UK Advocacy Officer

UK Advocacy Officer
Contract: Permanent, Fulltime, 35 hours per week
Salary: £39,358 - £41,325 per annum with excellent benefits
Location: London, UK
Hybrid Working: A minimum of 40% of working time is spent face to face, either in London office, or as a result of external engagement or travel for WaterAid. WaterAid is located at Canary Wharf, London and this will be your location and contract base.

About WaterAid:
Want to use your skills in Advocacy to play a vital role in making clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene normal for everyone everywhere? We need passionate, creative and dedicated people. In return, you will be encouraged and empowered to be yourself at your very best. Together, we will make a bigger difference.
Join WaterAid as UK Advocacy Officer to change normal for millions of people so they can unlock their potential, break free from poverty and change their lives for good.

About the Team:
The UK Advocacy team's purpose is to convince influential UK political decisionmakers to prioritise water, sanitation and hygiene in their policy and funding agendas, and to create the conditions that enable everyone, everywhere to access WASH by 2030. As the UK political leads for WaterAid, we filter the signal from the noise about how key actors think, and what informs their behaviour. Our work enables WaterAid to confidently navigate and leverage the external landscape facing our campaigns. We garner high quality intel, craft politically persuasive messages and build a broad cohort of champions.

About the Role:

As our politically informed and creative Advocacy Officer you will build and maintain relationships with UK parliamentarians and deliver high quality briefings, events, and research to help advance progress on life-changing universal WASH access. Some domestic and international travel will be required.

In this role, you will drive WaterAid's work to influence UK advocacy targets in Westminster and Whitehall as well as the global targets including the EU, G7/G20 Summits, and multilateral institutions.

You'll also:

• Build and maintain relationships with UK Parliamentarians and keep contact records to ensure strong impact monitoring and evaluation.
• Identify opportunities to engage parliamentarians and develop new WaterAid parliamentary champions.
• Provide secretariat for the Water, Sanitation and Hygeine (WASH) All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG)
• Lead engagement on behalf of WaterAid in a range of networks and coalitions.
• Support the delivery of high-quality events for policy and political audiences as well as the delivery of UK political campaigning.
• Lead daily monitoring of UK parliamentary, political and development sector wide activities and keeping the team informed of relevant developments and engagement opportunities.
• Support the drafting of political briefings on key policy areas on WASH, women's health and climate change.
• Ensure UK perspectives are reflected in WaterAid's global policy discussions, ensuring global positions are compatible with the UK.
• Provide project management support for a range of projects relating to UK advocacy.

About You:

• Bachelor's degree in development, economics, international relations or a related field, or relevant work experience.
• Experience working in a parliamentary, advocacy or campaigning role.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, with high attention to detail.
• Experience of managing events, organising travel and providing logistical support.
• Experience of contact management working with databases.
• Excellent project management skills.
• Knowledge of UK parliamentary procedures and strong interest in politics and international development.
• High level of proficiency in Microsoft Office, including Word, Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint.
• Excellent organisational skills and the ability to multitask, manage workload independently and work to tight deadlines.
• Excellent research, writing, and analytical skills with the ability to synthesise complex policy documents and translate these for a wider audience.
• Ability to work well within a team and a willingness to take on a range of tasks as necessary
• Ability to exhibit diplomacy, tact, and discretion.
• Working style that reflects WaterAid's values of Respect, Accountability, Courage, Collaboration, Integrity, and Innovation.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment, with shifting priorities and occasional heavy workloads.
• Ability to attend regular events in Westminster and London.
• Fluency in English.

Although not essential, we also prefer you to have:

• Knowledge of WASH and International Development policy.
• Experience of working in a fast-paced NGO environment.
• Speaking another language e.g. French

Closing date: Applications will close 23:59 on the 14th of January 2025. Availability for interview is required week commencing 27th of January 2025.

How to Apply: To see the full job pack, please click 'Apply'. Please apply by submitting your CV and a cover letter into one document in either Word Document or PDF format.

Pre-employment screening: In order to apply for this post, you must be able to demonstrate your eligibility to work in the UK. All our vacancies require a basic Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check to comply with our Safer Recruitment policy.

Our Benefits:

• 36 days' holiday (including 8 Bank Holidays)
• Option to buy an extra 5 days annual leave
• We offer a generous pension plan with employer contribution of up to 10%
• Wide range of flexible and agile-working arrangement
• Season Ticket Loan
• Free annual eye tests
• Pay as You Give charitable giving scheme
• Enhanced Maternity and Adoption/Surrogacy pay, Shared Parental Leave and Paternity Leave
• Sabbaticals
• Volunteer Day

Our Commitment
Our People Promise:
We will work with passion and focus to ensure safe and sustainable water, toilets and hygiene are available to everyone, everywhere. WaterAid is a place of purpose - where people have a real commitment and shared responsibility for the impact we have. We are a global community with diverse backgrounds and perspectives, motivated by inspiring, stimulating work. We are determined to put the wellbeing of our people first, to be a place where people feel safe and able to contribute their voice and truly live our values.

Equal opportunities:
We are an equal opportunity, disability-confident employer and are dedicated to achieving the highest standards of diversity, equity and inclusion. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds, beliefs, customs, traditions and ways of life. This includes, but is not limited to, race, gender, disability, age, sexual orientation, religion, national or social origin, health status, and economic or social situation.

Safeguarding:
We are also committed to protecting everyone we come into contact with. We have a zero-tolerance approach to abuse of power, privilege or trust across our global work, and any form of inappropriate behaviour, discrimination, abuse, bullying, harassment, or exploitation. Safeguarding the people and communities we work with, our staff, volunteers and anyone working on our behalf is our top priority, and we take our responsibilities extremely seriously.