What to do after you have left Government — 2021 version

TL:DR Leaving Government is hard, whatever the circumstances, you’ll feel you have unfinished business, but take a proper break and try and recalibrate your thoughts. I ended up doing a podcast on jobs of the future, something I would never have imagined. Nb. I originally wrote a post on this in 2020, but have updated it for the reshuffle of Autumn 2021.

Finding out you are losing your job via Twitter is horrendous, ironically on most occasions it would lead to a social media outcry, but for Special Advisers (SpAds) in UK politics, it’s the grim reality.

Your boss has been called to see the Prime Minister, you know it probably is not good news and then finally a tweet from Laura Kuenssberg or Kate McCann confirms it:

‘Smith / Jones OUT’.

Three letters that means that you are most likely out too. The civil service is at its most brutally efficient when a reshuffle takes place, you’ll have about 15 minutes to pack up your belongings. You’ll be handed a card — no it is not a leaving card, it’s your P45, brutally efficient.

Somebody will tweet, ‘spare a thought for the special advisers’, but that is about the extent of public sympathy and there is not much more structured advice after that either.

So I thought I would write this post about what you can do next.

It originated from what Dan Korski, my predecessor under David Cameron, said to me when I first became a SpAd in the summer of 2016,

‘You are in a privileged position, getting to meet with business leaders each day, when one of your colleagues ends up being turfed out, just remember to reach out to them and offer a hand’.

In the following years, I had to do that far more than I imagined and given the general maelstrom we were operating in, I might not have always managed it.

Therefore I had this conversation with lots of former Special Advisers and thought I would just write down a few thoughts on what you can do next. This post primarily focuses on business options as that is my field, but there are plenty of other routes like academia, law, NGOs and charities.

As a SpAd you will be a highly motivated and capable individual used to doing an incredible amount of complex work very quickly, and like a light bulb going out, it goes to sweet FA in an instance — media SpAds often find this particularly hard. Last week you might have been irritated by a phone call from Matt Chorley / Jack Blanchard / Alex Wickham or Esther Weber , now you will miss them …

Well first things first, if you haven’t already, take a break, go away, go home, just get out of London, you’ll be more tired and worn down than you realise. You’ve got the redundancy money, use it, you’ve had a rough time and you’ve earned a decent break. Some go and lie on a beach, others go to fitness bootcamps.

Secretaries of State that replace yours will make the announce the policies that you have been working on, this will be particularly true in 2021 with the conference season almost upon us. The announcements will not be as you envisioned, and you won’t be getting any credit. Deleting Twitter is not the worst idea.

Try not to be bitter. You know that politics is a brutal occupation, there will be part of you that liked the high octane element of it, and now you’ve been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. It might not be fair, but sulking won’t improve it.

It is worth remembering that some of the most important special advisers of recent years, including Fiona Hill, Nick Timothy, Stephen Parkinson, Rob Oxley, Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain all left Government and returned, so don’t think the Government or the party is over for you, you may just be on an enforced sabbatical. Try to use this time to do something different — you’ll ultimately be a better SpAd because of it.

So when you are through that process of grieving, it is time to think about what to do next.

What’s next

Public affairs is the most obvious option, and if you haven’t done any of it before, it is an interesting world, where your skills and understanding are most immediately transferable.

There are broadly two options:

Agency vs In house.

Agency, like a WPI or Hanbury will give you lots of variety, wide range of different clients and different challenges. If you are a jack of all trades, and a people person, this is a good fit for you. If you aren’t immediately sure of which agency, it is worth reaching, Elva Partners or Ellwood Attfield are good ones who can help sharpen your interview technique and help figure out where you might fit best.

If you have a wider or media background particularly, you might want to consider some of the bigger agency houses like a Brunswick or Teneo,, as you’ll be able to provide support across a wider number of their divisions. Trade press contacts will probably be more important here than the lobby.

Do it for a couple of years and then work out if you want to do something more specific.

If you are more of a specialist, then you might want to look in house and join a big corporate in house lobbying team, such as Barclays or Marks & Spencer. These are interesting places to work, and you might be able to shift across the company into more business focused roles, if that’s your ultimate objective.

There’s also big tech. The regulation of the technology sector is only just beginning, and they will continue to hire lots of people with insight. Uber, Google, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn etc.

Then there are the ‘big 4’ and management consultancy, all of them interesting places to work, they are talent hoovers and are always on the lookout for bright young people, so look at the job openings page, there will be lots, EY, Deloitte, KPMG, Mckinsey and Bain. If you like the idea of a big corporate, but want to move away from policy, these are good places.

The not so obvious routes

Have a think about the technology start up world, London and for that matter the whole of the UK has got some really exciting stuff going on. Thea Rogers went on to be a senior executive at Deliveroo and became a key figure in their IPO.

Tim Smith who worked in DfT, and the FCO, took a job at a company called Multiverse which is revolutionising the way we place apprentices, it is one of the most exciting companies in the UK.

Flora Coleman has been at Wise, formerly TransferWise (looking forward to when we can drop saying formerly) and is now at Klarna — casually worth $40 billion.

Have a look at TechNation and their future 50 programme, that is a useful guide as to the fastest growing companies in the UK at the moment.

There’s lots of bigger technology companies out there like that, Monzo, graphcore, FiveAI, Funding Circle, Starling Bank, Babylon Health, Deepmind, are all brilliant UK companies doing really interesting work. These places might not have many policy people yet, but they are going to in time.

Go your own way

If you’re attracted to high octane and risk, why not start your own company? Creating a business is about solving a pain that exists, and as a SpAd you have seen plenty of areas where things aren’t working.

• Dan Korski founded Public
• Ameet Gill and Paul Stephenson founded Hanbury
• Sean Worth and Nick Faith founded WPI
• James Johnson founded JL Partners
• Will Tanner founded a think tank, Onward.

And don’t think it needs to be in your area of expertise, Henry de Zoete, an education SpAd to Gove and he went off to found an energy company and got the highest valuation on Dragons Den — you’ll have to ask him what was the more intimidating experience.

Another option for those a bit longer in the tooth, is to do a portfolio of these things and you can use this time to work out what is next.

Another option is some executive education, I studied at Stanford for two months, which was incredible — although this was pre Covid. The Economist has quite a good search for all the different courses you can do here

Summary

The message I want to get across is that there are lots of opportunities out there, but it will take awhile for you to work out what you want and for you to find it — I hope this post speeds that process up.

Government is about those people that show up and try to make a difference and to solve problems. It is hard and not many people thank you, but being a Special Adviser to a Secretary of State is an amazing privilege. An experience that will have hopefully given you stories to tell for years.

When I left №10 two years ago, it was the hardest professional decision I have ever taken, but I left to start a family, studied at Stanford University, moved to San Francisco for three months, became a full time stay at home Dad and run almost every day (!) — none of those would I have imagined when I first left.

It took me ten months before I landed on the idea of Jimmy’s Jobs of the Future, which has become a reasonably successful podcast (Chris Hulatt, Hayden Wood, Anne Boden, Ben Francis, Pete Flint and Alex Depledge might be particularly good to listen too as you mull your next move)

A final thought, You will at times in the next few months, feel a bit despondent and at points a bit desperate and clueless about everything, that is normal and it is OK, but a quote to keep in mind:

‘choose a life of public service and adventure’.

You have done your service for now, have an adventure next.

Any questions I am on Twitter @JimmyM

And a plug for the podcast again here.