Senior Media and Communications Manager - Living Wage Foundation

£47,200 (+London weighting) • Living Wage Foundation • London / Flexible

Salary: £47,237 FTE (London Weighting is £3,276 where applicable)

Hours: Full time, flexible

Contract: Permanent

Based: Our office is based in London but hybrid/flexible working anywhere in the UK

Holiday and pension: 25 days holiday plus Christmas break. Pension at 10% employer contribution (5% employee). We are a Living Pension employer.

About the Application Process

We work within diverse communities bringing people together. In line with our Inclusion value, we would love to see applications from LGBTQIA+ people, people from racialised communities, people living with disabilities and people of faith, all to better represent the communities we work in. We want our employees to have the working conditions that allows them to fully participate, be able to be their best authentic selves and thrive doing so, and we have employee networks to support staff. Even if you don’t quite meet all the required criteria still consider applying, as we invest in our employees and support them to develop the skills and knowledge required to deliver their role.

For questions and reasonable adjustments regarding your application including information in a different format, or our recruitment process, please email recruitment@citizensuk.org.

Got any more questions?

If you would like further information on the role, the organisation, or our commitment to addressing under-representation and the development and progression of all colleagues, we would be happy to answer any questions.

We will be holding a webinar on Tuesday 26th November, 1-1.30pm where anyone can attend to find out more about the role, all enquiries welcome. In the past, candidates have found this a helpful space for understanding whether the role is right for them.

Please register here:

https://cuk.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Dojsz535RiaI6YUg0Ykvlw

If you’d like to know more but cannot attend the webinar, please email Emily.roe@livingwage.org.uk

Living Wage Foundation

The Living Wage Foundation was launched in 2011 by Citizens UK to tackle in-work poverty and ensure that workers earn enough to live on and participate in family and community life. Citizens UK is the home of community organising with diverse civil society alliances set up to develop leaders to work on the issues that matter to them, such as the Living Wage. Other projects include Parent Action and Sponsor Refugees to add depth to the impact of Citizens UK’s work.

The Living Wage is a movement of businesses, organisations and people who believe that a hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay. The real Living Wage is an independently-calculated hourly rate based on the cost of living and announced each October ahead of Living Wage Week, our annual celebration of a growing network of over 15,000 Living Wage Employers.

The Living Wage Foundation celebrates employers that voluntarily choose to pay the real Living Wage through an accreditation scheme that recognises a long-term commitment to fair pay and has secured pay rises for 475,000 low paid workers. Over recent years, the Living Wage Foundation has built on the success of the real Living Wage by creating new responsible employment standards – Living Hours and Living Pension – for those employers who want to go further and provide the security workers need now and in the future.

The Living Wage Foundation is part of Citizens UK – a community organising charity which works with a broad base of institutions across the political spectrum. At the Living Wage Foundation, we take a deliberately broad-based approach and accredit all organisations who pay the real Living Wage to their directly and indirectly employed staff and are committed to tackling in work poverty. As a team we work across a range of industries and sectors to achieve this mission. We seek pragmatic coalitions in order to progress specific campaigns, and partnership around a particular issue such as Living Wage, does not imply an endorsement of broader purpose and policies.

Citizens UK

Citizens UK is the biggest, most diverse and most effective people-powered alliance of local communities working together for the common good. Our mission is to develop leaders, strengthen civic organisations and make change. Our 550 member communities are deeply rooted in their local areas and connect every day to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Through the method of community organising we enable people experiencing powerlessness to develop their leadership and come together with the power and strategy to make change.

This leads to hundreds of neighbourhood improvements - from zebra crossings outside primary schools to renovated public toilets in cemeteries. And it leads to some of the biggest campaign impacts in the UK, such as winning over £3 billion of wages through the UK Living Wage campaign, securing a legal cap on the cost of credit to control exploitative lending, and ending the detention of children for immigration purposes. We enable local campaigns to grow into large-scale social change projects such as the Living Wage Foundation, Parents and Communities Together (PACT), Sponsor Refugees, and Refugees for Justice, that form an integral part of our theory of change. The most prominent of these is the rapidly growing Living Wage Foundation with a network of almost 15,000 accredited Living Wage Employers across the UK.

At Citizens UK, our organisers and project staff work within communities and ‘organise across difference’. There are various project roles and management, operational, communication, finance and HR roles that support the organisation and project staff and organisers to deliver on this mission and work. This work is rewarding and can be challenging; it requires a personal commitment to inclusion, a willingness to listen and disagree respectfully, and an interest in working in an organisation where our staff, member institutions and leaders will come from a diversity of backgrounds and often hold views that may be very different from our own. More information about how we operate within this context, and build trusted relationships across difference can be found on our website and is covered in induction. Onboarding and navigating this relational culture, and type of work, is supported by line managers and further training.

Purpose

The Living Wage Foundation is seeking an experienced and driven Senior Media and Communications Manager to join our team. This is an exciting opportunity for a highly organised and proactive communications professional with a strong background in media relations, public messaging, and team leadership. The ideal candidate will thrive in a fast-paced, high-profile environment and be motivated to amplify the Living Wage Foundation’s impact across key audiences.

The postholder will lead all media, messaging, and external affairs work, developing and implementing a proactive media strategy that supports our mission and key campaigns, such as Living Wage Week and the annual Rates announcement. As a skilled media professional, you will oversee all communications outputs, ensuring consistency and strategic alignment, while delivering media training and refining key messaging to maximise reach and impact.

In this role, you will be instrumental in advancing our political engagement efforts, building cross-party support and working with political leaders, mayoral teams, and other key stakeholders to promote our initiatives. You’ll manage two direct reports (Events Manager and Media Manager) who each hold line management responsibilities, and you will play a critical role within our Senior Management Team, collaborating closely with the Head of Communications to shape the overall direction of our communications work.

As a senior leader, you will be responsible for managing and allocating the communications team budget, expanding team capacity, and driving the team’s effectiveness. In collaboration with other senior managers, you will help foster a culture that values creativity, innovation, and strategic impact.

Main Responsibilities

Situational Awareness and Research

• Lead regular updates on key audiences, tracking positions on issues of interest and ensuring the team is fully informed.
• Guide the team in proactive media monitoring, enabling timely responses to significant developments.
• Collaborate with the Senior Research Manager to conduct and commission impactful research, driving media campaigns that effectively reach and engage target audiences.
• Oversee the development and maintenance of a comprehensive press database, mapping key media contacts and publications in line with the Living Wage Foundation’s objectives.

Strategy Development

• Provide strategic oversight of the organisation’s media strategy, ensuring it aligns with broader organisational, communications, and campaign goals, and establish clear processes for evaluating its success.
• Work alongside other Senior Managers in the Communications Team to shape and guide the overall communications strategy.
• Lead on all media and messaging outputs, including developing high-quality materials, coordinating media events, and delivering media training.
• Support the Living Wage Foundation’s Political Engagement Strategy by building and sustaining cross-party support for the organisation’s mission and objectives.

Reputational and Risk Management

• Develop and manage the organisation’s risk register, offering strategic oversight and serving as a primary contact for crisis communications.
• Manage and respond to reactive media inquiries promptly, ensuring alignment with the organisation’s values and objectives.
• Draft key messages and FAQs for media interviews and public responses, and advise senior leadership on sensitive media or reputational issues.
• Represent the Living Wage Foundation effectively in senior stakeholder interactions and participate in out-of-hours press duties when needed.
• Strengthen and maintain broad cross-party support for the Living Wage agenda.

Content Creation and Dissemination

• Oversee the Media Team in producing engaging press releases, blogs, opinion pieces, and media briefings to elevate the Living Wage Foundation’s profile.
• Ensure media outputs and communications reflect the organisation’s values and uphold a consistent voice.
• Create and refine key messaging for public communications, including FAQs and response guides.
• Lead media training sessions for LWF staff and Living Wage employers, enhancing their confidence and effectiveness in media engagements.

Relationship Management

• Lead employer case study development, identifying and preparing Living Wage employers to speak to media and champion a real Living Wage.
• Drive stakeholder engagement efforts, cultivating valuable relationships with Living Wage employers, campaign partners, and media contacts.
• Build and maintain relationships with journalists across print, digital, and broadcast media to secure quality coverage.
• Collaborate with the Public Engagement Team to draft emails, speeches, speaker notes, briefings, and press notices for political engagements.
• Provide line management and development support to the Media Manager and Events Manager.

Social Media and Website

• Ensure consistency in messaging and alignment across all media and digital platforms in collaboration with the wider communications team.
• Work closely with the Senior Digital and Communications Manager to guide and oversee team initiatives.

Key Skills

• An enthusiasm for media and communications, coupled with a strong commitment to the mission of the Living Wage Foundation.
• Proven experience and a strong understanding of the UK media landscape, with established relationships with national journalists that have resulted in high-quality coverage.
• Experience in line managing and leading a team.
• Demonstrated experience in managing sensitive reputational issues, including risk assessment and crisis communications.
• Skilled in leveraging real-life stories and case studies to drive engagement, including experience in leading media training for spokespeople.
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to produce and edit content to a journalistic standard across diverse audiences and channels.
• Strong track record in designing and executing high-impact communications strategies that achieve measurable results.
• Competence in using social media platforms to engage audiences effectively, understanding their role in broader media strategies.
• Proficiency in evaluating campaigns and media outputs, with the ability to derive insights that inform future strategies.
• Strong interpersonal skills for building effective relationships with colleagues and external stakeholders, including political audiences.
• Solid understanding of the political landscape and public affairs, with experience engaging cross-party stakeholders.

Interviews: 9th & 10th December (TBC)