Assistant Director and Head of Strategic Communications

About the job

This senior role will lead all the communications (external and internal), media engagement, public relations, brand narrative, social media/web and make a significant contribution to reputational operations.

The postholder will be responsible for developing a new five-year strategic communications plan, leading and managing a support structure to deliver enhanced coordination and cohesion of the institutional communications. The post holder will be responsible for the management of the internal and external communications teams and will also oversee and drive the media engagement to ensure the local and national reputational targets are met.

The postholder will work with the Director to managing the University's reputation Grid and will attend meetings of the Registrar's Management Group.

About the person

The successful candidate must have and your application should clearly demonstrate that you meet the following essential criteria:

• A degree (or equivalent qualification) in a relevant area; OR Extensive relevant experience in senior communications role(s) or in senior role(s) directly overseeing a significant institutional communications function.
• Substantial experience/evidence of developing, implementing and assessing the impact of effective communications strategies, procedures and systems.
• Substantial experience/evidence of effective team leadership, management and engagement of a high functioning, multi-disciplinary communications team to deliver successful outcomes.
• Evidence of possessing strong analytical skills to support rapid decision making with the ability to clearly communicate complex information in written or oral briefings.
• Demonstrable professional experience in providing communications and public relations advice to Senior Managers regarding complex and high organisational impact issues.
• Evidence of collaborative working at a senior level, both within a large organisation and externally, on high-profile issues.
• Evidence of designing, implementing and measuring impact of an effective external-facing web and social media strategy through the delivery of a successful campaign.
• Evidence of effective internal communications (both channel management and message content) by outlining a successful intervention within a staff environment of a similar size and scale to QUB.

This is not an exhaustive list. To be successful at shortlisting stage, please ensure you clearly evidence in your application how you meet the essential and, where applicable, desirable criteria listed in the Candidate Information.

What we offer

Beyond a competitive salary, the University offers an attractive benefits package including a holiday entitlement of up to 8.4 weeks a year, pension schemes and development opportunities. We support staff wellbeing with flexible working options, work-life balance initiatives and support for physical and mental health. You can find more detail on all of this and more at https://www.qub.ac.uk/directorates/HumanResources/pay-reward-and-benefits/.

Queen's University is committed to promoting equality of opportunity to all. We subscribe to Equality Charter Marks such as the Diversity Charter Mark NI and Athena Swan and have established staff networks such as iRise (Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic and International Staff Network) and PRISM (LGBTQ+) which help us progress equality. For further information on our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, please visit www.qub.ac.uk/diversity.

If you are an international applicant and don't already hold a visa that permits you to take up the role you are applying for, please use the information provided on our website to self-assess whether the University is likely to be able to support a visa application - http://go.qub.ac.uk/internationalstaffsupport.

Candidate Information