Advocacy Manager

This is an exciting position for an exceptional person with a strong campaigning background to work for one of the UK’s leading rights NGOs. In this role, you’ll have the opportunity to devise high-impact campaigns to achieve real change, co-ordinating a multi-disciplinary high-performing team to further privacy, free expression and data protection rights. Ideally, you’ll also be a key Big Brother Watch spokesperson in the media.

You’ll have both people and project management responsibilities, leading our campaigns on key civil liberty issues such as digital ID, free speech and protest rights, facial recognition, AI and mass surveillance. You’ll plan, execute and evaluate campaigns across all areas of our work.

Big Brother Watch is a UK civil liberties campaign group fighting for a free future. We’re determined to reclaim our privacy and defend freedoms at this time of enormous technological change. And we fight to win. We’re a fiercely independent, diverse, non-partisan and non-profit group of campaigners and researchers who work to roll back the surveillance state and protect the public’s rights in parliament, the media or the courts if we have to. We publish unique investigations and pursue powerful public campaigns to pursue real change. We work relentlessly to inform and empower the public to collectively reclaim privacy, defend our civil liberties and protect freedoms for the future. We’re a small, dedicated and highly effective team of seven full-time staff and five volunteers.

Job description

• Develop and execute quarterly campaign plans to manage and schedule relevant advocacy, policy and research work to further our strategic aims.
• Co-ordinate a high-performing, multi-disciplinary team to pursue campaign goals.
• Identify advocacy and press opportunities to further campaign aims.
• Strategise/oversee development of campaign materials & engaging supporter actions.
• Promote Big Brother Watch’s campaigns in the media, writing articles and giving quotes/live interviews to press and for our social media channels.
• Uphold Big Brother Watch’s reputational excellence in public fora.
• Work with Director to periodically set campaign priorities in our organisational strategy.
• Communicate complex issues to varied audiences, whether parliament, press or public; whether through traditional means (e.g. print media) or public stunts and actions.
• Build strong relationships with parliamentarians and advisors across all parties.
• Identify opportunities to further our strategic aims in parliament through committees, parliamentary questions and other activities; as well as regional assemblies and on occasion local government.
• Work with stakeholders and pursue collaborative campaigns/coalitions on key issues.
• Develop and advance Big Brother Watch’s relationships with allies across Government, legislative bodies, international organisations & NGOs in a strictly cross-party manner.
• Reflect, evaluate and implement learning from Big Brother Watch’s campaigns.

Events

• Organise Big Brother Watch’s party conference fringe events annually.
• Seek other opportunities to organise Big Brother Watch events at appropriate times, including report/campaign launch events, public events and stakeholder roundtables.

Management

• Oversee the organisation’s execution of campaigns, ensuring appropriate delegation.
• Ensure the highest level of quality of all campaigns output.
• Line management responsibilities for the advocacy team (currently two Legal and Policy Officers).
• Manage staff performance and development, and ensure wellbeing.
• Help foster a positive, supportive and high-performance work environment.