PUBLIC is committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace. We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome applicants of all different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. Candidates from non-traditional backgrounds and underrepresented groups are strongly encouraged to apply. For this reason, we are using the Applied platform to hire candidates for this role, allowing us to blind review your application during the initial stages, with questions designed to allow you to showcase your full potential.

We are looking for enthusiastic individuals to join our summer cohort as part of our GovTech Camp programme as we seek to reimagine and build digitally-enabled public services. We run two streams for our summer cohort - our GovTech Camp Summer Associateship could be the right role for you if: 

• You already have experience in the tech/consulting/policy/public sector space (we would still love to hear from you if you have other types of experience!) and/or

• You have the skills required to jump straight into client-facing projects

• You’re looking to make a career move to the GovTech space.

Many of our Summer Associates come to us during or following their studies - however, we do not have any educational requirements for our roles and would love to hear from candidates who may not have a higher education background, but bring other experiences to the table. 

If you’re currently studying/have just finished your studies and/or you have limited experience and/or you are looking for an internship opportunity to gain paid work experience in GovTech, then take a look at our Summer Internship, that may be a better fit.

Our Summer Associates will get the chance to learn from decision-makers, key thinkers, innovators and thought leaders as fully-embedded members of the PUBLIC team, and will have the opportunity to deliver on live projects. Each Associate will be assigned to a specific team that will act as their home for the summer, though we strongly encourage all our team members to get involved in projects that interest them across the business. Based in either London or Berlin, we offer a hybrid working environment with the flexibility to work from home or in our offices as required, depending on client and project needs. This year, our GovTech camp will run from 4th July - 9th September.

As a Summer Associate, you will step-up to play an important role in delivering on our expanding portfolio of innovation advisory projects, our programmes and our events. This could be in the form of owning delivery, including aspects of designing and executing workshops and lectures on our programmes, assessing policy and regulatory environments for technology on advisory projects in domain or capability-specific areas in our transformation teams, or helping to deliver one of flagship events or leading the development of a new policy paper in our Campaigns team. In addition, whilst we will not assign anyone to the Design or People & Operations teams as a matter of course, we would also love to hear from you if either of these areas are of interest. In summary, you will be given real responsibility to deliver during your time with us.

The possibilities are (almost) endless, and as we get through the application process, we will be keen to hear from you about the kinds of things that interest you most. Successful candidates will be expected to work on engagements alongside internal and client teams, and those with prior leadership experience will have the opportunity to leverage their capabilities and demonstrate their full potential. We will provide you with the training and experiential learning opportunities necessary for you to develop in the GovTech field, leveraging your diverse knowledge and experience to help reimagine & build digitally enabled public services.

Summer Associates will be provided with feedback over the summer in order to help them on their professional development journey. In early-September, dependent on business needs, we will assess whether any permanent roles are available and will gladly consider those Associates who wish to put themselves forward.

The majority of our Summer Associates will be based in London, though a number will work with our growing office in Berlin - please note, all candidates will need the Right to Work in their preferred location, and candidates wishing to work in the Berlin team will need to work in German at the C1 CEFR level. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for our summer positions.

Applications will be considered on a rolling basis.

Person specification

What you will bring to PUBLIC:

• Ability to gather and use qualitative and quantitative evidence to inform an argument

• Demonstrable organisational skills

• Strong written and verbal communication, with experience publishing or presenting work to different stakeholders

• Interest in, and knowledge of, emerging uses for technology in the wider public sector

• Ability to use Microsoft Office and G-Suite tools

In addition to the core skills above, for Summer Associates we would also be looking to see:

• The ability to jump straight in, which might come from experience in client-facing roles in digital, tech, policy, research, public sector or consulting organisations 

• The ability to play an active role in managing projects 

• Demonstrable interest/or experience in working with the public sector

Bonus points for:

• Interest/ability to work on user research projects

• Ability to work in German at the C1 CEFR level

What you don’t need 

• A traditional educational background

Salary and benefits

Summer Associates will receive a salary of £38,625 per annum, pro-rated.

During your time with us, you’ll also benefit from:

• A MacBook laptop to work on, and other equipment to make sure you have all you need to work from home.

• 25 days per year holiday, pro-rated for your time with us.

• Six paid days of study leave per year for your learning and development, alongside a £300 learning budget to use on our L&D platform, Learnerbly, pro-rated for your time with us.

• A ‘Wellness Budget’ of £300 a year to spend on things which support your wellness, such as gym membership, yoga, mindfulness or whatever works for you, pro-rated for your time with us.

• Mental Health support via Spill, offering unlimited text-based support and access to face-to-face therapy. 

• Community groups such as Women at PUBLIC, Parents and Carers, LGBTQ+ and Race & Ethnicity

About PUBLIC

PUBLIC helps reimagine and build digitally-enabled public services. We started life as an accelerator and investor and have evolved to become Europe’s leading government-focused technology company. 

Our mission is to help public sector bodies transform the services they offer in order to create a better society for everyone. We strongly believe that public service can be pursued both inside and outside of government. 

Led by Daniel Korski, ex-deputy head of the No.10 policy unit and venture investor Alexander de Carvalho, PUBLIC is a ‘policy-to-product’ business - keen on shaping policy, transforming systems and finding and developing the products that can bring the policy to life. 

We built PUBLIC amidst Europe’s startup ecosystem, helped shape “GovTech” into a critical sector and firmly believe new companies are critical to government transformation, from welfare policy, through online harms to climate change. 

Our London home is PUBLIC Hall, a buzzing co-working space in the centre of Westminster; in Berlin we co-founded the government’s GovTech Campus. We continue to foster these communities, support innovators and provide the public sector with easy access to a pipeline of innovative solutions.