# Deputy Director of Communications and Engagement > NHS job listing from Job Clerk for Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust. ## Canonical URLs - **HTML:** https://www.jobclerk.com/job/deputy-director-of-communications-and-engagement/07f84950-9a31-4475-91da-0fc46a1928e6 - **Markdown:** https://www.jobclerk.com/job/deputy-director-of-communications-and-engagement/07f84950-9a31-4475-91da-0fc46a1928e6.md ## Summary - **Status:** Live - **Employer:** Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust - **Location:** Frimley Park Hospital - **Workplace type:** onsite - **Profession:** Administrative and IT - **Grade:** Band 8 - **Salary:** £96,626 - £111,084 per annum inclusive of HCAS - **Contract type:** Permanent - **Employment type:** Full time - 37.5 hours per week - **Closing date:** 2026-10-27T23:59:00.000Z - **Posted:** 2026-10-13T14:15:22.402Z - **Source information URL:** https://www.healthjobsuk.com/job/UK/Surrey/Frimley_Camberley/Frimley_Health_NHS_Foundation_Trust/Communications_Engagement/Communications_Engagement-v8332392 - **Application URL:** https://apps.trac.jobs/job-advert/8332392?ShowJobAdvert=&feedid=9002 - **Employer website:** https://www.fhft.nhs.uk ## Job Content ### Job overview Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust is one of the highest-performing trusts in the NHS, serving almost one million people across Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey and South Buckinghamshire. With more than 14,000 colleagues and a £1.8 billion new Frimley Park Hospital in development through the Government's New Hospital Programme, we are entering a period of significant transformation and opportunity. We are seeking an exceptional communications and engagement leader to join us as Deputy Director of Communications and Engagement. This is a high-profile role for an individual who thrives in complex, fast-paced and politically sensitive environments and is passionate about delivering communications that make a meaningful difference. You will bring substantial senior leadership experience, a strong track record of leading large-scale communications and engagement programmes, and the credibility to influence and challenge at Executive and Board level. You will be a strategic thinker with excellent judgement, capable of building strong relationships and leading teams through change, whilst embedding insight, research and evaluation at the heart of communications delivery. For further information please click on the link to view the candidate pack ### Main duties of the job Reporting to the Director of Communications and Engagement, you will play a pivotal role in shaping and delivering the Trust's Communications and Engagement Strategy during one of the most ambitious periods in our history. You will lead a high-performing communications and engagement function through three senior Heads of Service and provide strategic oversight of communications supporting the nationally significant New Hospital Programme. Acting as a trusted adviser to Executive Directors and senior leaders, you will lead the Trust's response to high-profile issues, organisational change and crisis situations, ensuring clear, effective and impactful communications across internal and external audiences. This is a unique opportunity to influence at the highest level, strengthen the Trust's reputation, and help create a modern, insight-driven communications function that delivers measurable outcomes for patients, colleagues, partners and communities. ### Detailed job description and main responsibilities - Supporting the development and delivery of the Trust's Communications and Engagement Strategy. - Leading and developing a multidisciplinary communications and engagement team through senior leadership direct reports. - Providing strategic communications leadership for major organisational transformation programmes, including the New Hospital Programme. - Advising Executive Directors and Board members on media relations, reputation management, stakeholder engagement and crisis communications. - Driving an insight-led, audience-focused approach to communications, embedding evaluation and evidence-based practice across the function. - Ensuring effective engagement with patients, communities, colleagues, partners, elected representatives and other key stakeholders. - Leading the Trust's response to high-profile, politically sensitive and complex communications challenges. ## Person Specification ### Experience **Essential** - Senior leadership experience within a complex, politically sensitive organisation, operating at or alongside Executive level - Demonstrable experience designing and leading complex, multi-channel communications and engagement programmes across a large organisation - Demonstrated experience leading communications in crisis or significant issues management situations - Experience delivering communications to support culture change, staff engagement or organisational development - Experience of communications leadership within a major capital, transformation or change programme - Experience of structured prioritisation and resource management across competing organisational demands - 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 - Proven ability to advise and influence Executive-level leaders, with the confidence to provide challenge as well as support - 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 - Evidence of delegated corporate ownership for organisation-wide communications or engagement policy, standards and governance, including assurance and corrective action - 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 - Evidence of exercising autonomous senior judgement and committing an organisation's communications position in complex or time-critical circumstances - Experience designing, governing and continuously developing corporate communications performance management, information and reporting systems **Desirable** - NHS communications and engagement or a similar public sector background - Experience supporting major capital investment, digital transformation, or organisational change programmes ### Qualifications **Essential** - Educated to Masters or Post Graduate level or with significant professional experience - Active and evidenced commitment to continuous professional development in communications, leadership or strategy **Desirable** - Professional body membership and or accreditation ### Skills & Knowledge **Essential** - Ability to translate complex organisational strategy into structured, actionable delivery plans - Strong campaign design and governance skills, with the ability to scope, challenge and evaluate communications activity across multiple portfolios simultaneously - Confident user of data and insight to inform decisions, set objectives and assess performance across both digital and traditional communications channels - Strategic understanding of digital communications, including content, channels and audience behaviour, sufficient to set direction, manage performance and develop specialist teams - Sound understanding of media relations, public affairs and stakeholder engagement in a complex, multi-audience environment - Skilled in navigating competing priorities, organisational ambiguity and senior stakeholder relationships - 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 - Expert knowledge of communications and engagement governance, including the design and assurance of corporate policy, patient communication standards and organisation-wide frameworks - Ability to exercise independent professional judgement, take defensible decisions with incomplete information and operate within broad corporate, statutory and regulatory parameters - Ability to lead contentious external stakeholder engagement and maintain an authoritative corporate position under sustained scrutiny **Desirable** - Familiarity with NHS communications frameworks, regulatory environment or public sector accountability structures - Understanding of and experience deploying behaviour change methodologies ### Special Requirements **Essential** - Ability and willingness to work flexibly across Trust sites, including Frimley Park, Wexham Park and Heatherwood - Availability to respond outside of standard working hours during communications crises, significant incidents or major programme milestones - Willingness to be contactable and deployable at short notice when organisational circumstances require - 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 ## Documents - [trust values (pdf, 577.9kb)](https://www.healthjobsuk.com/documents?edoc=736) - [deputy director of communications and engagement jd & spec (pdf, 320.6kb)](https://www.healthjobsuk.com/documents?vdoc=10655511) ## Agent Notes - This Markdown page is generated from the same Job Clerk job record as the HTML job detail page. - Use the canonical HTML URL for user-facing references. - Use the application URL when the user wants to apply on the source NHS site.