) protected characteristics may experience on the job market and in their career progression. We are fully committed to being an inclusive employer and ensuring equal opportunities. We are keen to make our workforce as diverse as possible, and we hope to attract applications from underrepresented groups, including ethnic minorities, people with a disability, and people with gender diverse identities.

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 Experience.

Interviews for this vacancy will be conducted virtually. We will, however, consider in-person interviews by exception.

Please ensure that you check your emails regularly as all updates from us will be sent to you this way.

To apply for this post, you will be asked to complete the following as part of the online application:

• A CV setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Provide employment history that relates to the essential criteria, and that any gaps in employment history within the last 2 years are explained. The CV should not exceed more than 2 x A4 pages.
• A Personal Statement of up to 500 words, explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role in reference to the essential criteria.

Your application will be sifted against the Experience criteria of the Civil Service Success Profiles.

It is likely that the sift will take place 1-2 weeks after the closing date and interviews 3-5 weeks after the closing date, though this is subject to change.

We aim to sift both the CV and the Personal Statement but, in the event of a large number of applicants, an initial short sift may be conducted on the CV only. Candidates who pass the initial sift of the CV will either progressed to a full sift where the Pe