I resigned from the Civil Service last week – about a month shy of three years’ service. I’ve loved working for different governments of the day, but I’m ready for a new challenge (more on that in a future post). Before that, though, I wanted to share some reflections on my time as a senior policy advisor across two very different departments.

Joining Up Link to heading

My first six months in the Civil Service overlapped with the end of my DPhil. I didn’t plan on juggling both at once. But, in mid-2023, I had the good fortune of meeting DCMS’s digital identity team at a conference in Amsterdam. They asked if I’d ever thought about working in government. I said I hadn’t – which led to a convincing sales pitch.

A few months later, I was joining the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes (OfDIA) as a Grade 7, in what had by then become DSIT. My job was to direct development of the UK’s digital identity and attributes trust framework – a pseudo-regulatory collection of rules and standards that governs the industry. I started part-time, while still writing up, but six months later went full-time, with my thesis relegated to evenings and weekends.

Early Days Link to heading

OfDIA was a fantastic introduction to the Civil Service. I was well-supported, both by my team and technical consultants. We also had the space, time, and backing necessary to do good work. I quickly became a believer in OfDIA’s open approach to policymaking, building relationships with representatives from the payments giants and Big Tech, specialist identity firms, our global partners and counterparts, as well as with the digital regulators (ICO, NIST, OFCOM).

My team worked to balance these stakeholders’ needs against those of our own, as government. A year later, this culminated in our publication of the ‘gamma’ (0.4) trust framework, followed by most of the legwork for the 1.0 publication. The positive feedback from providers – especially regarding my changes to support credentials and wallets – was incredibly rewarding. I’m also proud of our work to improve social vouching, promote passkeys, and update the framework’s data schema.

However, it wasn’t long until I began considering my next career move. Legally-speaking, the trust framework would need reviewing every year; a steady rhythm of work. But I wanted to keep growing and developing new skills, beyond those required for iterating the trust framework.

To the Taskforce Link to heading

I didn’t have to wait long. In mid-2025, I accepted a cryptic invitation to begin working for the Cabinet Office. Only a handful of us from OfDIA were asked to join the as-yet unannounced ‘cell’ – initially based out of 9 Downing Street – where we would be developing a project closely related to our digital identity work.

In short, No.10 wanted us to flesh-out plans for a new digital ID credential, ahead of a possible announcement within months. I have many thoughts about the national digital ID programme. For now, however, I’ll just say the change gave me the challenge I needed. It made for a fascinating summer, working closely with EDS, Policy Unit, the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, and our Junior Minister; all at significant pace. And hard work was rewarded – I was later promoted to Grade 6, as the Head of Operational Policy and Product Strategy in the newly-formalised digital ID taskforce.

Politics moves quickly though. In July 2026, just as the programme was hitting its stride, it was cancelled. These moments obviously come with the territory when you’re a Civil Servant. But it was still a massive disappointment after all we’d achieved.

Why I’m Leaving Link to heading

Since the cancellation, I’ve had the chance to reflect again on my career to-date. On joining the government, I never thought I’d become a ‘lifer’ – though I did see now how easy it could be to stay, surrounded by great people. And, if national digital ID had continued as planned, I probably wouldn’t be leaving just yet. But, after three years and the loss of an extremely exciting project, I’m ready for something new.

Partly, the problem is structural. It’s widely noted that specialists don’t fit neatly into the Civil Service – especially outside of places like the AI Security Institute or GDS. Consequently, promotions after Grade 6 would likely have meant becoming more of a generalist. For someone else, that’s one of the Civil Service’s biggest strengths; but not for me.

You also have to read the political winds. With the shuttering of the taskforce, I suspect it’ll be hard to get Ministers to front up digital identity-related announcements for a while (though maybe not?). Any digital verification service worth its salt will, of course, need to keep working closely with OfDIA and GDS. But, going into party conference season, digital identity doesn’t seem much of a political priority.

What’s Next Link to heading

The digital ID taskforce really clarified something for me. I realised just how much I love working between legal, strategy, and product teams – translating across their different languages. And industry is a great place to do that, delivering solutions that people will actually use.

As a result, I’m thrilled to have found a role that will let me do this at the bleeding-edge of delivery. I’m joining an innovative start-up, full of people at the top of their game, and doing so at a pivotal moment. But I’ll say more about that in another post – this one’s getting too long already. Suffice to say, I’m very excited about this next step.

An upside of leaving government, though, is that I hope to publish on here a little more regularly. I think it’s difficult to write publicly as a Civil Servant. Some people I know manage it, but generally avoid detailing their policy thinking for obvious reasons. That confidentiality is vital for landing comms moments as well as preserving Ministers’ trust in their officials. But it isn’t conducive to blogging.

In fairness, I wasn’t a big blogger before I worked for the government – I had another rather large writing project on the go. But confidentiality (and being busy with the work) is my main excuse for publishing nothing on this site since 2017 (though I have posted occasionally on LinkedIn). I’ll try to change that going forwards, though probably won’t ever be prolific.

At the very least, there’s more to share about the national digital ID programme and my next role, two posts which I’ve already mostly drafted (that’s Civil Service speak for you – nothing is ever ‘written’). So keep an eye out for those. Until then, thank you for being here. It’s the end of an era for me!