At a Glance
- Tasks: Uncover and create compelling stories about our people and projects.
- Company: Join a leading UK water company committed to sustainability.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, bonus scheme, healthcare benefits, and professional development.
- Other info: Flexible working hours and opportunities for career growth.
- Why this job: Tell impactful stories that matter and connect with communities.
- Qualifications: Significant journalism experience and exceptional storytelling skills.
The predicted salary is between 51750 - 63250 £ per year.
At Pennon Group, we're proud to serve communities while protecting the environment. Together with our subsidiaries, we're leading the way in water and renewables. Our goals include lowering our carbon footprint, planting 300,000 trees, restoring peatlands, and supporting farmers and landowners to improve water quality and wildlife.
Join our team as our Lead Journalist and help bring our people, projects, and communities to life. This is a unique opportunity for an experienced journalist to combine strategic thinking with hands-on storytelling. You'll act as a journalist within the business, identifying compelling stories from across our operations, people, and communities, bringing them to life through engaging content and trusted media relationships.
Key Responsibilities:
- Act as Pennon's in-house journalist, uncovering and developing compelling stories from across our business, people, and communities.
- Create engaging written, video, and multimedia content that brings our work to life.
- Develop a strong pipeline of proactive stories aligned to business priorities.
- Translate complex topics into clear, engaging, and audience-focused content.
- Build trusted relationships with journalists and media contacts, managing media enquiries and supporting proactive media engagement.
- Travel across the Pennon Group footprint to capture stories, interviews, photography, and video content.
- Support incident and crisis communications, including participation in an out-of-hours standby (on-call) rota.
- Monitor media coverage and use insight to strengthen future communications activity.
- Work collaboratively within a small, high-performing team and adapt quickly to changing priorities.
What We're Looking For:
- Significant experience as a journalist or in a senior media-facing communications role.
- Exceptional writing, interviewing, and storytelling skills.
- Proven ability to identify, develop, and deliver compelling stories and content.
- Experience building and maintaining strong relationships with journalists and media outlets.
- Experience balancing proactive storytelling with reactive media management and incident communications.
- Excellent stakeholder engagement skills and confidence working with senior leaders.
- Strong organisational skills and the ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.
- Experience working effectively under pressure and responding to rapidly changing situations.
- Full UK driving licence and willingness to travel regularly.
- Flexible approach to working hours, including participation in an out-of-hours standby rota and weekend working.
Desirable:
- Experience within utilities, infrastructure, or other regulated sectors.
- Photography, videography, and content editing skills.
- Experience using media monitoring and sentiment analysis tools.
- Experience supporting crisis communications.
- Journalism, media, or communications qualification.
Why Join Us?
This is an opportunity to tell stories with real-world relevance and impact. You'll have access to fascinating people, projects, and operations, helping audiences better understand the work that supports customers, protects the environment, and serves communities every day.
If you're a journalist at heart, thrive on curiosity, and enjoy bringing stories to life through words, images, and video, we'd love to hear from you.
We believe in rewarding our people for their hard work and dedication. As our Lead Journalist, you'll enjoy:
- Competitive Salary - Based on experience and skills
- Bonus Scheme - Rewarding your performance
- Pension Scheme - Helping you plan for your future
- Healthcare Benefits - Access to employee assistance programs
- Professional Development - Support for career growth with training opportunities
- Employee Discounts - On various products and services
- Generous Annual Leave - Take time to recharge with our holiday entitlement
Closing Date: 4th September 2026. We may close this vacancy early if we receive a high volume of applications. We encourage you to apply as soon as possible.
Please note that the successful candidate will be subject to a mandatory DBS check as part of the on-boarding process.
Be yourself, we like it that way. Together, we will build a culture of belonging, where inclusion is instinctive. Diversity is our strength and a reflection of our communities. We care, we value everyone, we celebrate uniqueness.
Our core values, which are essential to our success, are:
- Be Rock Solid - Build trust and be trusted. Be the one we all look to and can depend on.
- Be You - We want you to bring your best every day. Be yourself and make your mark in your individual way.
- Be the Future - Embrace change. Drive Progress. Own the challenge.
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