Public Affairs Adviser

PUBLIC AFFAIRS ADVISER

Salary: £30,500 – £34,650

Location: London (Hybrid – 3 days to include Tuesdays)

Closing date: 03rd January 2025

Process: CV

JOB DESCRIPTION

Founded 60 years ago and representing some of the biggest names in business, household brands and globally traded corporations that employ people in all sectors and across every region and nation of the UK, the CBI is the voice of business. The CBI represents 850 members who themselves comprise 1,100 separate registered companies and 150,000 trade association members.

The CBI is committed to ensuring a safe, supportive and inclusive people centric culture where our people can excel to achieve their full potential and be their best authentic selves in an environment where ethical values and respectful behaviours are at the very heart of who we are in our everyday interactions.

Role Summary

If you are passionate about building relationships with policy makers to help build a policy environment which will have real impact in promoting sustainable growth in the UK economy then this could be the role for you.

The Public Affairs Adviser will help turn the CBI’s economic and policy vision into reality. Based at our London office (Cannon Place) and reporting to the Head of Public Affairs, the successful candidate must have a passion for politics, a proactive and confident attitude, and will be a natural organiser.

They will influence the CBI’s political and campaigning strategy at a critical time, as well as working alongside colleagues to download insight to firms, from FTSE-100 level to SMEs. The successful candidate will guide CBI policy teams through their own engagement with politicians and civil servants and take the lead on engaging directly with their own political stakeholders. The role will provide opportunities to work across all areas of the CBI’s Public Affairs work.

The role will require interaction with colleagues at all levels of the organisation – including with junior, peer-level and senior colleagues – so the successful candidate will have excellent interpersonal and relationship-building skills.

A commitment to ensuring that the Public Affairs team is seen as a friendly and facilitating part of the organisation, adding value to the work of other colleagues, is essential. Equally as important is a keen interest in, and instinct around, the political environment in which the CBI operates.

This role is ideally suited to a candidate with a sharp political eye, a fascination for current affairs and campaigning, a go-getter attitude, and a hunger to learn and develop in role.

Key Responsibilities

Alongside reactive and ad-hoc work dependent on the external political environment, regular activities for this role will include:

Supporting policy teams to maximise their own political campaigning

• .Working with the CBI’s policy teams to maximise the effectiveness of their own campaigns.
• Advising policy teams on political campaign strategies to support their project objectives.
• Monitoring developments in Parliament and alerting policy teams to relevant activity.
• Using external resources to help teams keep up to date with the latest political activity in their area of work

Owning and delivering the CBI briefings process.

• Hold the pen on briefings for political stakeholder meetings taken by the CBI’s CEO and President.
• Work with policy colleagues to provide the most up-to-date insights and content to support the CBI’s executive team.

Leading our political stakeholder mapping and target engagement strategy.

• Take the lead in identifying political targets for the CBI’s CEO, President and wider executive team, and work with colleagues on our engagement strategy for each.
• Targets could be relevant Ministers or Lords, or political influencers and commentators.
• You’ll work with policy colleagues to ensure we’re identifying important political contacts across all of our different policy areas.

Supporting information sharing across the organisation via our “Live Script”

• To support our regional directors and account managers we have an internal script which we update on a weekly basis with all of our latest political engagement and insights.
• You will play an important role in distilling the most important information for our members and presenting this in a way which is useful to support colleagues with their commercial conversations.

Knowledge & Experience

What an individual must know or understand to be able to fulfil the role’s requirements:

• Demonstrable interest in political communications, policy or campaigning.
• Knowledge of the policymaking process in the UK government, regional government, and Devolved Nations.
• Understanding of the political or public policy environment and potential sensitivities that may impact the CBI’s decision making.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Familiarity with the workings of business and commercial pressures.
• Confident, proactive people-person with a strong interest in politics.
• Excellent organisation and project manager skills.

Diversity & Inclusion

At the CBI, we are committed to attracting diverse talent that represents the society we live in. We encourage applications from all, regardless of age, sexuality, socio-economic background, disability, ethnicity, gender, religion, or beliefs. We are committed to building a culture of belonging and inclusion and this is reflected in our policies, practices, and internal employee-led networks and supported by our executive leadership team. We are a family friendly organisation, and we encourage flexible working as we want our employees to achieve a healthy work-life balance. Currently our employees are hybrid working, but we encourage colleagues to collaborate and innovate, by working together in regional and national offices. Our employee-led networks are: REE Network, LGBT, HAND, Women’s and Working Families and we have qualified Mental Health First Aiders who support our employees in having good mental health.