Head of Community Engagement

Join our team at the Guardian and be a part of a diverse and inclusive global organisation that delivers fearless, investigative journalism, and holds power to account. Our team of award‑winning journalists, cutting‑edge commercial professionals, and industry‑leading digital experts are committed to making a difference and represent a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives. We offer a challenging and exciting environment for career development, with a focus on training, growth and fostering an inclusive culture.

We're looking for a head of community engagement to oversee the development of new strands of audience‑led interaction on‑and off‑platform in order to build and nurture engaged and growing communities around our journalism and our journalists. Community engagement is creating and improving the space for our audiences to speak directly to the Guardian and to each other. You’ll work closely with UK, US and Australia editorial teams and manage our existing moderation team to build a playbook for what engaged Guardian communities look like – the role is pivotal in deepening our journalist‑audience relationships.

About the role:

• Plan and execute regular Q&As/conversations between our readers and journalists, writers, contributors and other public figures on‑and off‑platform and devise and execute other new formats of direct audience/community interaction.
• Work closely with audience, social and multimedia teams to expand the ways in which we allow our audience to interact directly with our journalists and journalism.
• Ensure the Guardian has an atmosphere in its discussion areas that reflects GNM's values and mission; and ensure that debate remains within our guidelines and terms and conditions.
• Work closely with editorial teams to plan and create daily pieces of journalism built around direct audience engagement.
• Collaborate with live events and community journalism teams.
• Provide leadership and day‑to‑day management of community engagement team working from offices in London and Sydney, including the global rota, staff appraisals and team meetings.
• Building relationships with journalists across the organisation and encourage participation in Conversations and other engagement work.
• Working with senior editors, audience, analytics, social and product and engineering teams to shape the future of our community platforms.

About you:

• Experience of working with editorial teams and able to demonstrate a strong awareness of how to build thriving online discussions.
• Ability to develop and implement a strategic vision for building communities on and off-platform.
• Strong experience of building communities on a variety of platforms, with a keen sense of audience needs and how they differ between platforms.
• Ability to effectively and enthusiastically communicate community principles to both our audience and our journalists.
• Experience of working within a busy newsroom.
• Experience of managing and developing a team.
• Keen knowledge of legal issues relating to online discussions, commenting and forums.
• Ideally you will have a demonstrable ability to bring a diverse perspective to this role.

Benefits:

• You’ll have six weeks of annual leave per year (plus bank holidays) with the option to purchase an additional five days.
• Our pension scheme is generous; if you contribute 5% then we will contribute 8-12% (depending on your age).
• We believe in giving back, which is why employees are given two volunteering days annually and the option of payroll giving.
• Season ticket loans are also available.
• You are entitled to life cover, private healthcare, income protection, and free eye tests.
• You can also opt in to dental insurance.
• We have enhanced maternity, paternity, adoption and shared parental leave policies in place.
• We also support our employees by offering an IVF, menopause, baby loss, and trans equality policy.

Culture and wellbeing:

• We want everyone to feel like they belong at the Guardian and we champion diversity of thought.
• Our various employee forums provide a platform to use their voice to foster an inclusive workplace.
• We became the first major media organisation to achieve B Corp status.
• We offer tools to help you prioritise your wellbeing including access to our employee benefits platform, which provides tailored support for health and wellbeing.
• In addition, we offer free yoga and pilates classes. These run alongside our corporate gym membership and cycle to work scheme.
• Our canteen has views overlooking the Regent's Canal and caters for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Learning and development:

• We encourage personal and professional growth.
• Employees have access to a broad range of tools and solutions, and we are happy to support the pursuit of professional qualifications through vocational courses and apprenticeships.

AI transparency:

We value honesty in your application. AI generated content must not be presented as your own work. Please review our guidance on the use of AI in your application here.