External Affairs Senior Officer - ( Ref : 6650 )

This position can be based at Crewe , Leeds , Manchester or York.

Job Description

This role offers a unique opportunity to lead and shape external affairs and stakeholder engagement in both the Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire and Cheshire to Lancashire Area Teams, supporting Natural England’s ambition to strengthen its external profile and build meaningful partnerships that drive nature recovery. As External Affairs Senior Officer, you will play a key role in shaping how we communicate our work, engage with stakeholders, and align local delivery with national priorities.

You will work at the intersection of local delivery and national strategy, helping to ensure that our communications and engagement are inclusive, impactful, and well-coordinated. The role offers the chance to work closely with senior leaders, national communications colleagues, and external partners, including MPs and Defra, to ensure our work is visible, understood, and strategically positioned.

This is a highly collaborative role that requires strong judgement, political awareness, and the ability to work across teams and functions. You will have the opportunity to contribute to high-profile initiatives and shape how Natural England engages with its audiences at a critical time for environmental leadership. You will be supported by a well-established network of regional and national colleagues with functional management from the Internal Engagement and External Affairs Principal, Operations.

Key Tasks / Principal Accountabilities

• The role has no functional management responsibilities but are a source of expertise and advice for the area team staff as well as the Deputy Area and Regional Directors and contribute to Area leadership teams by bringing subject leadership to the development and delivery of local plans
• Lead the development and delivery of the Area and Regional Stakeholder Engagement Implementation Plans, ensuring alignment with Natural England’s national strategy, Communications and Engagement Framework and local priorities. Plans should include SMART objectives stakeholder analysis and evaluation metrics.
• Feed into national and regional forward planning and horizon scanning processes, including the NE Forward Look and Defra media grid.
• Support the Regional Director and Deputy Directors to build and maintain strategic relationships with MPs, Metro Mayors, local authorities, and other key partners, ensuring Natural England’s work is visible and well understood. This will include proactive outreach, meeting coordination, and briefing preparation.
• Use the Stakeholder Insights Database to track and share engagement activity across the organisation.
• Collaborate with Defra’s Operational and Local Communications (OLC) teams to manage local media relations, press releases, and social media content for internal and external audiences.
• Identify and promote positive news stories that support Natural England’s priorities, both locally and nationally.
• Support media training and upskilling of spokespeople within the Area team.
• Act as a key liaison between the Area team and national External Affairs, ensuring two‑way communication and alignment on reputational issues and strategic messaging.
• Coordinate the handling plans for emerging issues that pose reputational risk.
• Contribute to the Communications and Engagement Strategic Working Group’s reputational horizon scanning.
• Support high‑profile events such as NNR launches, stakeholder site visits, and Ministerial engagements.
• Coordinate with portfolio leads and regional colleagues to ensure consistent messaging and strategic alignment.
• Monitor and evaluate communications and engagement activities using insight and feedback to inform continuous improvement and demonstrate impact.
• Champion inclusivity and accessibility in all communications and engagement activities, ensuring diverse voices are represented and barriers to participation are addressed.

Knowledge and Skills

• An understanding of communications and engagement to achieve measurable outcomes (essential)
• An understanding and awareness of the Government Communications Service standards (essential)
• Completion or working towards GCS Advance Practitioner (desirable)
• The ability to use insight and evaluation to improve our delivery and outcomes (essential)
• Knowledge of tools for engagement including social media (essential)
• Excellent written and oral communications skills (essential)
• Excellent planning, prioritisation, and organisational ability to manage complex projects with competing demands (essential)
• The ability to build collaborative relationships with colleagues to help make things happen and deliver outcomes (essential)
• The ability to demonstrate and embody Natural England’s values – of being ambitious, inclusive, and collaborative and of working with integrity (essential)

We welcome and encourage applications from all communities. Natural England is accredited to the Disability Confident Scheme, which denotes organisations which have a positive attitude towards disabled people. Disabled applicants who meet the minimum requirements for the role at the shortlisting stage are guaranteed an invitation to interview.

As with all roles in NE, these roles require office attendance of a minimum of 20% of the working time – one day per week for those who work full time, subject to any reasonable adjustments and/or existing contractual homeworking.

Technical Skills and Knowledge

Develop and deliver stakeholder engagement plans to analyse and improve stakeholder relationships, identify gaps and increase the diversity of cross‑sector partnerships, using insight and evaluation to measure outcomes and improve your approach.

Contribution to reputational horizon scanning and create a handling plan, lines to take and briefings to manage emerging reputational risks in a timely way.

Personal Effectiveness

Make and explain objective decisions which combine your professional judgement and evidence. (Expert) Act with integrity, addressing challenging issues and managing conflict through being open and objective. (Practitioner)

Putting People at the Heart of the Environment

Listen to and understand our diverse partners and customers so that you achieve the best outcomes for them and Natural England. (Practitioner) Nurture trusting partnerships and collaborate to achieve pragmatic outcomes that help deliver Natural England’s vision, mission and aims. (Practitioner)

Work Delivery

Manage and deliver your work to meet agreed targets and deadlines (Expert) Handle data responsibly, understand your role in good governance, and comply with delegations, policies and procedures (practitioner).