Communications Directorate – Communications Officer, Home Office
Closing date: 8 September 2023
Ref: 307873
Salary: £34,350 – £41,035
National: £34,350 min – £36,755 max, London: £38,350 min – 41,035 max. This post is eligible for a Recruitment and Retention Allowance (RRA) of £2300.
Job grade: Higher Executive Officer
Contract type: Permanent
Business area: HO – Communications Directorate
Location: Cardiff – General Buildings, London – 2 Marsham Street (2MS), Salford – Dallas Court, Sheffield – Vulcan House

Would you like to work at the heart of Government, communicating about some of the highest profile and most important issues the country faces?

Would you like to make a real difference, helping to keep the UK safe and secure? Our communications directly help fight crime, secure our borders, and protect the most vulnerable people.

The challenges the Home Office faces are significant and can change rapidly in the global environment in which we operate, making this one of the most exciting and stimulating Government Departments in which to work.

These roles will sit in a multi-disciplined team working together to deliver the Home Office’s communications strategy and to provide a first-class service to Ministers, the Department, and journalists. We are looking for people with a range of experience and backgrounds, to contribute to our exceptional communications output.

Job description
Working as part of a team, the successful candidates will deliver communications on a broad range of policy and operational areas spanning the Department.

The roles available span multiple communications disciplines: media / press office, external affairs, marketing, internal communications, strategic communications and campaigns.

For media roles including those on our News desk, you will be on the frontline of the team, responding to calls from journalists and shaping news as it develops. You will also be responsible for media and social media monitoring and rebuttal, providing Ministers and their political advisors with updates on news as it breaks; identifying inaccuracies or criticism, ensuring they are appropriately addressed; and ensuring the Home Office position is clearly reflected.

In our External Affairs team, you will engage with stakeholders on a broad range of policy and operational areas. You’ll share information, build advocacy, monitor stakeholder reactions, all in a timely way. You’ll work closely with colleagues to get to the heart of the message we want stakeholders to understand, and create strategies to achieve this, working collaboratively with colleagues across the communications directorate to align our approach. You will also work to improve the Department’s engagement, coordinating the Engagement Practitioners network, including secretariat work and delivery of a plan to expand and improve the function of the network.

In the marketing team, you will contribute to the planning, delivery and evaluation of priority marketing products and campaigns to meet business objectives. You will have strong experience in a communications delivery role, agency or client-side. You will bring expertise delivering integrated paid-for marketing campaigns and leading campaign activity from initial research through strategic development, creative and media planning and implementation and evaluation.

In the Internal Communications team, you will bring your creativity to cross-cutting departmental campaigns to engage circa 40,000 colleagues in the Department’s priorities. You will plan, create, edit, and help to deliver innovative content for corporate communications channels, such as videos, events, intranet blogs and news stories. You will provide professional advice and support to our internal communications Community of Practice, to help increase reach and impact including the 90% of colleagues who work in operational roles. And you will apply insight and evaluation to shape inspiring campaigns that raise awareness, improve understanding, and encourage behavioural change across the Department to support our policy and corporate priorities.

And in one of our proactive campaigns teams, you will work on a specific policy or operational area, devising and implementing creative communications plans covering direct, paid-for, low- and no-cost marketing, media and digital. You will work closely with colleagues including policy officials and operational teams to advise on the role communications can play, devise and deliver clear communication plans, create clear and engaging materials, and any other duties vital to support the team to deliver a gold standard service.

Successful candidates may be included in the out of office duty system, for which there is overtime pay.

In line with Home Office Hybrid Working policy it is expected that the post holder will spend a minimum of 40% of their hours in the workplace, with the remainder working from home. The post holder can work at any of the offices listed but for some of the roles significant travel will be involved, with frequent work within operational environments.

Person specification
You will be part of a dynamic and collaborative team from a variety of professional backgrounds including communications and marketing agencies, journalism, local government, not-for-profit and the private sector.

The Communications Directorate celebrates a culture of inclusion and diversity where everyone is empowered to share their ideas and harness their unique talents to deliver top-rate communications.

Like many employers, we enable flexible working options (not homeworking) to enable staff to balance commitments including caring responsibilities.

We put learning and development at the heart of what we do. As part of the wider Government Communications Service network, the team has access to a range of training courses, best practice and opportunities to collaborate with communicators across Government.

Essential Skills
• Ability to communicate effectively and confidently with a broad range of people using a variety of styles (oral and written).
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment, juggling competing priorities and keeping calm under pressure.
• Proven ability to distil large amounts of complex information into clear key messages suitable for specific audiences.
• Excellent relationship-building and problem-solving skills, and ability to work well with others and support colleagues.
• Excellent judgement and ability to provide informed handling advice to senior colleagues.
• Understanding of how audience insight and evaluation contributes to communications strategies and plans.
• Understanding of the current political and media landscape.

For the marketing team, essential criteria is:
• Experience of supplier management, to include creative and/or media agencies or leading media owners. Must have experience of briefing, day to day management and performance management.
• A practical working knowledge of above the line marketing (in particular experience of managing creative and messaging development, production and media planning)
• A detailed understanding of paid media campaign delivery planning and implementation of multi-channel media channel plans.
• Experience of managing budgets and analysing data

Desirable Skills
• Experience of planning and delivering communications campaigns.
• Experience in external stakeholder engagement and building relationships; experience of stakeholder mapping and delivering or writing engagement strategies a distinct advantage
• A good collaborator who can deliver efficiently as part of a team but who can also work proactively on their own initiative.
• Formal communications or marketing qualification.

Behaviours

We’ll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

Delivering at Pace
Seeing the Big Picture
Working Together
Technical skills

We’ll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
Comms Ideas
Comms Impact
Comms Implementation
Comms Insight

We only ask for evidence of these technical skills on your application form:

Comms Implementation.