Overview
Murray McIntosh is delighted to be partnered with the Horticultural Trades Association (HTA) - the leading voice for UK environmental horticulture - to find an experienced and strategic Public Affairs Manager to join their Public Affairs team.
This is a high-impact role at the heart of national policymaking, ideal for someone with political awareness, a collaborative mindset, and a passion for influencing change.
The HTA represents over 1,350 garden retailers, growers, landscapers and suppliers - a sector that contributes to the UK economy, sustainability, mental health, and green space.
By joining, you'll:
- Play a strategic, visible role in influencing government and policy across the UK
- Represent an industry driving climate adaptation, trade, and innovation
- Work in a purpose-led, values-driven organisation that puts members at the centre
- Collaborate with a passionate, supportive team who value openness and impact
- Enjoy hybrid working based from London (with travel across the UK), and flexibility to balance work and life
- Be part of an organisation that's growing - and keen to invest in your growth too
About the role:
As Public Affairs Manager, you will lead lobbying and public affairs activity, building trusted relationships with politicians, civil servants, media and members. Also, you will:
- Deliver targeted public affairs campaigns and policy responses
- Represent the HTA at meetings, parliamentary groups and industry events
- Monitor political developments and provide strategic briefings
- Work as part of a small but mighty team, managing stakeholder engagement, and oversee relevant KPIs and budget
- Act as a spokesperson, develop content, and help shape the HTA's external presence
- Line manage the Senior Public Affairs Executive
About you:
- Experience in public affairs or policy - from Parliament, a trade association, agency or government
- Strong understanding of UK political systems (devolved nation knowledge is a plus)
- Excellent communication skills - confident in written briefings, media responses and stakeholder meetings
- A proactive, organised, and collaborative approach
- Line management experience
- Willingness to travel across the UK and attend occasional out-of-hours events
- A full UK driving licence required (for travel to member sites and Oxfordshire Head Office)
Benefits include:
- 30 days' holiday (plus bank holidays)
- Up to 10% matched pension
- Health cash plan & life assurance
- Cycle to Work & EV salary sacrifice schemes
- Well-being and social activities
- Hybrid/flexible working and London/Oxfordshire office locations
This is your chance to represent a dynamic, forward-thinking industry - and make a real difference.
Application deadline is 23:59, Sunday 11th May. Please ensure you include a tailored cover letter and CV.
Murray McIntosh is proud to be an equal opportunities employer on behalf of their 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.
Policy by Murray (part of the Murray McIntosh family) is a specialist Policy, Public Affairs, Strategic Communications and Economics recruitment consultancy, recruiting positions at all levels and across all sectors. Our team boasts over 20 years of experience in this space, with expertise spanning all manner of industry and subject.
Anna Kelly
Principal Consultant – Policy, Public Affairs & 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