Public Affairs Manager

Age UK's Influencing division has a rare and exciting opportunity for a Public Affairs Manager to join our successful External Affairs team.

In this role you will manage a team of 3 people, develop and lead the delivery of Age UK's public affairs activity, to achieve our policy influencing aims and campaigns and maintain our high profile with the overarching aim of creating sustainable change for older people.

As the Public Affairs Manager you will develop and implement effective public affairs 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.

You'll need to understand how to influence decision-makers at a senior level and will have a proven track record of influencing policy change. You will bring political understanding and tactical insight on how UK Government and Parliament operate to ensure our campaigns and wider influencing have the biggest impact.

We operate a hybrid working model. We offer flexibility on working from home but require the applicant to be in our central London office a minimum of two days per week. Travel costs to the London office are the responsibility of the postholder and are not covered by the charity.

Must haves:

The below competencies will be assessed at the indicated stage of the recruitment process:

Application = A, Interview = I, Test = T

Experience

• Significant experience of strategic public affairs and/or campaigning work designed to achieve change. (A)
• Excellent all round communication skills, particularly the ability to communicate clearly and concisely to a range of audiences. (A, T)
• Experience of building relationships with and successfully influencing senior stakeholders including Parliamentarians and Ministers. (A, I)
• Significant experience of working collaboratively and delegating effectively, internally and externally. (A, I)

Skills and Knowledge

• 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. (A, I)
• Fast strategic and analytical thinking skills and experience of demonstrating good judgement, including strong political judgement. (I, T)
• 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.(A, I)
• Understanding of online and offline campaigning techniques. (A, I, T)
• Strong people management skills and experience, including performance management and professional development. (A, I)
• Knowledge and understanding of what equal opportunities means in relation to this post and the ability to incorporate equality practices into all aspects of the work. (I)

Great to haves

Experience

• Experience of collaborative working with service users (A)
• Experience of influencing change from a voluntary sector perspective (A)
• Experience of working in a political environment (A, I)

Skills and Knowledge

• Knowledge or understanding of public policy issues and how they impact on older people (I)

Additional Information

Supporting statements and anonymisation
Candidates are expected to provide a supporting statement that explains how they meet the competencies annotated with an 'A' in the job description, to assess suitability for the position. Age UK acknowledges and accepts that AI may be used to support the application; we do expect candidates to personalise experience, knowledge and skills and failure to do so, may result in your application being rejected.

Please submit a Word version of your CV as it will be anonymised by our recruitment system when you apply for a role. Our system is unable to anonymise supporting statements and heavily formatted CVs. Please could you remove any personal information including your name before you upload to support our inclusive recruitment process. All equalities monitoring information is also anonymised and not shared with the hiring panel. Your name and address will only be known to us if invited for interview.

Equal opportunities & Disability Confident Scheme
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. Age UK is a Disability Confident Scheme employer. Due to high numbers of applications received, 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.

Reasonable adjustments
Disabled job seekers can access reasonable adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process. All requests for reasonable adjustments are considered on a case-by-case basis, in collaboration with the disabled job seeker to best meet their needs, by contacting the Recruitment Team. Disability disclosures will be kept confidential and only shared on a need-to-know basis to support the implementation of adjustments. Disclosures will not be used to inform hiring decisions.

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