Senior Stakeholder Relations Officer

Grade C: £34,890 (National) or £40,746 (London – for London office based or homebased workers within the boundary of the M25) – There is also an additional homeworking allowance of £600 per annum for those working from home. For part time roles – please note this will be pro rata.

Contracted Hours: Full-time 37 hours per week or talk to us about compressed hours.

Contract Type: Fixed Term/ Secondment opportunity until 31/03/2027 (maternity cover). Internal applicants must obtain written confirmation from their line manager, granting permission to be released from their current role, before applying for this opportunity.

Location: Home-based OR office-based opportunity, flexible location. You can also opt for hybrid working (3 office days and 2 days a week from home). CQC’s offices are in London, Newcastle, Leeds, Nottingham and Bristol

Closing Date: Tuesday 25 August 2026 at 11.59pm

Make a difference
Every role at CQC helps us improve health and social care for people across England. If you're looking for a role in communications and engagement that offers real purpose, this could be the opportunity for you.

As a Senior Stakeholder Relations Officer, you'll be part of our Stakeholder, Parliament and Government Team, helping to build strong relationships with national organisations and partners. Your work will support openness, collaboration and accountability, while ensuring CQC stays connected to the people and organisations that shape the health and social care landscape.
Picture this
In the last 12 months, as a Senior Stakeholder Relations Officer, you could have:
Worked closely with senior colleagues and their offices to understand their briefing and meeting requirements.
Worked with colleagues and external partners to strengthen how CQC listens to stakeholder views, helping ensure national organisations and the communities they represent have a voice in our work.
Led a national stakeholder forum ensuring we hear first hand views on our rebuilding and thematic work.
Gathered and analysed insight from stakeholder organisations to help CQC better understand emerging issues across health and social care and inform future regulatory approaches.
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You'll play a key role in the organisation by
Preparing briefing materials and providing engagement support for senior leaders attending external meetings and events.
Building and maintaining relationships with national stakeholder organisations across health, social care and partner sectors.
Sharing regulatory updates, key messages and organisational developments with stakeholder networks.
Monitoring developments across the external environment and keeping colleagues informed about issues that may affect CQC's work.
Measuring and reporting on stakeholder engagement activity to support continuous improvement and effective partnership working

Show us
What we're looking for in your application

• Experience planning and delivering stakeholder engagement activities within a public sector, healthcare, public affairs or similarly regulated environment.

• Experience building productive relationships with external organisations and using those relationships to share information, gain insight or support organisational objectives.
• Experience turning complex information, policy updates or technical content into clear briefings, recommendations or messages for senior leaders and external audiences.
• Ability to work collaboratively across multiple teams and at a senior level.

Compliance

Note for internal candidates:
This is a secondment/fixed term opportunity. Please read the recruitment and selection policy section on secondments. You must discuss your application with your line manager before applying.
To progress your application, you’ll need to provide evidence of your right to work in the UK. Without valid right to work you won’t be eligible for the role. We are unable to offer sponsorship for this role. Some roles may also be subject to a satisfactory DBS check.

Next steps
If you apply, you’ll need to create a profile and complete an online application form. Your application will be completely anonymous. Please see our information for applicants for more details on the process. We contact every applicant to let them know the outcome of their application, so you will hear from us whether or not you are shortlisted.
You can read the full details of the role in the Job Description
If you’d like an informal chat about the role contact – Jen Charlton, National Stakeholder Relations Manager; Jennifer.charlton@cqc.org.uk. For general enquiries, please email recruitment@cqc.org.uk.

The Benefits
We offer a wide range of benefits, including:

• Annual leave starting at 27 days per year, rising to 32.5 days with service, plus bank holidays (usually 8 days per year).
• Training and development opportunities.
• Wellbeing initiatives, such as gym discounts and meditation.
• NHS pension scheme, with around 23.7% employer contribution.
• Discount schemes (including eligibility for a Blue Light card, at a cost of £4.99 and valid for 2 years), reward vouchers, car leasing and more!

Please see our benefits page for the full list.

Equity for all
We know job descriptions can feel intimidating. Research shows they can cause some people to doubt whether they’re a good fit. This happens more often to people from underrepresented groups (e.g. ethnic minority backgrounds). If this role interests you, we encourage you to apply. Your unique perspective, skills, and experience could be exactly what we need.
We want every candidate to feel supported and able to do their best. If you need adjustments to our process, we’ll work with you to remove any barriers. Visit our accessibility page for more on this. If you’d like to chat, please contact recruitment@cqc.org.uk. Please note, if you have previously informed us of adjustments you need for interview or within your role these are not carried over and must be discussed for each individual application you make.
We promote a workplace where fairness, respect and inclusion are a priority. Diverse teams make our work better, help us deliver our mission and make our culture stronger. See our ED&I page for more about this.
We welcome applications from everyone, and colleagues can find support and community among our many employee networks. This includes people of any:

• Age
• Sex
• Gender identity or expression
• Sexual orientation
• Religion or belief
• Ethnicity
• Disability

Values and vision
We are guided by our core values, which shape our work and our culture.
Excellence – being a high-performing organisation.
Caring – treating everyone with dignity and respect.
Integrity – doing the right thing.
Teamwork – learning from each other to be the best we can.
We are a disability confident employer and a carer confident employer.

A Note on AI
AI tools can be great for research and refining ideas, but we want to learn about you. If you use AI or Chatbots to help you with your application, keep these points in mind:

• AI can support research, structuring and refining your writing, but your application must reflect your real skills and experience.
• Spell-checking and condensing word counts are great ways to use AI effectively.
• Do not copy and paste AI generated answers. These will not help you stand out; remember we want to hear about your skills and experience.
• Providing false and insincere examples goes against our core values of honesty and integrity and may lead to your application being withdrawn or termination of your employment.