Concept Development Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Post Context

ACT contributes to preserving the peace, security and territorial integrity of Alliance member states by leading, at Strategic Command level, Warfare Development required to enhance NATO's posture, military structures, forces, capabilities and doctrines.

The Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate (SPP) acts on behalf of SACT to formulate policies, strategies, engagements, ACT contributions to National Defence Planning Process, and analytical practices that enable the Commander to provide strategic foresight, planning, strategy and policy advice, concepts, and strategic engagement to NATO's political and military leadership. Principal outputs include, but are not limited to: long term strategic foresight, strategic level concepts, situational awareness/strategic anticipation, Minimum Capability Requirements, Draft Capability Targets, Suitability Assessment of Allies and NATO Defence Plans, and regional and functional to security related environments.

The Concept Development Branch is ACT's lead for the development of ACT, Bi-SC and NATO Military Authorities concepts. It provides guidance, advice, and coherence on conceptual development. It develops strategic and operational concepts applying NATO's Concept Development & Experimentation process.

The Staff Officer for the development of concepts works as a member of a multi-national joint team, contributing to the transformation of NATO's military capabilities.

Principal Duties

• Manages and coordinates Concept Development & Experimentation Projects and Activities.
• Designs, organizes and performs strategic analysis activities to enable and support the development of strategic concepts, helping to shape the relevant documents and bringing clarity, preciseness, completeness and coherence to the whole process.
• Conducts research to develop solution-oriented transformational ideas that address capability gaps. This is an ongoing duty which includes attending conferences, conducting or participating in workshops, utilizing post-experiment/exercise data, considering lessons identified/learned, and being familiar with existing concepts and NATO policies to ensure consistency between documents.
• Conducts strategic analysis in support of Concept Development, in order to determine the required and relevant aspects of the military system over the spectrum of doctrine, organization, training, material, leadership, personnel, facilities and interoperability (DOTMLPFI).
• Conducts strategic analysis in support of Concept Development to determine the feasibility, validity and robustness of concepts, and establish their benefits and value. Supports the design and conduct experimentation and test/validation activities.
• Analyses the usefulness of proposed solutions stemming from Concept Development in order to determine their potential contribution to NATO's future capability.
• Serve as an expert in operational experimentation and participate as a team member in the planning, execution, analysis and reporting of experiments.

Essential Qualifications / Experience

• University Degree  and 2 years function related experience, or Higher Secondary education and completed advanced vocational training  leading to a professional qualification or professional accreditation with 4 years post related experience.
• 4 years' experience in the application of Concept Development, Strategic and Operational Research/Analysis, Systems Analysis, Experimentation or related techniques in a military environment.
• Practical experience of managing programs & projects concerned with the conduct of studies that address the impact of military capability change.
• Expertise in applying analytical methods to defence domain issues. Methods may include: war gaming, computer modelling and simulation, mathematical modelling, optimization techniques, process mapping, and soft systems methods or social science techniques.
• Proven ability to communicate effectively orally and in writing with good briefing skills.

Language

• English - SLP 3333 - (Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing)

Desirable Qualifications / Experience

• Project Management: PRINCE 2 certification (or equivalent Project Management training).

Attributes/Competencies

Personal Attributes:

Personal qualities of tact, judgement and adaptability. Good political awareness and motivational and listening skills. A sense of diplomacy and propriety in order to work harmoniously with colleagues and other staff, both civilian and military, from NATO and the NATO nations. Possesses the ability to think at the strategic level. Able to work effectively without assistance and communicate clearly in writing often to a technical and non-technical audience.

Managerial Responsibilities:

There is supervisory oversight of this post; however, one a project is assigned the incumbent will be expected to proceed autonomously with little direction or guidance.

Professional Contacts:

The incumbent must be able to liaise effectively both within and outside the HQ with international military and civilian personnel of all ranks and grades. Outside contacts include senior officials in NATO HQ, NATO agencies and research centres, and national government agencies and industry.

Contribution To Objectives:

The activity of the Section is central to the core work and objectives of SACT. The incumbent provides analytical advice regarding concept development and experimentation, which will significantly influence the way in which NATO's future capabilities are identified and solutions are implemented.  The success of the development of new concepts is fundamental to the effort of HQ SACT and the wider Transformation effort as it provides the Alliance the necessary means to progress improvements within the nations in order to meet NATO's present and future missions.

Security Clearance

The successful applicant will be required to apply for and receive a NATO SECRET Security Clearance prior to final confirmation of contract and commencement of employment.

Contract

Serving NATO International Civilian staff will be offered a contract in accordance with the NATO Civilian Personnel Regulations.  Newly recruited staff will be offered a three year definite duration contract.

Notes for Candidates

The HQ SACT web site gives full details on the eligibility criteria and application processes to be adopted by all candidates.  However, candidates should particularly note:

Please answer each of the pre-screening questions completely in English. Expressions such as: "please see attached CV, please see annex, please see enclosed document, etc" are not acceptable; this is a cause of immediate rejection of the application.

Particular attention should be given to Education and Experience section of your application form, which should be populated with details of your career to date and educational achievements and certifications as they relate to your application.

The candidature of NATO redundant staff at grade G15 will be considered with priority.

NATO will not accept any phase of the recruitment and selection prepared, in whole or in part, by means of generative artificial-intelligence (AI) tools, including and without limitation to chatbots, such as Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (Chat GPT), or other language generating tools. NATO reserves the right to screen applications to identify the use of such tools. All applications prepared, in whole or in part, by means of such generative or creative AI applications may be rejected without further consideration at NATO's sole discretion, and NATO reserves the right to take further steps in such cases as appropriate.

NATO is committed to diversity and inclusion, and strives to provide equal access to employment, advancement and retention, independent of gender, age, nationality, ethnic origin, religion or belief, cultural background, sexual orientation, and disability. NATO welcomes applications of nationals from all member Nations, and strongly encourages women to apply.

This vacancy will close on 13 July 2026 @ 17:59hrs (EDT)/11:59hrs (CEST).