Regional Development Strateg with Focus on Rural Areas

The Management Office of Region Uppsala is part of Region Uppsala, one of the largest employers in Uppsala County. The office is led by the Regional Director and consists of approximately one thousand employees. With a governing, supportive, and coordinating role, the Management Office is tasked with supporting the political leadership and administrations so that political direction is implemented across the region's various operations. In this way, Region Uppsala can embrace its role, both regionally and nationally.

Do you want to develop and contribute to the growth of Region Uppsala? We welcome you to join our team!

About the Department

Region Uppsala has the state mandate to be responsible for driving regional development work in Uppsala County. This work is conducted within the Department for Regional Development, which works for the effective implementation of regional development policy as well as internal work on human rights and the environment. The starting point for our work is Uppsala County's Regional Development Strategy, which also serves as the Agenda 2030 strategy. We initiate, coordinate, and drive the county's development work together with the county's public, private, and non-profit actors.

Your Role

Your assignment should be characterized by a holistic view of several societal sectors that capture the distinctiveness of rural areas, their challenges, and opportunities. The position aims to contribute to a vibrant rural area with equal opportunities for entrepreneurship, work, housing, and welfare throughout Uppsala County.

The focus lies on contributing to a sustainable and competitive rural area where businesses can grow and develop by strengthening rural entrepreneurship related primarily to commercial services and food and forestry issues. In addition to these areas, other enabling issues may become relevant, for example, contributing to a holistic perspective in urban planning in collaboration with colleagues.

The position also includes environmental scanning, networking in relevant circles both internally and externally, and acting as a subject matter expert towards our collaboration partners, such as the county's municipalities and external actors like authorities, local and regional business life, among others.

The work on regional development largely involves identifying development or challenge areas in collaboration with various societal actors and functioning as the link between the local and national levels.

Your Qualifications

We are looking for you who have a strong interest in and commitment to rural development. You have a university degree or other education and experience that the employer considers equivalent. You have experience working and understanding the conditions of rural areas, the needs of business life and entrepreneurship, as well as strategic development opportunities. You should have knowledge of the food chain, primary production, and sustainable food supply. Likewise, an understanding of service development in sparsely populated and rural-adjacent areas.

It is an advantage if you have:

• Insight into the role of forests for economy, ecology, and social sustainability.
• Experience in development and change work, preferably at a strategic level.
• Experience working in a politically governed organization and from municipal or state collaboration within the framework of labor market issues.

As a person, you are self-reliant, flexible, and have the ability to structure your tasks efficiently, are persistent, and complete started projects. You take initiative for various activities and achieve results, and have a holistic view where you consider the best interests of the county in both actions and decisions.

You are an engaged and results-oriented person who enjoys developing and driving processes together with others. You should be team-oriented with a good ability to build and maintain networks and relationships.

The position also includes some case processing, follow-up, and responding to consultations, as well as preparing matters for politics and management. You will also be the contact person towards authorities, organizations, and private actors. Therefore, it is important that you have good communication skills, feel comfortable leading meetings in front of larger groups, and make the contacts that the assignment requires.

You have good Swedish language skills in speech and writing. We place great emphasis on your personal qualities.

What We Offer

The position is a fixed-term contract (100%) until 2027-05-28. Start date as soon as possible according to agreement.

Our modern office is located in the center of Uppsala, directly adjacent to Uppsala Travel Center.

As an employer, we want to create conditions for our employees to have a good life, so that one can feel secure and have quality in life outside of work. In addition to having one of Sweden's best collective agreements, we offer subsidized UL tickets and a favorable wellness allowance.

With us, you get benefits that make a difference, read about the benefits here: regionuppsala.se/formaner (https://regionuppsala.se/formaner/).

Want to know more?

Unit Manager: Christel Benfalk, tel: 018-617 02 84
Rural Strategist: Therese Strimell Flodqvist, tel: 018-617 36 18

Union Representatives:
Vision – Christianne Simson, 018-611 32 51
SACO – Örjan Olsmats, 018-611 00 00 (switchboard)
Other unions can be reached via Region Uppsala's switchboard at 018-611 00 00.

Do you want to work with us? Please submit your application via the link below before 2026-06-16.

Region Uppsala values the qualities that equal gender distribution and diversity bring to the operations and welcomes applicants of all genders and with different birth backgrounds, functionalities, and life experiences.

Region Uppsala mobilizes all permanent staff based on the needs of the total defense. This means no obligations for the individual employee in peacetime but is solely a planning measure.

Before decisions on employment, checks of suspicion and criminal records are conducted for all job seekers who in the sought employment may come to work within psychiatric care, habilitation, care of children and youth, or compulsory care of addicts, areas covered by optional record extracts. This thus applies to all who will work close to patients, even if the tasks at present are not intended to primarily contain work with the aforementioned patient groups.

This recruitment is conducted entirely through Region Uppsala's efforts, and we decline phone calls from recruitment agencies and ad sales representatives.