Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)

Number of positions available: One

Locations: Preference for East Kilbride, with potential to consider London.

Salary: National £38,500; London £42,500 per annum (this figure includes a non-pensionable, non-consolidated Location Allowance of £5,000)

About the FCDO 

The FCDO is the UK government department responsible for protecting and promoting British interests around the world. This includes pursuing our national interests and projecting the UK as a force for good in the world. We promote the interests of British citizens, safeguard the UK’s security, defend our values, reduce poverty, and tackle global challenges with our international partners. We work in the UK and in 178 countries and territories.

The FCDO employs around 17,300 staff in its diplomatic and development offices worldwide, who represent the UK and help protect UK nationals abroad. Roughly a third are UK-based civil servants, whose careers typically include roles both in the UK and overseas. Around two thirds are employed locally in other countries.

We welcome applications from all parts of the community regardless of gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, or background. We are committed to diversity and inclusion in all that we do. We encourage and support all staff to realise their potential and achieve a healthy work-life balance. In return, we guarantee a fascinating, personally rewarding career at the centre of world events.

Social Researchers in FCDO

Members of the GSR profession in FCDO often lead FCDO’s monitoring, evaluation and learning initiatives, ensuring accountability for taxpayers’ money, and promoting learning to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and impact across the breadth of FCDO’s work. Effective communicators and influencers, they often work in multi-disciplinary teams to strengthen the use of robust-enough evidence in decision-making and supporting FCDO to tell the story of its impact. Members of the profession play a key role in championing the 2022-2025 FCDO Evaluation Strategy, soon to be refreshed, which sets out organisational ambition to ensure high quality evidence underpins decision-making and informs learning. The strategy also sets out FCDO’s ambition to embed an ‘evaluative culture,’ with GSR members playing a critical role in building organisational literacy and demand for evidence use.

Outside of the central Evaluation Unit, our GSR members are embedded in strategy, policy, delivery, and research teams across FCDO, both in the UK and overseas, and there are currently around 75 roles across the network. They play an active role to stimulate demand and use of evidence products, including evaluation; to advise on scope, design, commissioning and take up of evaluative work; to ensure minimum quality standards and policy commitments are met; and build capability on use of evidence and evaluation within the department and partners.

Security Clearance 

Developed Vetting. Please note, to be eligible for DV security clearance, you must have spent 5 years out of the last 10 years physically resident in the UK.

Contact point for further details:  

Sarah Honeywell: sarah.honeywell@fcdo.gov.uk