Senior Communications Planning & Portfolio Manager in Bedford

Ready to make a real difference? Join us at the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) as our Senior Communications Planning & Portfolio Manager. This is your chance to play a meaningful role in helping people across the UK build stronger financial futures and to do it as part of a supportive, energetic team.

Why This Role Matters

The Customer Engagement function sits within Customer Delivery Directorate and aspires to become a communications and marketing centre of excellence within MaPS. Our team’s mission is to reach people where they are and help them to connect to our MoneyHelper guidance, services and partners. We do this through collaboration with colleagues across the organisation, and direct delivery through communications and engagement channels.

We are looking for someone to partner across the organisation, to understand business priorities and utilise that information to shape effective customer communication and engagement plans. This is a senior role and will sit as part of the Customer Engagement Senior Leadership Team (SLT). You will be an experienced strategic communications or media/campaigns planning manager, who is passionate about your work, demonstrating strong strategic insight, great planning skills and the ability to work across teams. You will own the communications planning grid, and lead regular and strategic cross-business planning meetings. You will be a brand ambassador for MaPS, MoneyHelper, and our amazing consumer-facing services. You’ll join a team that’s passionate, collaborative, and driven by the belief that financial confidence should be something everyone can access.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Lead communications business planning, personally being the main business partner and through working in a matrix way with others in the communications team.
• Set up and run regular communications planning sessions, bringing together operational, strategic, policy and insight teams from across the business, and aligning with the business planning cycle.
• Lead the ‘start the week’ cross-team communications meetings.
• Ownership of the central communications planning grid for MaPS, responsible for driving more centralised planning and coordination of communications activities across a diverse portfolio of MaPS objectives.
• As part of the Customer Engagement SLT, work together with leads for marketing, partnerships, media and editorial to agree communications priorities, campaigns, themes, reactive work and so on, and be responsible for ensuring those priorities are implemented in a coordinated and flexible way across teams.
• Work closely with colleagues in ensuring the delivery of strong briefs for media, creative and digital use, and ensure specialist functions are fully briefed to ensure they can deliver high quality tailored support.
• Create and maintain strong internal networks, gaining a deep understanding of the relevant operational and content areas to advise on messaging and the most appropriate communications approaches to meet desired external and communications objectives.
• Regularly review and develop communications planning processes and tools to ensure effective and efficient planning across the communications team.
• Evaluate the success of our communications activity and whether we are achieving the desired range of coverage, reach and engagement, including supporting on Board reporting.
• Act as a trusted advisor to senior leaders and colleagues across the business, and use horizon scanning, evaluation and insight, to ensure our plans and products are as effective as possible.
• Support the ongoing evolution of the Customer Engagement strategy and implementation plans, including route to market activities.
• Bring energy and fresh ideas to communications delivery challenges and a proactive, problem-solving approach.
• Any other duties as reasonably required.

What You’ll Bring

To be successful in this role, you’ll need:

Essential

• 7+ years’ experience in a strategic and/or communications planning role within a complex organisation.
• Consumer facing communications experience is an advantage.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and experience of bringing teams together to manage and deliver proactive communications campaigns, projects and announcements, and evaluating outcomes.
• Strong experience of using business information, intelligence and insights to inform communications strategic, plans and messages.
• Experience informing and shaping strategies and activities utilising paid, no and low-cost channels and working with multiple channel owners (media, social media, websites etc) to deliver these.
• Experience of building relationships with key internal and external stakeholders, to supporting organisational and wider government objectives and campaign delivery.
• Experience working with, and providing advice for, senior internal stakeholders.
• Confident in using planning tools such as Monday.com and Microsoft programs.

Desirable

• Knowledge of the Government Communications Service OASIS model, the GCS evaluation cycle or similar.
• Experience of being a communications business partner.
• Experience working in a marketing, campaigns and/or media team.

Personal attributes

• A self-starter with excellent written and verbal communication skills who can work at pace, prioritise competing demands, horizon‑scan, and be responsive to change with short deadlines.
• Organisational skills, with the capacity to prioritise and work across multiple projects.
• Sensitive to and respectful of colleagues’ expertise and remits with an ability to bring a wide range of experts together to deliver to shared aims.
• Good team member, with the ability to build effective working relationships with colleagues and stakeholders.
• Comfortable to lead and work in a matrix way.
• Ability to persuade and influence at a senior level with gravitas and bring together and influence a team of people from different disciplines.
• Excellent verbal and written communications.
• Comfortable co‑ordinating others.

Our Recruitment Process

• Step 1: Submit Your Application Open: 15/05/2026 | Deadline: 31/05/2026
• Step 2: Telephone Interview Between 15/05/2026 – 02/06/2026
• Step 3: Final Stage Interview Hosted on 12/06/2026 and 15/06/2026

About Us

MaPS is based in bright, modern offices in Bedford, and we’re here to help people across the UK feel more confident and informed about their money. Our values guide how we work together: Caring – for colleagues and the communities we support; Connecting – building supportive, positive relationships; Transforming – creating impact that truly matters. We’re proud to foster an inclusive, welcoming culture. Our colleague networks include LGBTQ+, neurodiversity, women’s health, men’s health and ethnicity groups — and we welcome applications from all backgrounds.

What We Offer

• 30 days’ annual leave plus bank holidays
• Pension contributions matched 2 to 1 (employer contribution up to 10% of your salary)
• Season ticket loan
• Cycle to work scheme (up to £3,000)
• Subsidised eye tests & flu jabs
• Life assurance
• EAP Assist & Life Enhanced family and sick pay
• 2 paid volunteering days
• Recognition scheme
• Retail discounts portal
• Flexible Working

We believe work should fit around life. This Bedford‑based role offers genuine flexibility so you can balance work, family, and personal commitments. We come together for purposeful team collaboration to stay connected and drive great results. Career Development We love supporting internal growth and progression, while continuing to follow fair and open Civil Service recruitment practices.

Important Information About Applying

Please apply only via official MaPS links – we can’t accept applications via email or unauthorised sites. MaPS is unable to offer visa sponsorship.