Engagement & Storytelling Specialist in Bristol

Arup’s purpose, shared values and collaborative approach has set us apart for over 75 years, guiding how we shape a better world. Arup is the creative force at the heart of many of the world’s most prominent projects in the built and natural environment. Working in more than 140 countries, the firm’s designers, engineers, architects, planners, consultants, and technical specialists work with our clients on innovative projects of the highest quality and impact.

We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive team and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, experiences and ways of thinking. If you're interested in this role but aren't sure whether you meet every requirement, we'd still love to hear from you. We recognise that skills and potential can be gained in many different ways, and we're always keen to connect with talented people who are excited by the opportunity.

About Arup University: Arup University is Arup's engine for exploration, innovation and adaptation. We drive the technical excellence, future capabilities and collective intelligence that enable Arup to lead in evolving markets, win better work and deliver world-class outcomes.

We work through three integrated capability areas:

• Discovery explores future markets and creates new capabilities through foresight, research and innovation.
• Expertise builds technical excellence and world-leading expertise through Skills Networks, continuous learning and our Fellows.
• Knowledge ensures the firm can find, share and build on what it knows, so that 80 years of hard-earned experience becomes a source of intelligence and competitive advantage.

About Operations & Strategic Services: Operations & Strategic Services (OSS) exists to simplify, strengthen and coordinate the delivery of Arup University's programmes and services. We bring together finance, programme management and coordination with Strategic Design, Engagement, and Data & AI capability, working in project-based teams in a design-led, data-informed way to set and solve AU challenges.

The Opportunity: We are looking for a strong communicator, storyteller, and project manager who is interested in how people encounter new ideas, and how learning, ways of working, and activities become part of everyday practice. Arup University is a team of 130 people with 18,000 internal clients. Our programmes are designed globally, but they only land when people across the firm properly engage. For us, engagement is two-way, relationship-led work. It connects our programmes to the people who need them, and brings what those people need back into how we design and run them.

This new role gives AU’s engagement work more capacity and craft. You will work closely with the Engagement Lead, who sets the overall strategy and direction, and your focus will be bringing that direction to life through practical engagement planning, useful materials, and well-run activity. The role carries real ownership. You will lead defined engagement activities and small projects yourself, from scoping through to delivery and review, while also helping AU teams turn good ideas into clear stories and useful tools.

Key responsibilities:

• Planning engagement with AU teams: Own the day-to-day translation of AU’s engagement strategy into practical plans for programmes, capabilities, and project teams, working to the direction set by the Engagement Lead. Run planning conversations and workshops with AU teams and leaders, helping them clarify who they need to reach, why it matters, what those people need to understand or do, and which activities will get them there. Turn the output of those sessions into clear, actionable engagement plans with named audiences, activities, owners, and timings. Own and maintain AU’s engagement planning toolkit, including templates, guidance, session formats, worked examples, and repeatable approaches, so teams can plan with confidence, support participation and behaviour change, and avoid starting from scratch each time.
• Leading the delivery of engagement activity: Take end-to-end responsibility for delivering defined engagement activities for priority AU initiatives, from scoping and scheduling through to delivery, follow-up, and review. Work with programme teams, OSS colleagues, AU geography representatives, and our Skills Networks engagement colleague so activity is planned once and lands well in every region. Set up and run the operational side of AU’s engagement routes and sessions so they work reliably and to a consistent standard.
• Coordinating stakeholder activity, feedback, and insight: Own the shared view of who AU is engaging, when, and why, so the firm experiences AU as joined up rather than fragmented, and so we avoid duplication. Co-design and maintain straightforward feedback loops, synthesising what AU hears from geography representatives, programme teams, and other engagement routes into reusable insight for programme design, leadership updates, engagement planning, and our own practice. Track how engagement approaches are landing, capture what works, retire what does not, and recommend changes based on what the evidence tells you.
• Shaping the narrative and materials that engagement depends on: Develop clear, useful materials that support engagement activity, including messaging frameworks, presentations, scripts, briefing notes, session materials, and strategy documents. Find the thread in dense, technical, or half-formed material, bringing curiosity, clarity, and initiative to turn it into something people across the firm can understand, explain to others, and act on. Work to AU’s existing messaging guidance, keep it current, contribute to how it develops, and grow into more strategic responsibility as the role and the practice mature.

Is this role right for you? You will be an experienced engagement and storytelling professional, though we are equally interested in a less conventional route into this kind of work. Excellent writing, narrative, and storytelling skills, with the judgement to turn complex or competing inputs into clear, accurate, and compelling messages for different audiences. Experience producing practical materials others can use and adapt, such as messaging frameworks, engagement packs, briefings, scripts, presentations, strategy documents, and templates. Experience taking work end to end, from scoping and coordinating contributors to managing multiple priorities and keeping delivery on track. Working knowledge of engagement practice, including what makes engagement different from communications, participation, and behaviour change. Comfortable working with senior stakeholders and navigating a large, complex organisation across regions, disciplines, and contexts. Confident facilitating or supporting workshops and planning conversations, or keen to develop this with support. Comfortable collaborating asynchronously as part of a globally distributed team. An awareness of design thinking, and how it can be applied to organisational problems. Familiarity with change management or behavioural change approaches. An interest in systems thinking and how parts of an organisation connect. AI skills, or a good understanding of the challenges and opportunities AI is creating in professional practice. Experience of, or genuine curiosity about, the built environment.

Values and approach: Curious about people, and interested in understanding an audience properly before designing anything for them. Believes engagement is about participation and behaviour, not distribution and reach. Reflective and open to feedback, willing to adapt an approach based on what is actually working. Comfortable with ambiguity, curious about developing areas of work, and happy to shape early-stage thinking into something clearer with appropriate support.

What we offer you: At Arup, we care about each member’s success, so we can grow together. Guided by our values, we provide an attractive total reward package that recognises the contribution of each of our members to our shared success. As well as competitive, fair and equitable pay, we offer a career in which all of our members can belong, grow and thrive – through benefits that support health and wellbeing, a wide range of learning opportunities and many possibilities to have an impact through the work they do.

Different people, shared values: Arup is an equal opportunity employer that actively promotes and nurtures a diverse and inclusive workforce. We welcome applications from individuals of all backgrounds, regardless of age, gender identity or expression, marital status, disability, neurotype or mental health, race or ethnicity, faith or belief, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, and whether you’re pregnant or on family leave. We are an open environment that embraces diverse experiences, perspectives, and ideas – this drives our excellence.

We are committed to making our recruitment process and workplaces accessible to all candidates. Please contact lia.wiltsher@arup.com to let us know if you need any assistance or reasonable adjustments throughout your application or interview process, and/or to perform the essential functions of the role. We will do everything we can to support you.