Principal Officer - Engagement in Sheffield

Hours: 37 hours

Contract: Fixed Term - 2 years

Salary: £61,352 - £66,514

Location: Sheffield (This is a hybrid role with a minimum of 3 days per week in the office). We also welcome applications from candidates interested in a secondment opportunity.

We’re looking for a Principal Officer – Engagement to lead the development and delivery of SYMCA’s Engagement Strategy, embedding a culture of creative, inclusive, high-quality engagement across the organisation. You’ll coordinate engagement activities, manage engagement leads, and ensure that all engagement work aligns with the Mayor’s priorities and SYMCA’s strategic objectives. This is a senior role with significant influence—helping to build trust, strengthen relationships, and improve outcomes for South Yorkshire.

Applications must be accompanied by a cover letter to detail how you meet the essential criteria for the role (please see role profile attached). Please note, all applications should be made directly via our careers portal. Please note South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority does not hold a sponsorship licence and cannot provide Skilled Worker sponsorship for any roles advertised.

About the role

In this role, you’ll champion best practice in engagement, ensuring that SYMCA’s approach is ethical, accessible, and impactful. You’ll design and deliver engagement activities and training, provide internal consultancy, and work with partners to maximise collective impact. Your work will help shape policy, improve organisational capability, and foster a culture of engagement excellence.

Key responsibilities include:

• Design and deliver a corporate engagement training programme to build internal capability and confidence.
• Design and deliver some engagement activities directly but chiefly provide consultancy and advice to the organisation on ethical and accessible engagement, ensuring compliance with best practice and legal standards.
• Collaborate with Bloomberg I-Team and Insights team to co-design innovative engagement and social research projects.
• Coordinate outreach and partnership working with key stakeholders including local authorities, MCAs, Government, VCSE, and universities.
• Convene and manage internal and external engagement networks to build organisational capacity and foster peer learning.
• Identify emerging trends and best practices in engagement, translating insights into strategic recommendations.

About you

We’re looking for an enthusiastic strategic leader with proven experience in designing and delivering engagement programmes. You’ll need excellent communication and project management skills, the ability to work across complex structures, and a passion for championing inclusive engagement. If you thrive on driving culture change and building strong relationships, this role is for you.

Essential:

• Experience delivering engagement projects in partnership with external organisations.
• Experience designing toolkits and delivering training to build engagement capability.
• Excellent communication and project management skills.
• Experience managing high-level stakeholder relationships.
• Experience in ethical and inclusive engagement approaches and using digital tools to manage relationships.
• Experience presenting, organising events, and managing meetings.
• Interest in devolution and its potential to empower communities and restore trust.
• Demonstrable interest in behavioural insights, social research, and participatory engagement methods.

Benefits

All colleagues have access to a Local Government Pension Scheme and the chance to be part of an organisation where you can really make a difference. Located in Sheffield City Centre, we are well-placed for transport links and encourage employees to take advantage of the active travel facilities. Work/life balance is extremely important to us here at SYMCA with our recognised family/friendly policies, genuine work flexibility, recognition, and shared success.

In addition to the above, some of benefits include:

• Holiday Entitlement – From 28 to 36 days annual leave entitlement (depending on length of service) plus bank holidays. Pro-rata for part time colleagues.
• Annual Leave Purchase Scheme – The ability to purchase up to a further 15 days per year in addition to your normal annual leave.
• Hybrid working – Our offices are a space where we come together and collaborate. Most of our roles are offered on a hybrid basis with the exception of some support roles being onsite full time. Please note, unless specified within the job advert, we cannot accommodate remote working contracts.
• Flexible Hours Scheme – Most roles within SYMCA work under the Flexi-Scheme which allows office-based employees’ flexibility and discretion over their working hours. Under the scheme employees can accrue a defined amount of credit or debit of working hours, and to take time-off in the form of Flexi-Leave or banked Annual Leave.
• Rewarding You – Reducing everyday expenses through discounts, benefits, financial advice, wellbeing solutions and more with Reward Gateway and Cycle-to-Work schemes.
• Training on the job – Support with upskilling skills through on-the-job training and qualifications.
• Professional Membership Fees – Where membership to Professional bodies is applicable to your role, SYMCA will reimburse your membership fees where applicable and following approval by Line Management.

Diversity at South Yorkshire Combined Mayoral Authority

Our workforce is made up of a diverse community, where we all belong and feel part of something bigger. We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. All employees are eligible to request Flexible Working arrangements from day one of employment as such all requests will be considered subject to operation requirements. Where candidates share disabilities within the application process, if they demonstrate that they meet all essential criteria from the Role Profile within their application, they will automatically be invited to interview. If you require any reasonable adjustments throughout the process, please contact recruitment@southyorkshire-ca.gov.uk or include within your application form detailing the adjustment and how it will assist in managing any barriers.