Director of Trade, Washington D.C

HM Government; Washington; Hybrid; USD 117,000; Full time

Job summary

The UK's Department for Business and Trade is recruiting a Director of Trade for the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. The role involves fostering trade relations between the UK and the Mid-Atlantic Region, managing a dedicated team, and influencing state trade policies. This is a high-profile position that requires strong leadership, stakeholder management, and an extensive network within the business community. The successful candidate will be committed to fostering an inclusive and collaborative work environment.

Benefits

Generous leave package plus public holidays

Generous 401k matching

Excellent healthcare options

Paid sick leave

Short-term and long-term disability coverage

Qualifications

• Significant professional experience in business or economic development.
• In-depth knowledge of business in the Mid-Atlantic Region.
• Ability to manage a team effectively.

Responsibilities

• Drive the UK's trade and investment relationship across the Mid-Atlantic Region.
• Lead a team of 10 to deliver against trade and investment goals.
• Build and maintain strong networks across policymakers and business leaders.

Skills

Leadership

Stakeholder Management

Analytical Skills

Networking

Communication

Education

Relevant Degree

Job description

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The British Government is an inclusive and diversity-friendly employer. We value difference, promote equality and challenge discrimination, enhancing our organisational capability. We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds. We do not discriminate on the basis of disability, race, colour, ethnicity, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, age, veteran status or other category protected by law. We promote family-friendly flexible working opportunities, where operational and security needs allow. The FCDO operates an agile workforce and to facilitate this, you may be required to undertake other duties from time to time, as we may reasonably require.

Job Category

Department for Business and Trade roles (DBT)

Job Subcategory

DIT

Job Description (Roles and Responsibilities)

The UK's Department for Business and Trade is seeking a dynamic Director of Trade based in the British Embassy Washington. This position offers the chance to create lasting partnerships that will define the future of trade relations between the UK and the mid-Atlantic region.

Main purpose of job: The primary purpose of the role is to drive the UK's trade and investment relationship across the Mid-Atlantic Region (DC, Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Delaware). You will develop a strategy to shape and deepen the UK's trade policy priorities in the region, including at State level.

You will work closely with senior management at the Embassy, acting as the senior point of contact and advisor to the British Ambassador on regional trade and investment opportunities. You will also work very closely with the trade policy team in the British Embassy, Washington to ensure trade and investment teams across the US leverage their business relationships and expertise to support delivery against our State Level Strategy work. The Strategy includes signing Memoranda of Understanding with individual States to drive exports and investments, improving UK company access to State procurement opportunities, removing market access barriers and promoting opportunities around mutual agreements on professional qualifications.

Leadership: You will be an inspiring leader to your local team of 10 and ensure they have the skills and tools needed to understand the UK's offer to US investors and spot opportunities to 'sell' what the UK has to offer. Your team will manage a range of high-profile key accounts of the largest US investors into the UK and you will support them to build strong pipelines of new investment and export projects to deliver in the future. You will also lead your team so that their work on trade and investment delivers against the opportunities unlocked by your trade policy work, with a particularly focus on sectors named in the State level MOUs.

You will take your people leadership and management seriously and recognise that good management is part of our corporate culture. You will manage the regional budget in line with DBT's financial requirements. Through all your work you will promote a diverse and inclusive working environment, ensuring the team is motivated, professional, collaborative, and focused on delivering client excellence.

Stakeholder management: You will bring and develop an extensive network of relationships across policy makers, think tanks, and influencers across all the States in the region. You will be the Embassy's key point of contact for the business community in the region with a strong network across business organisations including chambers of commerce, trade associations and senior business leaders. You will role model outstanding key account management for your team, supporting them to discover and develop new relationships with key business investors and influencers.

You will contribute to broader British Embassy and UK initiatives in support of prosperity, innovation and economic growth by ensuring your team maximizes the Embassy's wider political, cultural and promotional activity for your business, investment and trade policy stakeholders.

About the Department for Business and Trade: The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) is the UK's department for economic growth. We support businesses to invest, grow and export, creating jobs and opportunities across the UK. We employ over 150 people across North America, all united by our mission: we are redrawing the UK's rules to ensure businesses thrive and markets are competitive, securing investment into the UK, advising and supporting British businesses to grow and export, opening up new markets globally and promoting free trade, economic security, and resilient supply chains.

See for further information.

Roles and responsibilities:

• Build an understanding of and expertise of state trade policy across all key sectors in the region, negotiating with and influencing State level counterparts on a range of policy areas including MOUs.
• Build and maintain strong networks of relevant contacts for trade policy and promotion (Administration, legislators, business policy representatives, senior business leaders, commercial organizations, think tanks, media and other interest groups).
• Understand and respond to established or emerging state-level market access barriers affecting British firms.
• Develop an influencing strategy to build regional support for key UK-US trade policy priorities, including a Free Trade Agreement and adoption of mutual recognition of professional qualifications.
• Develop a strategy to commercialise agri-tech opportunities across the region.
• Translating trade policy priorities into an effective trade and investment strategy for the region, including supporting your team to deliver against the State Level MOUs.
• Ensuring the DBT team in your region have the skills and tools to deliver against their trade and investment goals and manage their progress against those goals.
• Leading the DBT team in your region to deliver high quality programmes for Ministerial and senior UK Government visits to the region.
• Lead and develop an effective, communicative, inclusive team that values learning and development and an open, respectful feedback culture.
• Contribute to the corporate well-being and success of the broader Consulate team, including participating in crisis preparation and response where necessary.
• Management of regional department budget.
• Other duties as assigned.

Resources managed:

Leads a team of 10 with line management duties of 4 Senior Trade and Investment Officers.

Essential qualifications, skills and experience

Essential on arrival:

• Significant professional experience, gained within a business or economic development role.
• In-depth knowledge of business in the Mid-Atlantic Region.
• Excellent management and leadership skills with the ability to deliver results through others.
• Proven competence in leading strategy development and business planning.
• Excellent stakeholder management abilities.
• Proven advisory and influencing skills at senior levels.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Excellent interpersonal, presentation and networking skills.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Manage budget and make resource recommendations to senior leadership.
• An excellent network of industry contacts and the ability to develop new networks with senior business and industry leaders.
• Must be able to attend events outside of office hours and undertake travel in the US and internationally for up to 10% of your time.
• Business knowledge of the UK.

Language requirements:

Language: English

Level of language required: Fluent

Required behaviours

Communicating and Influencing, Leadership, Making Effective Decisions, Seeing the Big Picture

Application deadline

24 May 2025

Grade

Grade 7 (G7)

Type of Position

Full-time, Permanent

Working hours per week

40

Region

Americas, Caribbean & Overseas Territories

Country/Territory

United States

Location (City)

Washington

Type of Post

British Embassy

Number of vacancies

1

Salary Currency

USD

Salary

$116,364

Type of Salary

yearly

Start Date

11 August 2025

Other benefits and conditions of employment

Working patterns:

This role is 40 hours a week.

The British Embassy and its US Network embraces hybrid working You are required to work from the office 3 days a week. We are an organization that also recognises the critical value of teamwork, and we embrace and endorse collaboration by ensuring that all staff attend the office flexibly yet regularly.

We offer:

• Generous leave package plus public holidays
• Generous 401k matching
• Excellent healthcare options
• Paid sick leave
• Generous parental leave policy
• A great work-life balance including flexible start and finish times and a hybrid working model with staff splitting their time between working from home and the office
• Short-term disability, long-term disability and life insurance coverage
• High quality L&D services with global sessions and events every day to help you develop and meet organisational needs, including up to 5 days paid leave each year to pursue your professional development
• Inclusivity is one of our core values and we strive to treat everyone openly, fairly and equally. All new team members learn about how they can contribute to an inclusive environment and the importance of diversity and inclusion

US State Department requirements, the UK Government in the US has restrictions on the type of visas our non-diplomatic staff may hold. If you are not a US Citizen or a US Permanent Resident, or the dependent of a diplomat (with an EAD card), you may not be eligible for employment with the UK government. We cannot accept student Visas (J1, F or M) nor other forms of work Visas (I, H, P). If you hold a work visa it is best to check on your eligibility to work for a foreign government before applying for a position.

You may refer to our website for additional information: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/living-in-the-usa.

All selected candidates are subject to background checks and will require a security clearance prior to starting work.

Please note: The British Embassy and its US Network is committed to all employee's ongoing learning and development needs. We offer a comprehensive platform for personalised learning for everything from soft skill development (communicating with impact, handling difficult conversations, time management) to more technical or professional skills necessary to complete your job (software training, formal qualifications etc.).

The UK Government operating in the US offers a substantial benefits package including generous leave, a choice of medical insurance, 401(k) matching up to 7%, extensive learning opportunities and a great work/life balance.

Please note that the tax arrangements imposed by the US on staff working for foreign governments, as well as those imposed by the UK Treasury on British and dual nationals working for the UK Government overseas, are atypical. The UK Government cannot withhold taxes (including FICA) on behalf of a US taxpayer. Instead, a US taxpayer is required to file taxes as if they are self-employed, and a FICA allowance is granted for those required to pay the employer contribution. Certain categories of staff (for example dual UK-US nationals and some visa holders) who work at Consulates General are not subject to US taxes. For those not subject to US taxes the UK Government reduces gross pay to a level broadly equivalent to taxed net pay. There are also social security implications for dual UK-US nationals. Please keep all this in mind when looking at the salary and the benefits package. If you are offered a job with the UK's US Network you will be given further tax and social security information relevant to your personal circumstances and place of work; you are advised to consider this information and its impact on your circumstances carefully - potentially with the advice of a tax professional - before accepting a job.

Additional information

Closing date of receiving applications is before 23:55 (Local Time) on 24 June 2025

All applicants must fully complete the online application form, including the sections for employment and educational details, experience, and behaviour-based questions. Only those applications that contain all required information will be considered. To ensure the sift process remains anonymous, please do not include any personally identifiable information in your application form.

Only successful candidates will be contacted. Please no phone calls. Due to the high volume of resumes we receive, we cannot guarantee consideration of your application if the submission instructions are not properly followed.

Appointable candidates who were unsuccessful may be placed on a 'reserve list'. If during the reserve period of 6months the same or a largely similar role becomes available, that role may be offered to the second or subsequent candidate.

Internal candidates must inform their supervisor before they apply to a different position.

Please be aware that you will only be able to apply to vacancies for Country Based Staff roles with the British Government through this official tal.net site (operated by Oleeo). Jobs may be advertised on third party websites, however our adverts will always link back to the official tal.net site. If you complete and send an application through any other site, we will not receive it.