Communications Officer  

Hours: Full time, flexible  

Salary: £27,953 (Plus £3150 London Weighting per annum) 

Contract: Permanent 

Based: London or home-based with flexible working arrangements available 

Pension: 10% employer contribution 

Holiday: 25 days + Christmas break 

About the Application Process  

The Living Wage Foundation is committed to being an inclusive employer. In line with our Inclusion value, If you are disabled or from a minority ethnic community and have the essential skills and experience to do the job we will invite you to an interview. We would love to see applications from LGBTQIA+ people, people from racialised communities, people living with disabilities and people of faith. We want our employees to be themselves 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.  It’s important that our team represents the communities we serve, therefore we are particularly interested to hear from candidates who have experience of low pay.  

 At Citizens UK, we use Applied, an applicant-tracking recruitment system. Applied aims to overcome unconscious bias in recruiting. Often the Hiring Team will not see your CV as part of the shortlisting process and instead ask questions to test skills needed for the role. The responses are anonymised and reviewed by the panel. The Applied platform also asks some demographic questions before you start your application. Citizens UK cannot see individual demographic responses, only summary statistics to monitor our candidate pool for balance. Applied aims to give an equal chance to be hired irrespective of background. Candidates can opt out of answering the demographic questions.  

 We welcome applicants from different backgrounds and will do our best to meet reasonable adjustments and access needs for disabilities during and after the recruitment process.  

Applicants must have the right to work in the UK as Citizens UK is unable to sponsor visa applications. Our community organisers work in the community and their employment is subject to satisfactory standard/enhanced DBS checks.  

 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 delivered to john.hood@livingwage.org.uk .  

We will also be holding a webinar on 9th January at 12:00 where anyone can attend to find out more about the role, all enquiries welcome. 

Citizens UK  

Citizens UK is a people power alliance of diverse 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 £2 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 over 14,000 accredited Living Wage Employers across the 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 PACT (Parents and the Community Together) 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 November during Living Wage Week, our annual celebration of a growing network of over 14,000 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 over 460,000 low paid workers. 

Purpose 

 The Living Wage Foundation has an exciting opportunity to join our dynamic team as a Communications Officer. We are looking for an exceptionally motivated and organised individual who enjoys working in a fast-paced, high-profile communications environment.  

 The role will support the objectives of the Living Wage Foundation by communicating our work to a wide range of audiences, including senior business leaders and politicians, through a mix of communications channels: social media, media outlets, website and internal communications channels. 

 The post holder will be responsible for day-to-day social media channels and will support the development of press campaigns to build awareness of the Living Wage Foundation’s work. The role will work closely to support the Communications team’s work and help communicate work from the wider-team and network.  

The role is also responsible for key communications with our network of over 14,000 accredited Living Wage Employers, including our monthly newsletters, blogs and case studies to celebrate our network of accredited employers 

The position would suit an applicant with strong written and communication skills, with experience of working within either a communications team, busy press office, or media outlet. 

Main Responsibilities 

Social and digital media 

• Oversee our digital channels to raise awareness of the Living Wage, champion responsible employers and grow our movement 

• Monitor, manage and schedule posts for our Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram accounts, tailoring the content to different channels and audiences. 

• Field social media enquiries from the public and our networks of supporters and employers to connect them with the Living Wage campaign. 

• Design and implement engaging digital engagement campaigns for Living Wage Employers and supporters, and to support Living Wage Foundation campaigns.  

• Design communications collateral to increase engagement on social media, including editing of videos for uploading online and creation of social media graphics. 

• Improve our digital offering for our network of accredited Living Wage Employers. 

• Liaise with the Living Wage and Citizens UK team to keep up-to-date with news to share with key stakeholders 

• Collate and summarise content to schedule newsletters and updates for our varied audiences. 

• Develop our plans to build consumer support for Living Wage products and services 

Media 

• Contribute to media strategies and plans that help to win public and political support for the Living Wage Foundation and its work 

• Write compelling press releases, blogs and opinion editorials to promote the Living Wage Foundation’s work 

• Work with colleagues to develop case studies and ensure stories of low pay and the Living Wage are told effectively across all our internal and external communications channels 

• Build effective relationships with the media, colleagues and other stakeholders to find new ways to raise our profile 

• Monitor and evaluate media campaigns and reports  

• Participate in the out of hours duty press. 

Website 

• Sourcing and creating original content for both the Living Wage Foundation and external websites, including creating blog posts, news, guidance and general pages. 

• Auditing and reviewing existing website content to ensure it is effective and up-to-date. 

• Support on development of new website. 

General 

• Administrate and facilitate communications team meetings. 

• Support organising key campaign moments and events run by the communications team including the Champion Awards and Living Wage Week 

Key skills 

 Strong written communications 

• Ability to create content for, and manage, social media channels 

• Ability to work within a team 

• Clear evaluation skills 

• Ability to interpret media landscape  

• Ability to build strong relationships with colleagues and external stakeholders 

Key dates:  

16th January (midnight) – Applications close  24-25th January - Interview dates