Are you passionate about building relationships to drive meaningful change to make a real difference in people’s lives? Samaritans is the UK and Ireland’s leading suicide prevention charity. While we are best known for listening to those who need us, we also work to influence change through our advocacy campaigning and relationships with political stakeholders.
We are looking for a Public Affairs and Campaigns Officer to join our team and help influence decision makers and mobilise our campaigners to achieve our vision of fewer lives lost to suicide. You’ll play a pivotal role in delivering inspiring public affairs and advocacy campaign activity that help achieve our policy and influencing aims, resulting in lasting system change.
About the Role
As Public Affairs and Campaigns Officer, you will lead on the development and delivery of impactful advocacy campaigns and public affairs activity, managing supporter journeys and mobilisation, as well as political engagement. It involves building strong relationships with parliamentarians, Samaritans branches and people with lived experience, while producing high‑quality campaign actions, briefings, events, and intelligence to influence change.
Contract
£30,000-£33,000 per annum plus benefits
Full Time (35hrs per week)
Permanent
Hybrid working with link to Ewell office
In-person working: Meeting in person and working collaboratively are things we value. We work in person around 2 days per month. This role will also involve regular travel to Westminster.
We are passionate about flexible working, talk to us about your preferences
What You’ll Do
- Develop and deliver effective advocacy campaign actions.
- Manage campaign data, mailing lists and inboxes.
- Support strategy development for campaigns and lead community mobilisation.
- Promote our campaigning work internally and externally.
- Build and maintain public affairs relationships, particularly with parliamentarians.
- Monitor parliamentary developments and identify opportunities for influencing.
- Coordinate political engagement events.
- Provide secretariat support to relevant APPGs.
What You’ll Bring
- Strong experience designing impactful advocacy campaigns.
- Solid understanding of public affairs and the Westminster environment.
- Excellent communication, facilitation and relationship‑building skills.
- Highly organised, proactive and adaptable, with strong project and time‑management skills.
- (Desirable) Knowledge of suicide prevention and mental health policy, local and regional political structures, and experience within complex service‑delivery charities.
See full Job Description and Person Specification
Why Samaritans?
At Samaritans, you’ll be part of a people-first organisation deeply committed to inclusion, compassion and learning. You’ll contribute to a team where your voice matters, your expertise makes a difference, and your work helps save lives.
We welcome applications from individuals with lived experience and encourage those from underrepresented communities to apply. We are committed to creating an environment where all our people feel seen, heard and supported.
You’ll join a values-led organisation with a powerful mission and a collaborative culture. We offer flexible hybrid working, excellent benefits, and the chance to make a tangible difference in suicide prevention across the UK and Ireland.
For further information about Samaritans, including our charity structure, values, employee benefits, and application process, please read our recruitment brochure available here. You can also visit our careers website to access this.
We recognise the enormous benefits and the social justice imperatives of ensuring diversity at every level of our organisation. Samaritans is wholly committed to inclusion and diversity and to building a culture and environment where everyone is appreciated for the unique person they are. To ensure Samaritans is representative of those we support and who support us, we particularly welcome applications from disabled, racialised minority and LGBTQ+ candidates, as these people are under-represented at Samaritans.
Apply now
If this sounds like the opportunity for you, please apply. You will be asked to some answer short application questions and to upload your CV.
Applications close: Sunday 19th April 2026
Interviews: w/c 27th April 2026
At Samaritans, human connection is at the heart of everything we do.
We do not use AI at any stage during the selection process. Your application will always be carefully reviewed by the recruiting manager or a member of the Talent Attraction Team.
We kindly ask that you avoid using AI tools to generate your application or interview answers. We want to hear your own ideas, insights, and writing style so your unique strengths can shine through.
Registered Charity
101 - 500
We prevent suicide through the power of human connection. Connecting people in crisis with trained volunteers who will always listen.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Thank you!
We’re looking for an interim Social Media Officer to lead on engagement with our online communities. This is an exciting 12 month opportunity to shape the social media presence for Samaritans across a range of channels and join a high performing team.
In this role you’ll monitor and respond to a wide range of enquiries over our social media platforms. You will be responding to those who have used our services or are struggling with their mental health, so the ability to communicate with sensitivity and empathy is key.
You'll help colleagues across the organisation feel confident in how they use social media and play a vital role in ensuring our content and conversations reflect our brand and tone of voice. You will develop and maintain social media guidelines and standard response templates, as well as providing training and support when needed.
You’ll also take the lead with our moderation agency to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our audiences, through quality checking and continuous improvement.
If you’re an experienced Social Media Officer, who is passionate about meaningful online engagement, then we’d love to hear from you.
Contract terms:
£31,000 - £33,000 Salary per annum, plus benefits and £1000 on call allowance
12 month fixed term contract (maternity cover)
Full time (35 hours)
We are passionate about flexible working, talk to us about your preferences
Linked to our Ewell (Surrey) office
In-person working: Meeting in person and working collaboratively are things we value. We work in person around 2 days or more per month
What you'll do:
- Monitor Samaritan’s social media channels, ensuring content is appropriate for audiences
- Develop, maintain and update standard response templates and moderation guidelines
- Provide timely, appropriate responses to a wide range of people engaging with Samaritans over social media
- Develop social Q&As for key campaigns, policy positions and news events in collaboration with other teams
- Provide advice, support, and training to branches and volunteers managing their own communities via social media
- Work closely with our moderation agency, ensuring adequate out of hours coverage and quality check responses
- Analyse audience engagement and feedback to identify trends and areas for improvement
What you’ll bring:
- Experience of working on social media for a cause, campaign or high-profile brand, or in communications or marketing
- Great digital copywriting skills
- Strong understanding of digital marketing channels and techniques
- Experience in responding to a varied range of enquiries via social media
- Creative approach to creating and publishing digital content
- Ability to communicate sensitively, particularly around issues involving mental health and suicide
- Awareness of campaigns, news and trends within the charity sector and social media
- Ability to build strong working relationships with internal and external stakeholders
- Familiarity with Sprout Social (desirable)
- Experience working with volunteers or within the charity sector (desirable)
See full Job Description and Person Specification
Why Samaritans?
At Samaritans, you’ll be part of a people-first organisation deeply committed to inclusion, compassion and learning. You’ll contribute to a team where your voice matters, your expertise makes a difference, and your work helps save lives.
We welcome applications from individuals with lived experience and encourage those from underrepresented communities to apply.We are committed to creating an environment where all our people feel seen, heard and supported.
You’ll join a values-led organisation with a powerful mission and a collaborative culture. We offer flexible hybrid working, excellent benefits, and the chance to make a tangible difference in suicide prevention across the UK and Ireland.
For further information about Samaritans, including our charity structure, values, employee benefits, and application process, please read our recruitment brochure available here. You can also visit our careers website to access this.
We recognise the enormous benefits and the social justice imperatives of ensuring diversity at every level of our organisation. Samaritans is wholly committed to inclusion and diversity and to building a culture and environment where everyone is appreciated for the unique person they are. To ensure Samaritans is representative of those we support and who support us, we particularly welcome applications from disabled, racialised minority and LGBTQ+ candidates, as these people are under-represented at Samaritans.
Apply now
If this sounds like the opportunity for you, please apply. You will be asked to some answer short application questions and to upload your CV.
Applications close: 09:00am on Monday 13th April 2026
Interviews: w/c 20th April
At Samaritans, human connection is at the heart of everything we do.
We do not use AI at any stage during the selection process. Your application will always be carefully reviewed by the recruiting manager or a member of the Talent Attraction Team.
We kindly ask that you avoid using AI tools to generate your application or interview answers. We want to hear your own ideas, insights, and writing style so your unique strengths can shine through.
Registered Charity
101 - 500
We prevent suicide through the power of human connection. Connecting people in crisis with trained volunteers who will always listen.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.