JOB DESCRIPTION

View Vacancy – CBP: Pro Consul, AO

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.

Job Category

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Consular Roles)

Job Subcategory

Consular

Job Description (Roles and Responsibilities)

Main purpose of job:

The British Embassy Phnom Penh is a diplomatic mission of around 30 staff, delivering a dynamic and rapidly expanding programme of activity in support of the UK’s objectives including on prosperity, trade, security, open societies, consular services and law enforcement. The Embassy is a modern, diverse and inclusive employer where everyone contributes to the Embassy’s CORE Values of Generosity, Ambition and Courage.

As part of a small consular team, the Pro-Consul will provide assistance and support to British people in Cambodia, either visitors or residents, who experience problems, difficulties or crises. Consular work covers a wide range of issues from the issuing of emergency travel documents, providing advice and welfare support – including to victims of crime, rape and sexual assault, dealing with death and hospitalisations, detention, arrests and deportation.

You will also deliver consular prevention outreach activities and support more country-wide activity in engaging with British travellers and local authorities. The role also involves supporting the British Embassy’s crisis preparedness and being an integral part of its response to major incidents involving British nationals.

Consular work is extremely rewarding but also challenging. The role is in a fast-paced envrionment, dealing with extremely sensitive cases and responding to crises and stressful events. It requires personal resilience and a flexible, empathetic attitude.

The team works within a supportive Asia Pacific Consular Region and is supported by the Consular Regional Operations Manager for South East asia, based in Kuala Lumpur.

The role involves ensuring that consular services in Cambodia are delivered in line with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) Consular and Crisis Strategy and its Consular Charter.

Roles and responsibilities / what will the jobholder be expected to achieve:

To effectively manage and prioritise the full range of consular casework for British people in Cambodia ensuring their needs are assessed, planned and delivered in line with FCDO policies and local procedures. When necessary, this may sometimes require travel within Cambodia.

Assistance Work (70%)

This covers a broad range of issues, the most common being:

• Hospitalisation: support British people who have been hospitalised through ill health or an accident, advising on the options available to them (or their family); monitor welfare, including visits where appropriate; to advise them, their friends or family on local procedures, and liaise with medical staff, relevant local authorities.
• Death: assist the family and/or next of kin by explaining local procedures, liaising with international undertakers and relevant local authorities, ensuring that any burial, cremation or repatriation is timely and dignified.
• Arrest and detention: Provide information about local procedures and legal service providers; to undertake regular prison and immigration detention centre visits to monitor their welfare and liaise with the authorities on any welfare or health concerns in line with the international standards.
• Victims of crime: Assist victims of crime, including rape and sexual assault or physical attack.
• Welfare: assist those experiencing mental or physical health or addiction issues, financial difficulties, provide general advice and guidance.

Prevention (20%)

• You will contribute and lead projects to deliver prevention messages in line with the embassy business plan and the consular strategy.
• You will also support our work to build and maintain networks of a range of key stakeholders, authorities and partner organisations such as Cambodian Police and local hospitals.

Crisis planning and preparedness (5%)

• You will play a key role in ensuring the consular team provides effective support to British travellers/expatriates in the event of a natural or man made crisis.
• You will participate in training and planning for crisis ensuring that all consular elements of a crisis response are captured and planned for. In crisis/emergency situations, you will need to work as required to support the Embassy response (sometimes on a shift pattern working unsociable hours). In times of peak operational demand, you may need to work flexibly within the section.

Wider corporate activity (5%)

• You will make a contribution to the smooth running of the British Embassy either through committee membership or another voluntary role to support the vision and values of the Embassy.

Language:

Expert in Khmer and English

Essential qualifications, skills and experience

• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills with a strong customer service focus
• Experience of dealing with customers of various nationalities
• Ability to follow detailed procedures and guidelines in making judgements and solving problems
• Ability to deal sensitively and empathetically with difficult situations and people in distress
• Flexible, resilient under pressure and decisive, with a track record of delivering results to a high standard within tight deadlines;
• Ability to liaise with and manage relationships with external contacts;
• Familiar with Microsoft Office, Outlook, Teams, and WhatsApp
• Flexibility to occasionally travel to other parts of Cambodia, sometimes outside of normal work hours.

Desirable qualifications, skills and experience

• An understanding and experience of consular work or similar.
• Experience of living in, or understanding of the United Kingdom, British people and culture.
• Experience of living in or understanding of Cambodia and Khmer people and culture.

Required behaviours

Communicating and Influencing, Delivering at Pace, Making Effective Decisions, Managing a Quality Service

Application deadline

23 September 2025

Grade

Administrative Officer (AO)

Type of Position

Full-time, Permanent

Working hours per week

39 (with one hour lunch Monday-Thursday)

Region

Asia Pacific

Country/Territory

Cambodia

Location (City)

Phnom Penh

Type of Post

British Embassy

Number of vacancies

1

Salary Currency

USD

Salary

1,130 USD

Type of Salary

monthly

Start Date

14 November 2025

Other benefits and conditions of employment

In delivering our consular service, at often short or no notice, you may be required to work outside of normal working hours and/or travel within Cambodia when necessary and appropriate to do so.

Consular work can be extremely rewarding but also challenging. It will require you to deal directly with people in often high distressing situations while at their most vulnerable in a foreign country far from friends or family. The range of issues you will deal with are wide and include arrest and detention, rape and sexual assault and death, regular prison visits and engaging directly with highly distressed people suffering from mental and/or physical health problems. The role requieres a high resilience to trauma. You will be working alongside colleagues who will help and support you and the embassy, along with the FCDO, provides welfare support to its staff which is available at any time

The British Embassy offers a competitive remuneration package, including salary and benefits, leave entitlement, and training opportunities.

We also offer 20 days of leave entitlement per annum in pro rata.

Learning & Development Opportunities

You will contribute to the development of the Embassy and consular team’s learning and development programme as well as benefitting from our commitment to develop all our staff. Together with HM Consul, you will provide additional guidance and support where needed for CBS staff working with London teams.

Working patterns

Full time – Monday and Thursday 8:15-16:45 & Friday 8:15-13:15.

Based on the needs of the Embassy and approval from the jobholder’s line manager, there will be the option to work remotely for up to one day per week.

The Embassy has a smarter working policy and is committed to offering flexible working patterns balanced with the operational requirements of the role. In crisis/emergency situations you may need to work as required to support the Embassy response, sometimes on a shift pattern working which may result in unsociable hours and/or weekend working.

As an inclusive employer we are happy to discuss alternative working patterns at interview or at the point of any job offer.

Other Information

Employment offers are subject to successful clearance of pre-employment and security checks. Staff recruited by the British Embassy are subject to Terms and Conditions of Service according to local employment law.

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, 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.

You must be eligible to work in Cambodia. No accommodation or relocation expenses are payable in connection with this position.

lf you are planning to relocate for this position, please ensure that you have thoroughly investigated living and working in Phnom Penh and all related costs before submitting your application.

Employees who are not liable to pay local income tax on their Mission salary may have their salaries reduced by the equivalent local income tax amount.

The FCDO also operates an agile workforce. To facilitate this, you may be required to undertake other duties from time to time as we may reasonably require.

Additional information

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 the deadline for applications is 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.

We advise you to allow enough time to complete and submit your full application since only applications completed and submitted before the deadline will be considered.

Note: 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.

To ensure a successful application it is important that you explain how you demonstrate these behaviours, including through your experience. You are strongly advised to read the Success Profiles Civil Service Behaviours Framework, which provides detailed guidance on how the behaviours are defined.

Applicants are encouraged to use the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) format to prepare specific examples of when they have demonstrated these behaviours in their application. Using the STAR format to provide evidence of your skills and experience in your application and at interview helps to give a structure. You briefly describe the situation in which you showed the behaviour, and then explain your task in addressing the situation, what action you took and the result of this.

For inclusivity and diversity, please remove the following personal information when uploading your CV: name, address, email address, age, date of birth, gender and nationality.

The start date mentioned in the job advert is a tentative start date and the successful candidate will be required to undergo security vetting procedures. Any offer of employment will be subject to the candidate achieving suitable clearances.

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.

Level of Education: Bachelor Degree

Work Hours: 8

Experience in Months: No requirements