Deputy Director of Communications and Engagement

Requirements the employer expects applicants to meet.

• Experience

  Senior leadership experience within a complex, politically sensitive organisation, operating at or alongside Executive level

• Experience

  Demonstrable experience designing and leading complex, multi-channel communications and engagement programmes across a large organisation

• Experience

  Demonstrated experience leading communications in crisis or significant issues management situations

• Experience

  Experience delivering communications to support culture change, staff engagement or organisational development

• Experience

  Experience of communications leadership within a major capital, transformation or change programme

• Experience

  Experience of structured prioritisation and resource management across competing organisational demands

• Experience

  Experience owning and directing a rolling programme of external research and evaluation including stakeholder perception, public attitude or communications effectiveness research from commissioning through to embedding findings in organisational planning

• Experience

  Proven ability to advise and influence Executive-level leaders, with the confidence to provide challenge as well as support

• Experience

  Directorate-level line management experience, including second-line accountability for a senior post that itself carries its own team, budget and governance interfaces demonstrating the range to manage across markedly different levels of seniority and complexity within a single directorate, not solely a single tier of peer-graded posts

• Experience

  Evidence of delegated corporate ownership for organisation-wide communications or engagement policy, standards and governance, including assurance and corrective action

• Experience

  Evidence of leading communications and external stakeholder engagement during major organisational change, controversial decisions, highly contentious public issues or sustained regulatory, political or media scrutiny

• Experience

  Evidence of exercising autonomous senior judgement and committing an organisation's communications position in complex or time-critical circumstances

• Experience

  Experience designing, governing and continuously developing corporate communications performance management, information and reporting systems

• Qualifications

  Educated to Masters or Post Graduate level or with significant professional experience

• Qualifications

  Active and evidenced commitment to continuous professional development in communications, leadership or strategy

• Skills & Knowledge

  Ability to translate complex organisational strategy into structured, actionable delivery plans

• Skills & Knowledge

  Strong campaign design and governance skills, with the ability to scope, challenge and evaluate communications activity across multiple portfolios simultaneously

• Skills & Knowledge

  Confident user of data and insight to inform decisions, set objectives and assess performance across both digital and traditional communications channels

• Skills & Knowledge

  Strategic understanding of digital communications, including content, channels and audience behaviour, sufficient to set direction, manage performance and develop specialist teams

• Skills & Knowledge

  Sound understanding of media relations, public affairs and stakeholder engagement in a complex, multi-audience environment

• Skills & Knowledge

  Skilled in navigating competing priorities, organisational ambiguity and senior stakeholder relationships

• Skills & Knowledge

  Financial management competence at directorate scale, including full budget-setting and budget-holding accountability for the directorate's cost centre, in-year expenditure monitoring and value-for-money reporting

• Skills & Knowledge

  Expert knowledge of communications and engagement governance, including the design and assurance of corporate policy, patient communication standards and organisation-wide frameworks

• Skills & Knowledge

  Ability to exercise independent professional judgement, take defensible decisions with incomplete information and operate within broad corporate, statutory and regulatory parameters

• Skills & Knowledge

  Ability to lead contentious external stakeholder engagement and maintain an authoritative corporate position under sustained scrutiny

• Special Requirements

  Ability and willingness to work flexibly across Trust sites, including Frimley Park, Wexham Park and Heatherwood

• Special Requirements

  Availability to respond outside of standard working hours during communications crises, significant incidents or major programme milestones

• Special Requirements

  Willingness to be contactable and deployable at short notice when organisational circumstances require

• Special Requirements

  Ability and willingness to exercise autonomous senior judgement and commit the organisation's communications position in time- sensitive situations, without the ability to refer upward