Head of Engagement & Communications

9-Month Fixed-Term Contract

£53,575 + LW

Full-time, 2 days per week in the office

Nordoff and Robbins is the UK's largest music therapy charity, transforming lives through the power of music. Working across health, education and social care, we partner with charities, schools, NHS services, corporates and cultural institutions to deliver specialist music therapy to children and adults with a wide range of needs.

This year marks a landmark moment in their history - their 50th anniversary - alongside the flagship Silver Clef Awards and a calendar of high-profile campaigns and partnerships. As they enter this pivotal period, they are seeking an experienced and steady Head of Engagement & Communications to lead delivery across a busy and exciting 9 months chapter.

This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who can provide clarity, stability and momentum during a period of change.

The Role

Reporting into the Executive Team and working closely with senior leaders across Fundraising and Service Delivery, you will lead a talented engagement and communications team through an intensive delivery-focused period. This role is less about long-term strategy and more about ensuring excellence in execution - bringing campaigns to life, maximising the impact of our 50th anniversary, strengthening high-value partnerships, and ensuring our messaging is compelling, consistent and commercially aware. You will need to hit the ground running.

Key Priorities

• Lead and deliver communications around our 50th Anniversary and the Silver Clef Awards, ensuring strong visibility, income impact and brand integrity.
• Support the evolution of our fundraising narrative, helping to pivot and sharpen the fundraising 'ask' during this milestone year.
• Oversee end-to-end delivery of major campaigns (from early concept through to evaluation), including working with artists and ambassadors across several high-profile moments in the year.
• Support income generation initiatives, including high-value and strategic partnerships (such as Co-op and the Royal Albert Hall), while helping cultivate new partners for music services.
• Strengthen engagement across both our health and social care partnerships and corporate audiences, ensuring our communications resonate across complex stakeholder groups.
• Lead on CRM, systems and social channels to ensure effective audience engagement and measurable impact.
• Manage external agencies and key partners effectively, maintaining pace and quality across multiple concurrent projects.
• Provide strong, empathetic leadership to an experienced and capable team, creating clarity, direction and calm in a fast-moving environment.

About You

This role requires someone who thrives at pace and can confidently operate with one foot in the commercial world and one in the charity sector. You will bring:

• Significant senior-level experience in engagement, communications and/or fundraising.
• A proven ability to deliver high-profile campaigns in performance-driven environments.
• Experience working across both charitable and commercial contexts - understanding the nuance required in each.
• Strong B2B experience, ideally including partnership development and corporate engagement.
• Exposure to service delivery environments (health, SEN, autism, social care or similar) would be highly advantageous.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills, including experience working alongside high-profile partners and public figures (while remaining focused on representing the organisation rather than being front and centre).
• Strong operational grip - confident overseeing CRM, digital channels and agency relationships.
• The ability to provide crystal-clear direction and decision-making.

Personally, you will be:

• Emotionally intelligent and empathetic.
• Calm, steady and resilient.
• A leader who sets the tone by example rather than authority.
• Clear, decisive and comfortable in a performance-led culture.
• Collaborative and able to navigate complex internal and external relationships.

This is not a role for someone overly rigid or overly corporate - success here requires balance, warmth and commercial awareness in equal measure.

Why Join Nordoff and Robbins Now?

This is a rare opportunity to shape engagement and communications during a defining year in the charity's history. You will play a critical role in ensuring our 50th anniversary year leaves a powerful legacy - financially, reputationally and socially.

If you are an experienced communications and engagement leader who can bring stability, clarity and delivery focus to a dynamic organisation operating at the intersection of music, health and commercial partnership, we would love to hear from you.

We practice a diverse and inclusive recruitment process that ensures equal opportunity for all we work with, irrespective of race, sexual orientation, mental or physical disability, age or gender. As an organisation, we encourage applications from all backgrounds and will ensure measures are met when required, to allow a fair process throughout.