Communications Officer

Salary: £30,805 to £31,637 with progression to £34,132 per annum.

Newcastle University is a great place to work, with excellent benefits. We have a generous holiday package; plus the opportunity to buy more, great pension schemes and a number of health and wellbeing initiatives to support you.

Closing Date: 23 July 2025.

The Role:

This is an excellent opportunity to join the UK's National Innovation Centre for Data (NICD) at Newcastle University, to help support the communications and marketing strategy, and position the Centre's offer to a range of audiences, using a variety of media channels and platforms. The postholder will also spend a day per week working at the broader Faculty level, supporting communications across the Faculty and its five academic units.

The Communications Officer will be responsible for supporting and taking the lead role in the planning, organisation and delivery of NICD communications and marketing, including activities, events and social media strategies that create a regular, consistent and positive professional profile for NICD. This will include the development of content for case studies, newsletters, blogs, news articles, social media copy and printed collateral. You will also support the marketing and communications activity for our student bootcamps.

We are seeking a creative and collaborative professional with a background in supporting the development of narratives for marketing, publicity, and event campaigns. This individual will support and deliver the day-to-day communications strategy and also play a key role in coordinating the development of larger more complex campaigns. The successful applicant must be able to work independently on communications activity, as well as working as part of the NICD team, the wider Faculty team and the central services communications team.

Key Accountabilities:

• Develop, coordinate, and implement the Centre's communications strategy.
• Contribute to and support the delivery of the Faculty communications strategy.
• Coordinate and deliver campaigns to support the Centre's activities and events programmes.
• Create, design, coordinate, and manage end to end content creation (social copy, case studies, blog posts, articles, video clips, email).
• Carry out client interviews to gather essential information required for case study creation.
• Proofread, re-structure and edit articles or academic publications written by content writers.
• Update and manage the Centre's social media channels to ensure timely publication.
• Maintain a consistent two-way communication across the Centre's social media channels.
• Update the website to ensure relevant content using HubSpot.
• Create and manage the monthly newsletter using HubSpot.
• Communicate and collaborate with key marketing delivery teams across the university.
• Manage content projects with external agencies.
• Support and coordinate the development of narratives for the Centre's events campaigns.
• Manage the marketing and communications activity for student bootcamps, including flyers, mailers, posters and web forms.
• Act as the key point of contact to external and internal audiences for the Centre's marketing related activity.
• Monitor and measure social and web user engagement analytics.
• Act as an evangelist for promoting the importance of good storytelling amongst the NICD team.
• Use tools including HubSpot, Adobe Creative Cloud and Canva.
• Generate new ideas to aid the promotion of the Centre's offers and activities.
• Support with general administrative tasks where required.

The Person:

Knowledge, Skills And Experience:

• Experience of developing, coordinating, and implementing communications campaigns.
• Experience generating quality content for digital, social, web and email.
• Excellent writing skills and an ability to write for a range of different audiences across a range of channels.
• Experience of managing social media channels.
• Experience designing and creating digital and printed content, including the use of tools such as Canva.
• Experience of website management, including the use of tools such as HubSpot.
• Excellent proof-reading skills.
• Excellent time management and organisational skills.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to work independently on communications activities.
• Ability to communicate ideas effectively to stakeholders.
• Knowledge of EDI and the ability to create both inclusive and accessible content.

Attributes and Behaviour:

• Energy, enthusiasm, empathy, and a positive 'can-do'.
• Acts in a collaborative, inclusive, transparent and open manner.
• Uses clear, concise and accurate communication.
• Works continually towards achieving success through understanding and meeting or exceeding expectations.
• Takes responsibility for achieving targets.
• Has an eye for detail, spotting errors and ensuring accurate information.

Qualifications:

• Degree or equivalent level qualification or significant vocational experience.
• Desirable: Degree in media production, marketing or similar.

Newcastle University is a global University where everyone is treated with dignity and respect. We are committed to being a fully inclusive university which actively recruits, supports and retains colleagues from all sectors of society.