Senior External Affairs Manager

Age UK is offering a fantastic 12-month fixed term contract (maternity cover) for a Senior External Affairs Manager.

In this impactful role you will develop and lead the delivery of Age UK's integrated public affairs and campaigning work, with the overarching aim of creating sustainable change for older people in line with our strategy and goals. You will develop and implement effective public affairs and campaigning approaches that really hit home, and produce results.

To achieve this, you will work collaboratively with the rest of our high performing External Affairs team, other Age UK colleagues, our network of brilliant local Age UKs, and other charities and organisations that share our campaigning aims.

Leading Age UK's public affairs function, you will oversee our influencing work in Westminster and maintain our high profile. You will also have access to one of Age UK's best campaigning assets: several hundred thousand campaigners, many of them older people, who work with us to influence change.

We operate a hybrid-working model, a blend of home and office working. This role will include regular days working from our London office. Travel costs to the London office are the responsibility of the post-holder and are not covered by the charity.

Please see role description for all responsibilities

Must haves:

* Significant experience of strategic public affairs and/or campaigning work designed to achieve change.
* Strong track record of developing and implementing successful campaigns and project managing influencing activities and leading project teams.
* Excellent all round communication skills, particularly the ability to communicate clearly and concisely to a range of audiences.
* Experience of engaging with senior stakeholders including Parliamentarians, and Ministers.
* Significant experience of working collaboratively, internally and externally.
* Understanding of online and offline campaigning techniques, and knowledge of using campaign planning tools to ensure the success of campaigns.
* Experience of promoting public involvement in campaigns.
* Excellent knowledge and understanding of local and national government structures, the UK Parliament and our political, policy and campaigning context, and experience of influencing them.
* Fast, strategic and analytical thinking skills and experience of demonstrating good judgement, including strong political judgement.
* Strong decision-making skills and confidence in making strategic and operational decisions.
* Ability to project manage, including personal time management, planning, implementing, devising and prioritising multiple projects to meet agreed deadlines and targets, overseeing work across teams and monitoring and evaluating quality and impact.

Great to haves:
* Experience of acting as a media spokesperson.
* Experience of managing budgets.
* Knowledge or understanding of public policy issues and how they impact on older people.
* Experience of collaborative working with service users.
* Experience of influencing change from a voluntary sector perspective.
* Experience of working in a political environment.

What we offer in return

• Competitive salary, 26 days annual leave + bank holidays + annual leave purchase scheme
• Excellent pension scheme, life assurance, health cashback plan and EAP
• Car Benefit Scheme, Cycle to Work Scheme and Season Ticket Loan
• Techscheme - buy any tech from Apple or Currys, up to £1000, and spread the cost over 12 months, interest free
• Blue Light Card Scheme
• You Did It Awards - recognition awards from £100-250.

Additional Information

All CVs will be anonymised by our recruitment system when you apply for a role at Age UK. Please note that our system is unable to anonymise cover letters, and we would therefore ask that to support the work we are doing on making our recruitment selection process fairer and more unbiased, that you remove any personal information from your cover letter/supporting statement, including your name before uploading this. All equalities monitoring information is also anonymised and not shared with the hiring panel. Your name and address will only be known to us once you are invited for an interview.

Age UK is an Equal Opportunities employer and positively encourages applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates, regardless of age, sex, race, disability, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, religion or belief, marital/civil partnership status, or pregnancy and maternity. We guarantee an interview to disabled candidates who meet the minimum criteria under the Disability Confident Scheme. Please note that on occasion, due to high numbers of applications, Age UK reserves the right to limit the overall number of interviews offered, and therefore, it may not always be practicable or appropriate to interview all disabled people that meet the minimum criteria for the job.

Age UK is committed to safeguarding adults at risk, and children, from abuse and neglect. We expect everyone who works with us to share this commitment.

Early application is encouraged as we will review applications throughout the advertising period and reserve the right to close the advert at any time.

Age UK politely requests no contact from recruitment agencies or media sales. We do not accept speculative CVs from recruitment agencies nor accept the fees associated with them.