Senior Communications Manager

Job title: Senior Communications Manager

Manager: Head of Public Engagement

Line reports: Communications and Campaigns Officer

Location: Hybrid work with 40% from Breaking Barriers’ offices in London, Manchester or Birmingham

Salary: £42,000-£45,500 (London) or £39,000-£42,000 (Manchester or Birmingham)

Hours: Full-time (37.5 hours), open to 4/5 days per week

Contract: Permanent

Overall purpose

The Senior Communications Manager is responsible for developing, leading and implementing key aspects of our communications and engagement strategy. Your focus will be to maintain our high reputation and build engagement with key audiences – principally target public audiences, corporate partners, funders and supporters, volunteers, clients, and staff. 

Bridging the gap between senior leadership and delivery, you will be a confident and strategic thinker, but remain excited by the challenge of getting stuck in. You will be comfortable supporting colleagues to deliver activity as well as working independently on your own projects. You will have the knowledge and experience to ensure that the right policies, frameworks and plans are in place for our small team to achieve ambitious plans.

The Senior Communications Manager is responsible for campaigns, PR, content and storytelling, brand and creative, and plays an integral role in internal communications. They also support other external engagement activities, such as digital marketing campaigns, corporate partner acquisition and retention, and public fundraising.

Strong copywriting is essential for this role. You will be able to write, edit, and tailor content for different audiences, and publish it across various channels, including the website, social media, emails, and marketing materials. 

You will enjoy variety. Your day could involve operational planning, developing a new campaign, briefing freelancers and agencies, finding compelling stories, creating our Impact Report, speaking with journalists, working on internal communications, or drafting social media posts.

The successful candidate will have strong emotional intelligence, relationship building and negotiation skills. They will be collaborative and creative, drive projects forward, work effectively alongside the Senior Digital Marketing Manager, and bring people together across the organisation. They will provide supportive, effective management to the Communications and Campaigns Officer, and be an internal advocate for the impact our Communications and Engagement can have.   

It is an exciting time to join our team. Breaking Barriers is an innovative organisation, so you will need to be comfortable with change and building new knowledge quickly. Although our work is fast paced, the Public Engagement Team prides ourselves on supporting each other, approaching problems with a good sense of humour, and being willing to experiment and learn.

To view the full job description and person specification, as well as details on our accessible recruitment process, please view the attached recruitment pack.

Other considerations

• As part of our safeguarding commitment to our clients, we carry out preemployment checks to ensure that successful applicants are suitable to work with adults at risk. These include obtaining references and verifying a candidate’s identity and right to work in the UK.
• We are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership status, pregnancy and maternity status, race, religion or belief.

How to apply

If you are looking for a role where you can make a real difference, we want to hear from you. To apply, please submit a CV and statement (up to approximately 500 words/1 A4 page) outlining:

• Why you are interested in the role
• What skills you would bring to be successful in this role
• Any experience you would like to highlight
• Any reasonable adjustments you require for the interview process
• Disclosure of disabilities if you wish to do so (as a member of the Disability Confident Scheme, we guarantee an interview to all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the role)

Please note that applications without a covering letter will not be considered.

Closing date for applications is 11:30pm on Sunday 13th October. Interviews will be held on a rolling basis so please apply as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

We belong to the Experts by Experience Employment Initiative, which advocates and supports organisations to employ more people from a refugee background. With this in mind, we particularly welcome applicants with experience of seeking asylum and/or a refugee background. 

If you are an expert by experience (a refugee or a migrant with direct, first-hand experience of issues and challenges of the UK asylum or immigration system), you can ask for an independent and confidential support for your job application from the Experts by Experience Employment Network. Please reach out to HR Manager Dani Meier for further details (we are unable to include email addresses in this advert, but you can find contact details on the final page of the attached recruitment pack).