Overview
Reporting into the Director of Communications, the Communications Manager will take responsibility for strategic communication planning, media relations, reputation and brand management, stakeholder engagement, content creation and security compliance.
We're looking for someone who can take the lead on strategy, thinks creatively and takes the initiative.
Key responsibilities will include:
- Working together with the policy and public affairs team to ensure an impactful presence across key channels
- Working with the team to improve communications, curating engaging content and the use of different channels to maximise impact
- Managing Crisis readiness
- Operating under national security constraints, with heavy regulation, often unable to disclose detailed project information
- Managing a complex stakeholder landscape spanning government and commercial as well as ethical and political sensitivities
- Identifying opportunities for translating complex work into accessible and impactful messages and long-term campaigns
- Line managing a Communications Officer
They are looking for someone with:
- Proven track record in media relations, executive comms, and stakeholder engagement
- 5+ years of professional communications experience, ideally within the defence, aerospace, or government sectors
- Good knowledge of the defence sector and the challenges and opportunities associated with it
- Familiarity with government procurement and national security protocols
- Strong understanding of geopolitical and defence industry context
- Active SC clearance or eligibility to obtain one
- High level of discretion and integrity
- Ability to distil complex technical or sensitive information into clear, approved messaging
- Strong interpersonal and stakeholder management abilities
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Murray McIntosh is proud to be an equal opportunity agency on behalf of its clients. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, colour, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability or age.
Laurence Phillips
Senior Consultant - Strategic Communications
Murray Mcintosh have been incredibly helpful in delivering a successful candidate for a challenging role at BEAMA. As a small organisation we don’t often lean on agency support and in the past this hasn’t helped us. But we found the right recruitment agent who help recruit fantastic candidates for a specialist role in the energy sector. In a competitive employment market their help has been so valuable and we are so pleased with the result. All candidates they shortlisted we incredibly impressive and we weren’t expecting to be faced with such a hard decision. Huge thanks to the team and we look forward to working with you again.
BEAMA - Yselkla Farmer, Chief Executive Officer at BEAMA
We moved ahead with a retained engagement, offering us the most thorough search with a quicker turnaround than other engagement types we had experienced before.
We first contacted Anna in August 2022. We were looking for help to fill a vacant Policy Advisor role within our team. In a tricky market we had been struggling since the start of the year to find the right candidates through our usual channels. Anna took the time to understand the challenges we’d experienced, the support we needed, and nature of the role, before providing a solution.
We moved ahead with a retained engagement, offering us the most thorough search with a quicker turnaround than other engagement types we had experienced before. Given our needs, this approach seemed like a no-brainer! As an executive non-departmental body, we have quite specific supplier terms, which Anna was able to accommodate. This willingness to be flexible and collaborative to get the terms right enables us to work together in the longer term.
Anna worked with us speedily and met for a role brief to define expectations before establishing a strict timeframe to ensure we could close the vacancy before Christmas. We got going at the end of November with a timeframe of 6 weeks. However, following a one-stage interview process with 5 strong candidates, we made an appointment after just 5 weeks, and the successful candidate has now joined the team and is already an asset!
Ben Hardy - Policy & Government Relations Manager at CITB
We will use the retained search again as they demonstrated that their network and market mapping process uncovers a strong selection of candidates.
We have recently placed our Head of Public Affairs using Murray McIntosh, an important hire for us as we are about to enter a period of transition for the organisation so the role is key support to our Director of Policy and Public Affairs. We had engaged another agency but did not see the quality of candidate we needed.
Lauren talked us through the retained search method and explained how this ensures a thorough search, tied to a timeframe. Our PPA Director found this particularly useful, as we could work around his diary in advance.
We met to brief the role and define expectations on both sides, including a check-in point halfway through the market mapping process to ensure a relevant shortlist was coming together. Lauren was insightful, reliable and very transparent throughout and the process proved to be very efficient.
We started in January. The role was placed 6 weeks later after seeing 6 video interviews on The Lobby platform, inviting 3 candidates for first stage interview, and seeing 2 for a final stage.
We will use the retained search again in future as they demonstrated for us that their network and market mapping process uncovers a strong selection of candidates. That being said, they only introduce those who have demonstrated their interest and commitment to the role, so our time wasn’t wasted by dropouts and the offer process for our favoured candidate was very straightforward.
HR Manager - HR Manager at London chamber of Commerce and Industry
Multiple successful placements across our Public Policy team as well as our Communications and International department.
We started working with Murray McIntosh in 2016, and have since made multiple successful placements across our Public Policy team as well as our Communications and International department. From Economists to niche Tech and Innovation policy roles, to our first permanent Government Affairs hire based in Brussels, they’ve shown a real understanding of the market and our organisational needs,
The MM team always make the effort to understand requirements thoroughly and beyond that, appreciate the importance of culture fit, too.
Working on a retained basis, they develop their process to suit our timescales and always produce shortlists of talented individuals who are well qualified on skillset as well as motivation.
Of our most recent process for a Senior Policy Manager, working on trade policy, our Head of Policy commented on an extremely strong shortlist of stand-out candidates from which it was tough to make a choice!
Katie Milbourn - Director of Group HR at The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders Ltd
It was critical that we engaged an agency that could work efficiently and knew how to promote us to a competitive market.
Energy UK has recently been through a restructure and this resulted in a number of key vacancies across our policy and communications teams. This not only presented a challenge for volume candidate attraction but also put pressure on internal administration and interviewing- made even trickier with the challenges the energy industry was facing, resulting in extra time pressures on our managers.
It was critical that we engaged an agency that could work efficiently and knew how to promote us to a competitive market. Having worked with Murray McIntosh for over 7 years, we knew that they had a great network and we put a project plan in place to deliver 10 roles in 10 weeks.
Following a salary benchmarking exercise, we developed a schedule for shortlisting, interviews and even 1st stage interview questions that allowed for unbiased assessment.
Candidates were screened by MM and shortlisted using recorded video interviews which really helped to reduce the impact on managers’ time.
MM understood not just role requirements but our values, including our commitment to D&I. The process was account managed, with regular updates and feedback.
We’ve successfully hired talented and enthusiastic new employees that we are confident will help us provide the best possible service to our members.
Nicola Rowland - Head of HR at Energy UK