Summary

We are the public body that looks after England’s historic environment. We champion historic places, helping people understand, value and care for them.

Historic England have a fantastic opportunity for you to join us as our Communications Director. This is an INTERNAL APPLICANT only vacancy.

The Communications Director is responsible for Historic England’s extensive national and regional media and communications output, including Public Relations and Parliamentary/External Affairs.  Reporting to the Director of Communications and Public Engagement and working as part of the Communications and Public Engagement (C&PE) leadership team, you will help shape the direction of Historic England’s corporate and public engagement activity, ensuring our vision and mission is well-understood and supported in society.  You will be instrumental in our focus to be as inclusive as possible through our communications approach to engage wider and more diverse audiences, and to break down barriers to engaging with Historic England (HE), growing and defending our reputation and increasing positive recognition of our work. 

What you will be doing

You will lead our external and internal communications strategy and teams, ensuring the organisation’s knowledge, resources and voice are leveraged effectively inside and outside our own walls.  You will share your communications expertise and passion to support and deliver projects that support our corporate priorities.  

Working closely with the Content and Marketing Director and Participation and Learning Director, you will ensure that our presence continues to grow and gain positive recognition in the national and regional media, and that we are in a two-way conversation with the public about the future of the historic environment, and how everyone can help protect it, encouraging Active Participation. 

Who we are looking for

• Experience of leading multi-disciplinary teams in a communications discipline

• Experience of successfully creating and delivering integrated public engagement/communications activity in an educational, cultural or media setting

• Excellent leadership and management skills

• Experience of influencing and collaborating with a wide range of partners

• Experience of crisis management

  We are an equal opportunity employer which values diversity and inclusion. If you have a disability or neurodiversity, we would be happy to discuss reasonable adjustments to the job with you. Having just won the Gold Award from MIND, we also recognise the importance of a healthy work-life balance.

We are an inclusive employer and believe that flexible working options are for everyone. We want to make sure our working arrangements don’t prevent anyone from joining us because of their personal circumstances. We also want to provide you with the best balance in your home and work life that we can.

We are open to considering options including job sharing, part-time working, compressed hours working and different working locations, including hybrid working. Please visit our jobs pages or contact us to find out more.

Why work for Historic England

We offer a wide benefits package including a competitive pension scheme starting at 28% employer contributions, a generous 28 days holiday, corporate discounts, free entry into English Heritage sites across the country and development opportunities to ensure you achieve your goals.

We are committed to promoting equality of opportunity for everyone. Diversity helps us to perform better and attract more people to support our work. We welcome and encourage job applications from people of all backgrounds.

We particularly encourage applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates and candidates with disabilities as they are underrepresented within Historic England at this level.

Historic England want all of our candidates to shine in the recruitment process. Please tell us what we can do to make sure you can show us your very best self. You can contact us by email at recruitmentTeam@Historicengland.org.uk if you have any recruitment queries. 

To ensure a fair and inclusive recruitment process for everyone the use of AI or automated tools is not permitted.

Provisional interview dates: - 15th August 2024

Please follow the link for a full copy of the Job Description –https://historicengland.org.uk/media/4evfsy0p/zw-communications-director-jd-jul-2024.odt