The LGA’s flagship graduate programme can help you find your future leaders
The National Graduate Development Programme (NGDP) is the LGA’s flagship graduate scheme, developing new talent in local government for more than 20 years.
Every year, thousands of bright, motivated graduates apply to the NGDP to fast-track their career in local government. The LGA runs a subsidised, rigorous, national recruitment process to place high-calibre graduates in councils across the country.
The NGDP offers councils an opportunity to develop a pipeline of future leaders, building capacity in the workforce and the sector as a whole.
Councils have access to a national pool of talented graduates, and the LGA manages the whole recruitment process, so only the highest-calibre candidates are selected for interview with councils.
Our national management trainees (NMTs) work on high-level strategic projects from day one, providing a valuable resource to your council.
The majority of graduates on the programme go on to secure permanent roles in their councils at the end of the two years, including Sydney Alexander (see below), a Policy and Innovation Officer at the London Borough of Islington.
Making a difference to local people’s lives
Sydney Alexander is a Policy and Innovation Officer at the London Borough of Islington
From the very start of my time on the NGDP, I had the opportunity I was looking for to make a tangible difference to local people’s lives, and to develop the valuable skills, knowledge and experience I would need to begin building a career in local government.
In my first six months, I led on developing and launching the council’s Challenging Inequality Strategy to tackle inequality, racism and injustice.
I jumped in to working with senior leaders from across the council to establish our strategic direction, develop actions and define measures of success for this critical mission in our borough.
The rest of my first year was spent as a Project Support Officer, focusing on the delivery of the summer holiday activities and food programme.
This included leading on the coordination, grant funding, relationship management and quality assurance of activities delivered by local voluntary and community sector organisations, as well as our data reporting and communications.
After a busy five months setting up the programme, getting the chance to carry out site visits and see all the fantastic, vital provision happening to support children across the borough was definitely a highlight.
The chance to work on high-profile, cross-cutting and complex projects that make meaningful change in the organisation and borough only continued from there, as I picked up work in strategy, project management and design in community safety and children’s and adults’ strategic programmes.
After two years, I’m more passionate than ever about being part of creating a more equal future for local people where everyone can thrive.
Now, it’s been a privilege to get stuck into a permanent role as a Policy and Innovation Officer. I’ll be using and building on my experience to lead on cross-council policy and strategy to tackle the complex challenges we face.