Job vacancy at the British High Commission @the British High Commission

Migration Programme Officer and ISF Assurance Manager SEO 

 

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  

Other British Government Departments (Partners across Government, including UK Visas)

Job Subcategory  

Migration

Job Description (Roles and Responsibilities)  

Main purpose of job:

This exciting and stretching role offers the opportunity to deliver against some of the UK’s highest priority objectives in a unique environment. The successful candidate on a developing work strand aiming to advance the Home Office and wider HMG objectives, to address the causes of illegal migration at source and tackle visa abuse through effective programming. The postholder will be based at the British High Commission in Abuja and will report to the Home Office’s Justice and Home Affairs Attache.   The role will be responsible for leading preventative programmes to address the upstream drivers and enablers of irregular migration from Nigeria to the UK and tackling visa abuse. This role will lead the planning and delivery of programmes focused primarily on irregular migration. The post holder will be responsible for managing complex and often sensitive workstreams, ensuring strong financial control, clear planning, and prompt delivery of measurable results. The role requires a high degree of autonomy, sound judgement, and the ability to operate at pace in a dynamic policy and operational environment. Nigeria is an important partner for both the UK Home Office and wider HMG and the successful candidate will engage with implementing partners, the Federal Government in Abuja, various agencies engaging in this work, state governments in priority states such as Lagos, and the wider international community (diplomatic missions, international organisations, and NGOs) to support delivery of these initiatives, including: • ISF programming to tackling drivers of visa abuse and irregular migration. • Nigerian Immigration Service on strategic communications to counter the narrative of people smugglers around irregular migration to the UK. • United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to work more closely together on initiatives such as the Niamey Declaration. • Home Office International Operations to ensure join up with their counter-visa abuse work. Beyond Abuja, you will have regular travel to other Nigerian states important to HMG’s migration equities, including Lagos.

Roles and responsibilities:    

• Planning and delivery of programmatic activity, including strategic communications warning against illegal migration to the UK, to counter visa abuse alongside both UK and local partners. • Manage the end to end delivery of migration programmes, ensuring objectives are clearly defined, costed, and delivered on time • Lead programme planning, financial management, and performance monitoring. • Designing and implementing effective governance structures to monitor progress, understand impacts, identify/ mitigate risks and develop evidence base of future initiatives. • Develop expertise on the subject matter, supporting clear advice and recommendations to senior colleagues based on robust evidence and financial analysis. • Take ownership of delivery risks and issues, escalating appropriately and proposing pragmatic solutions. • Work independently to manage competing priorities and respond rapidly to emerging demands. • Leading engagement across the Nigerian system on tackling visa abuse to promote work and foster cooperation, with a view to influencing federal government policies and approaches.

    

Essential qualifications, skills and experience  

• Strong programme management skills and proven track record delivering complex programming/ projects with multiple strands under pressure and to tight timeframes along with delivering budget management and assurance compliance. • Ability to quickly get up to speed on complex and politically sensitive policy areas, using judgement to provide nuanced advice that considers the wider context. • Proactive and able to work independently, using judgement to progress activity and unblock issues. • Excellent stakeholder engagement skills, building relationships with key interlocutors – internal and external to government –, managing sensitivities and balancing conflicting interests to deliver results. • Excellent written and oral communication skills including the ability to express complex and sensitive information in a clear and persuasive way tailored to your audience, including for senior officials, Ministers, international stakeholders.

Desirable qualifications, skills and experience  

• Familiarity with government programme governance, finance and assurance processes.
• Experience of Migration programming, serious and organised crime programming, anti-corruption programming, or operational delivery on these issues.
• Working knowledge of the Home Office’s migration work, structures, and priorities.
• Experience of working with operational teams.
• Desire to work in a challenging and fast paced international environment.

Required behaviours  

Changing and Improving, Communicating and Influencing, Delivering at Pace, Making Effective Decisions

Application deadline  

24 June 2026

Grade  

Senior Executive Officer (SEO)

Type of Position  

Temporary, Fixed Term, Fixed term, with possibility of renewal

Working hours per week  

35

Duration of Post  

8 months

Region  

Africa

Country/Territory  

Nigeria

Location (City)  

Abuja

Type of Post  

British High Commission

Number of vacancies  

1

Salary Currency  

USD

Salary  

3,670.94 (Base salary is subject to tax and other statutory deductions)

Type of Salary  

monthly

Start Date  

3 August 2026

End Date  

1 March 2027

Additional information  

Please ensure that your application is authentically written based on your own experiences. If AI tools are used, their usage must only be limited to specific tasks such as ensuring formatting consistency and keyword relevance. The core content, personal narratives, and responses to behaviour and skill-based questions must genuinely reflect your professional journey, experiences, and achievements. We place great importance on originality and individual effort throughout the application process. Any form of plagiarism will result in immediate disqualification.

The British High Commission will never request any payment or fees to apply for a position
The base salary is subject to tax and other statutory deductions
Employees recruited locally by the British High Commission in Abuja are subject to Terms and Conditions of Service according to local employment law in Nigeria.
All candidates must be legally able to work and reside in the country of the vacancy with the correct visa/work permit status or demonstrate eligibility to obtain the relevant permit
The responsibility lies on the successful candidate to:
1.Obtain the relevant permit
2.Pay the fees for the permit
3.Make arrangements to relocate
4.Meet the costs to relocation
Employees who are not liable to pay local income tax on their Mission salary may have their salaries reduced by the equivalent local income tax amount.
Information about the Civil Service Success Profiles can be found on this link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/success-profiles
Please note: Job grade AA=A1, AO=A2, EO=B3, HEO=C4, SEO=C5
Reference checking and security clearances will be conducted on successful candidates
Please log into your profile on the application system on a regular basis to review the status of your application
Appointable candidates who were unsuccessful may be placed on a ‘reserve list’. If during the reserve period of 12 months the same or a largely similar role becomes available, that role may be offered to the second or subsequent candidate

Method of Application

Interested and qualified? Go to British High Commission on fco.tal.net to apply