View Vacancy - KL - Senior Trade Manager - Clean Energy, HEO

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.
Department for Business and Trade roles (DBT)
Department for Business and Trade (DBT)


Are you passionate about business, climate and sustainability? Are you a dynamic individual interested in a career where international trade meets the low-carbon economy? Where you help British companies develop business partnerships in Malaysia, as part of a fast-moving and high profile team?  

The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) is the UK Government’s department for economic growth. We support businesses to invest, grow and export, creating jobs and opportunities across the UK. The global low carbon transition is one of the key economic opportunities of the 21st century and offers long term business opportunities to UK companies.We are looking for a Senior Trade Manager (Clean Energy) to join the DBT Malaysia team at the British High Commission (BHC) in Kuala Lumpur to help shape the trade relationship between Malaysia and the UK, boosting business opportunities in clean energy and, additionally, infrastructure sectors in Malaysia.  The aim is to increase the value and volume of UK-Malaysia trade while encouraging green growth opportunities that deliver for both countries. 

The job holder will work as part of the friendly and supportive DBT Malaysia team, with some opportunities to travel within Malaysia, Asia Pacific and beyond. We provide a modern and flexible working environment with the opportunity to work part of the week remotely. 

The work will be varied and often fast paced. This role suits a flexible self-starter with lots of initiative and the ability to juggle priorities. We are looking for someone creative, with great people skills. A background in energy/infrastructure/business is an advantage but just as important is a proactive mindset and strong strategic and influencing skills. The role offers excellent scope for personal and professional development. The job holder will deliver our Clean Energy and Sustainable Infrastructure export campaigns for Malaysia (with flexibility to adapt to evolving team and sectoral priorities) with the aim of delivering export wins for UK companies against agreed targets.  

The successful candidate will collaborate closely with DBT teams in the UK, FCDO Policy Teams at the High Commission, as well as with colleagues across our Asia Pacific network. 

  • Develop and implement the UK government’s clean energy and infrastructure export strategies for Malaysia closely aligned with the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy and Trade Strategy.
  • Develop and maintain an in-depth knowledge of the clean energy and infrastructure sectors in Malaysia, building strong and productive relationships with local stakeholders in public procurement and the private sector. 
  • Develop and manage a strong pipeline of high potential business opportunities in Malaysia, with an outcome-driven approach to creating the best conditions for exporter success.
  • Provide strategic advice and support to UK companies around their business development activities in Malaysia, with a focus on high value/high impact deals.
  • Manage relationships with key industry bodies and scan trends and regulatory/strategic developments, identifying business opportunities and devising strategies to tackle barriers to trade.  
  • Lead on delivery of sectoral events, missions and VIP visits that help position UK companies, including drafting high-quality briefings and speeches for ministers and senior officials. 
  • Develop a sound understanding of UK capability in clean energy and infrastructure (with flexibility around priority areas). 
  • Effective self-organisation including uploading timely data to our customer database.

The successful candidate will be joining a high profile and ambitious team and will be able to develop a wide range of strategic planning, project management and senior stakeholder management skills while developing export opportunities for the UK. If successful you will have the opportunity to get involved in a diverse range of DBT, BHC and corporate workstreams including planning and delivering high profile visits, organising L&D activities, and engaging the business community. 

As DBT Malaysia team’s business priorities evolve, the successful candidate will potentially become involved in supporting other priority sectors/workstreams for DBT Malaysia, and a flexible approach is important.

Resources managed (staff and expenditure):

Access to a proportion of DBT’s budget for travel and subsistence, L&D etc 

  • Strong interest in and/or experience of clean energy/infrastructure, business and trade
  • Excellent oral and written English
  • Minimum of 2 years of previous work experience 
  • Excellent presentation, interpersonal and networking skills
  • Strong written, analytical and research skills
  • Very good IT skills including Outlook, Word, PPT and Excel
  • Self-Starter - ability to work well on own initiative
  • Ability to work under pressure and juggle multiple priorities effectively
  • Ability to conduct in-depth research and produce high quality materials against short deadlines
  • Good organisational/project management skills

Language requirements:

English (mandatory fluent in both written and spoken)

Bahasa Malaysia (preferred but not essential) 

Experience and/or qualifications in one of the following: energy/climate, business development, relationship management or government industry associations.
Communicating and Influencing, Managing a Quality Service, Seeing the Big Picture, Working Together
12 April 2026
Higher Executive Officer (HEO)
Full-time, Permanent
36
Asia Pacific
Malaysia
Kuala Lumpur
British High Commission
1
MYR
MYR 10,000
monthly
1 June 2026

We offer time and financial support for the successful candidate to take advantage of professional learning and development opportunities inside and outside of the organisation.

BHC and DBT provide a comprehensive L&D offer. A wide range of options is available for personal development including training courses, coaching and mentoring, job-shadowing, presentations

and learning sets. Staff have access to a wide variety of online resources through the International Academy and Civil Service Learning. Staff are strongly encouraged to take advantage of all available opportunities.

All new hires undertake a workplace induction and there are some mandatory e-learning courses that must be completed to pass probation.

The jobholder will undertake a workplace induction and a number of mandatory e-learning courses covering areas such as diversity, health and safety, and information management.

Working hours:

The High Commission core working hours are Monday-Thursday 08:00 – 16:30, Friday 08:00 – 13:15.

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.

Please note that your application must be submitted before 23:55 on the day mentioned in the above field “Application deadline”.

Please be aware that the deadline for submitting applications is considered to be the time zone for the country where the vacancy has arisen. 

All applicants are required to mandatorily fill the online application form completely including the employment and educational details, experience, professional skills and behaviour-based questions. We will be thoroughly reviewing the applications and incomplete form in any respect may not be considered while shortlisting for the next stage.
 
Only shortlisted candidates for interview will be contacted. Interviewees will be assessed on the core behaviours/qualifications listed above. Unsuccessful candidates will be notified via the system in due time. Appointable candidates who were unsuccessful may be placed on a ‘reserve list’.  If during the reserve period of 6 months the same or a largely similar role becomes available, that role may be offered to the second or subsequent candidate”.

Indicated start date is provisional and subject to successful completion of reference and security checks.

Kindly check your application centre or email regularly for any update on the status of your application.

To those applicants not short-listed, we extend our appreciation for considering the British Government as a potential employer.

Please be aware that you will only be able to apply to vacancies for Country Based Staff roles with the British Government through this official tal.net site (operated by Oleeo). Jobs may be advertised on third party websites, however our adverts will always link back to the official tal.net site. If you complete and send an application through any other site, we will not receive it.

This opportunity is closed to applications.