Senior Legal Advisers (Fixed Term)

Office for Students; Bristol; Hybrid; GBP 68,000 - 73,000; Full time

Job summary

An independent higher education regulator in the UK is seeking a Senior Legal Adviser to lead on legal advice and support for various legal matters. The role involves providing legal guidance, managing litigation, and engaging with internal and external stakeholders. Candidates should have significant legal experience and possess a professional qualification. This position offers competitive remuneration and possible flexible working arrangements.

Benefits

Civil Service defined benefit pension

Flexible working arrangements

Career development opportunities

Qualifications

• Significant legal experience in regulatory and public law.
• Ability to analyse complex legal issues and advise accordingly.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead on provision of legal advice for OfS.
• Manage litigation activities and statutory appeals.
• Support the General Counsel and Legal Senior Leadership Team.

Skills

Legal experience

Analytical skills

Communication skills

Negotiation skills

Education

Qualified Solicitor or Barrister

Job description

Overview

Senior Legal Advisers (Fixed Term)

Bristol or London

2 x 12 month fixed term contracts available

£68,720 - £72,004 + £7,500 allowance plus London weighting £3,566 (where appropriate)

Generous Civil Service defined benefit pension

Note: we are open to queries regarding secondment for this fixed term position. For more information, please contact: [e-mail]

About us

The Office for Students (OfS) is the independent regulator of higher education in England – we regulate higher education on behalf of all students. Our mission is to ensure that every student, whatever their background, has a fulfilling experience of higher education that enriches their lives and careers.

The Resources & Finance Directorate provides critical services to the OfS to enable the organisation to deliver its strategy. The Directorate ensures that the OfS complies with statutory and other public sector requirements, identifies and manages risks and opportunities and co-ordinates efforts across the organisation to be efficient and effective.

About the role

The aim of the ‘Senior Legal Adviser’ role is to lead on provision of legal advice and support for a broad range of legal matters relevant to the functions of the OfS and its internal corporate activities. Key responsibilities include: supporting the General Counsel and Legal Senior Leadership Team in tasks relating to the operation of the legal function within the OfS and leadership of specific initiatives. This role requires significant engagement with internal stakeholders to ensure that all employees are appropriately trained, and external stakeholders to ensure the team is supported.

The key person attributes required to fulfil this role include: significant legal experience dealing with many legal practice areas; ability to analyse and advise on complex legal issues; sensitivity to politics, understanding the needs of, and willing to work collaboratively with external stakeholders; an ability to adopt a creative and innovative approach to legal issues; excellent verbal, written communication and presentation skills; and an ability to influence and negotiate.

Responsibilities

Delivering and working in a team:

· In the areas for which the post holder is responsible, the outcomes and objectives in the OfS’s business plan are delivered efficiently and effectively

· The following are delivered: the OfS’s behaviours and values; flexible, agile and collaborative working, including with staff and teams in other directorates

Leads on providing advice and support on the following legal areas and topics:

· Legislation applying to the higher education sector including the Higher Education and Research Act 2017;

· The use of the OfS’s enforcement and information gathering powers;

· Managing the conduct of litigation activities, such as judicial review proceedings and statutory appeals;

· Legal topics relevant to decision making and supporting processes, such as public law principles, statutory duties and considerations, the delegation of functions and equalities legislation;

· Human rights law;

· Consumer protection law;

· The regulatory framework and registration conditions that apply to higher education providers

Supporting the General Counsel and other senior lawyers in operating the legal function within the OfS:

· Commissioning external legal support (including Counsel);

· Fees are negotiated with external legal and other support service providers and Barristers’ clerks in order to ensure value for money;

· Lead on the production of internal guidance documents on key legal and regulatory issues to a high standard;

· Training for the legal team is organised in line with professional CPD requirements

External and internal stakeholder management:

· Working closely with the General Counsel and Legal Senior Leadership Team in the team to deliver the objectives of the OfS;

· An understanding of senior leadership team objectives, concerns and aspirations is developed;

· Engages with internal and external stakeholders, including by building on proven experience of developing and maintaining productive relationships with key internal stakeholders, eg heads of teams, policy leads

Knowledge development:

· An expert knowledge and understanding of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 is developed;

· A thorough knowledge and understanding of the work and operations of the OfS is established

About you

It is essential to have knowledge in the following key skills:

At an expert level:

Significant legal experience dealing with a range of relevant legal practice areas, including at least two of the following:

· working on litigation cases involving judicial review and/or regulatory appeals;

· investigation and enforcement in a regulatory context

· the interpretation of regulatory rules such as licence conditions or equivalent;

· the interpretation and application of sector specific legislation which relates to a regulatory body;

· public law matters;

· UK consumer protection law;

At an advanced level:

· Sensitive to politics, understanding the needs of, and willingness to work collaboratively with external stakeholders

· Ability to adopt a creative and innovative approach to legal issues

· Excellent verbal, written communication and presentation skills

· Ability to influence and negotiate

Essential professional qualifications: Qualified Solicitor or Barrister (or similar qualification from a jurisdiction recognised by the Solicitors Regulation Authority)

Application process

We use a set of ‘enablers’ to evaluate candidate strengths. This is your opportunity to expand on what you have achieved in your career by describing what you’ve done and how you’ve done it. It is here you should use detailed examples to explain how you meet all the requirements of the job description.

We are looking for how you made your own contribution to a scenario, why you made that contribution and what was the outcome. Assertions without evidence will, in contrast, make it difficult to evaluate your skills and how you apply them. When completing your application, please note that there is a word limit of 250 words per enabler.

The enablers for this role are:

Knowledge and Learning

• Understanding of context in which OfS operates, including relationships with the sector and government
• To have an eye for detail and be able to see the bigger picture and awareness of the political and wider context in which a regulator such as the OfS operates.
• An ongoing commitment to learning and developing new knowledge and skills, demonstrated through an ability to take responsibility for identifying and managing own development needs.
• Knowledge and understanding of judicial review proceedings and statutory appeals in a regulated sector.
• Knowledge of public law issues relevant to a regulatory body, including principles relating to consultation.

Planning

• Able to manage own workload, operate proactively and plan ahead for anticipated tasks, resolve competing demands, and cope with changing priorities in a flexible and proactive way ensuring that key priorities are delivering to time and quality
• Effective case and upwards management, providing clear briefs to senior legal colleagues and delivering the required outputs to time and quality to both internal and external stakeholders.

Communications

• Excellent communication skills, oral and written
• An ability to develop and present persuasive arguments, negotiate with and influence people in a constructive manner to ensure the best outcome.
• Proven ability to provide clear, pragmatic and risk-based legal advice.
• Ability to chair meetings, giving presentations and facilitate discussions to an agreed outcome.
• Be able to build and maintain constructive relationships with colleagues within the OfS, other government departments and internal and external auditors

Relationships

• Proven team player with strong interpersonal skills, including the ability to debate complex legal and regulatory issues in a constructive and professional manner.
• Able to establish and maintain constructive working relationships within OfS and with key external stakeholders

Working for us

The OfS values diversity and the wealth of perspectives, experience and ideas that it brings to our work, and we strive to embed equality of opportunity in everything we do.

We recruit based on fair and open competition and welcome applications from candidates regardless of age, disability, race and ethnicity, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation.

We love working flexibly because we know that it helps us all to do our best work. We’ve created a set of principles to shape our approach to flexible and hybrid working, which our teams then use as guidance on how they deliver their business goals. This would usually mean working from the office for two or three days in a typical week.

To attract the widest possible field of qualified applicants, flexible working, for example job share and part time working, apply to these roles.

Closing date for applications: Monday 6 October 2025 at noon

We will be conducting interviews on a rolling basis, both during the advertising window, as well as after it has closed. We would therefore encourage candidates to submit applications as soon as possible.