Communications Campaign Officer in Manchester

The Home Office works to build a safe, fair and prosperous UK. We achieve this through our work on counter-terrorism, policing, crime, drugs policy, immigration and passports.

The Corporate Services Group works closely with the Home Office’s policy and operational commands to enable us together to deliver the department’s priorities. The group is comprised of different teams and professional functions, including Commercial, Communications, Finance, People, Portfolio and Project Delivery, Private Office, Security, Estates and Information. As a member of the Communications Directorate, you’ll be supporting our mission to deliver outstanding public services that work for everyone.

You will join a multi-disciplinary team with colleagues based across the UK, working together to deliver the Home Office’s communications strategy. We believe a positive, open and supportive culture is crucial to help everyone deliver their best work. We value diversity and provide an inclusive and encouraging environment for our team members. We nurture our talent and offer a broad range of learning and development opportunities to help you fulfil your potential.

Successful applicants will be a highly motivated, adaptable, innovative, dependable and collaborative communications professional, prepared to work on some of the most challenging, high profile and interesting issues in government.

You will support the planning, delivery and evaluation of communications campaigns aligned to major government priorities, such as securing the border, reducing illegal migration and tackling knife crime, to create measurable change among audiences.

You will work with a multi-disciplinary team, including press, marketing, insight, internal communications, external affairs and social media specialists. And you will build and maintain positive relationships with internal and external stakeholders.

You will be expected to manage content production and work with agencies where needed, while also having the opportunity to bring your own creative ideas to life. This will involve managing plans, ensuring activity remains on schedule and delivering value for money.

Due to the business requirements of this role, it is only available on a full-time basis. You will also be required to join the out of hours press office duty rota and contribute approximately one to two shifts a month. In-depth training and overtime pay is provided.

Essential criteria

• Experience in a communications role, including planning, delivering across multiple channels, evaluating and prioritising competing priorities.
• Effective communication skills (excellent written and speaking), including the ability to negotiate and influence, and experience developing trusted and productive relationships with colleagues and stakeholders.
• A proven track record to distil large amounts of complex information into clear key messages suitable for specific audiences.
• Being politically aware and having an understanding of how to identify and mitigate reputational risks.

Desirable criteria

• Familiarity with public communications in a large complex organisation.
• Experience engaging with journalists.
• Experience using creative content tools e.g. Canva, Adobe Creative Cloud.

Behaviours

• Communicating and Influencing
• Delivering at Pace

Technical skills

• Communications - Ideas
• Communications - Insight
• Communications - Implementation

Benefits

In addition to your salary, a career with the Home Office offers a range of benefits, including:

• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%.
• In-year reward scheme for one-off or sustained exceptional personal or team achievements.
• 25 days annual leave on appointment, rising with service to 30 days.
• Eight days of public holidays, plus one additional privilege day.
• Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working.
• Successful candidates will be given an additional Recruitment and Retention Allowance (RRA) of 2,300, which will be added to the base salary.

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified, applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action.

This vacancy is using Success Profiles, and will assess your Behaviours, Ability, Experience and Technical skills. This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, drives up performance and improves diversity and inclusivity.

We will endeavour to conduct the selection process in line with the dates indicated below, but cannot guarantee that these will not, where necessary, be revised.

As part of the application process, you will first be asked to confirm your eligibility by providing some basic personal information.

Following successful completion of your test, you will then be asked to complete the full application form.

If you are successful at sift stage, you will be invited to an interview that will be Behaviours and Technical Skills based questions.

Please note any travel expenses incurred in attending an interview will not be reimbursed.

Successful candidates must undergo a basic (or equivalent) criminal record check and meet the security requirements before they can be appointed.

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities.