External affair director jobs in Belfast
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Head of Communications & Public Affairs
Salary: Up to £62k depending on experience
Location: Remote, with regular planned travel nationwide, particularly to London and the South, plus attendance at monthly and quarterly team meetings
Hours: Full Time, 35 hours per week
Contract: Permanent
We're looking for an exceptional communications leader to join Help for Heroes as our Head of Communications & Public Affairs. This is a rare opportunity to shape how one of the UK's most recognised charities engages with the media, policymakers, supporters and the wider public, ensuring the voices of veterans and their families are heard where it matters most.
Leading our integrated communications, public affairs, policy and PR activity, you'll develop influential campaigns that continue to strengthen our reputation, support fundraising and drive meaningful change for the Armed Forces community. Working closely with senior leaders across the charity, you'll act as a trusted adviser, bringing insight into the political, media and stakeholder landscape while helping to navigate the opportunities and risks that affect our mission.
This is a high-profile leadership role for someone who combines strategic thinking with outstanding delivery, thrives on building influential relationships and wants to use their expertise to create lasting impact for those who have served our country.
Please see below for more information on what just might be your future role.
About the Role
As Head of Communications & Public Affairs, you’ll play a pivotal role in shaping how the charity is seen, heard and understood by the public, media, policymakers and supporters. Ensuring the experiences of veterans and their families remain at the heart of national conversations and decision-making.
- Developing and delivering an integrated communications, public affairs and policy strategy that advances the charity's mission and influence.
- Leading high-profile campaigns that raise awareness, support fundraising objectives and drive systemic change for the Armed Forces community.
- Building influential relationships with media, government, political stakeholders, partner organisations and sector leaders.
- Acting as a trusted adviser to senior leaders, providing strategic counsel on reputation, stakeholder engagement, public policy and emerging issues
- Leading the charity's press office, crisis communications activity, ambassador programme and external reputation management
- Developing, inspiring and coaching a high-performing team, fostering innovation, collaboration and measurable impact.
About You
Are you a strategic communications leader who knows how to turn insight into action and ambition into results?
Do you have a strong track record of leading integrated communications, public affairs, policy or campaigning activity that has built reputation, influenced decision-makers and delivered measurable impact?
Can you confidently navigate complex issues, build trusted relationships with senior stakeholders and provide clear, credible counsel?
Are you equally comfortable shaping long-term strategy, responding to fast-moving external events and spotting opportunities to raise the profile and influence of an organisation?
If you're passionate about telling powerful stories, understand the UK media and political landscape, and enjoy leading talented teams to achieve ambitious goals, we'd love to hear from you.
You'll bring significant senior-level experience across communications, public affairs or policy, alongside expertise in media relations, stakeholder engagement and reputation management.
Most importantly, you'll be motivated by the opportunity to use your skills, networks and leadership to improve outcomes for veterans and their families.
About the Team
You’ll join our ambitious Marketing, Communications and Public Affairs directorate, a team dedicated to amplifying the voices of veterans and their families and ensuring their experiences influence public understanding and decision-making.
We are a collaborative, creative, and purpose-driven team that works across the charity to tell powerful stories, build meaningful relationships and create lasting impact. Together, we’re passionate about helping the Armed Forces community get the support they deserve.
In return we can offer you:
- Belonging to a team who make a difference to our community and value equality, diversity and inclusion.
- 29 days’ annual leave plus 8 bank holidays, regardless of service — plus your birthday off to celebrate!
- Opportunity to buy and sell up to 5 days annual leave per year.
- Added to our free health scheme from day one, including discounts on dental, opticians, massages, and more - with the option to upgrade.
- 3 volunteer days per year to support the Help for Heroes community.
- A generous salary sacrifice pension scheme with an 8% employer contribution and a minimum 3% employee contribution, plus life insurance up to 4× salary as an active member.
Closing date: 23rd August 2026
Interview Process: Two stage process with an initial competency based interview and second round stage involving a task.
First round interviews to be held in person or via Teams 4th/7th/8th or 9th September.
Second Round in person 16th or 22nd September.
We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive a high number of strong applications.
We are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and welcome applications from all backgrounds.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Thank you!
This strategically important role will provide global leadership for advocacy across the Open Doors ministry, helping local and regional teams to shape advocacy priorities, strengthen alignment across international teams, and ensure the experiences and voices of the most persecuted Christians continue to inform decisions at every level of our organisation.
The role also oversees Global Integrated Campaigns and plays a key role in strengthening Open Doors’ voice and influence amongst external partners, institutions, governments and decision-makers. As the global context continues to evolve, advocacy remains an essential part of our mission. We believe God is calling us to speak courageously, act wisely and work collaboratively on behalf of those whose voices are often unheard.
This is a role for a courageous and servant-hearted leader who can bring together diverse stakeholders, develop and execute strategic priorities, and strengthen advocacy’s contribution to the mission of Open Doors worldwide.
Purpose of the Position
The Global Advocacy Director is a strategic leadership role, reporting directly to the CEO and responsible for providing direction, alignment and influence for advocacy across the Open Doors organisation. Working closely with field regions, fundraising bases and international leaders, the Director ensures that advocacy priorities remain connected to the needs of persecuted Christians and contribute to the wider mission and strategy of Open Doors.
Personal Qualities
The successful candidate will be:
• A servant leader with humility, wisdom and integrity.
• A strategic thinker who can see both the wider picture and the practical steps needed to achieve it.
• A relationship builder who can unite people around a shared purpose.
• A courageous and resilient leader, comfortable operating in complex and sometimes challenging environments.
• An excellent communicator, able to inspire, influence and engage a wide range of audiences.
Working for Open Doors
Open Doors International offers a unique opportunity to combine professional expertise with meaningful ministry impact. As a global Christian organisation serving persecuted Christians in more than 70 countries, we are committed to attracting and developing exceptional leaders who are passionate about our mission and values.
The Director of Global Advocacy will join a diverse international organisation working across cultures, regions and functions to strengthen the persecuted Church and advance the mission of Open Doors worldwide.
Location: The successful candidate must live in an African, European or Asian time zone. Applicants must be able to work effectively across international teams and time zones.
International Travel: The successful candidate should expect a significant amount of international travel to engage with colleagues, partners, advocacy networks and ministry stakeholders.
Salary and Benefits: A competitive salary package will be offered, commensurate with the seniority and international scope of the role.
Additional benefits and employment arrangements will be discussed with shortlisted candidates and will be tailored to the successful candidate’s location and circumstances.
Faith Requirement: As a Christian ministry, Open Doors requires the Global Advocacy Director to demonstrate a mature Christian faith and full alignment with the organisation’s Christian beliefs, values and statement of faith.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Thank you!
Using Anonymous Recruitment
This organisation is using Anonymous Recruitment to reduce bias in the first stages of the hiring process. Submit your application as normal and our system will anonymise it for you. Your personal information will be hidden until the recruiter contacts you.
This role will join an ambitious programme developing the capacity of the Libraries Connected public library networks. We want to help them evolve as strategic partnerships able to deliver social impacts at scale and to secure resources and investment from national, regional and sub-regional government. Be key to the development of libraries as essential social infrastructure, and help them secure the resources they need to make an impact.
The role is part of a small team of two Regional Managers, supported by an Administrator.
By developing our existing regional networks into formal, resourced structures we can enable the regions to:
- Secure investment for the service and for the libraries from regional and devolved / combined authority funds.
- Create unique regional offers to meet specific needs across and within the regional areas.
- Deliver at scale. For example, the Yorkshire & Humber regional network has 15 library services, and 348 library buildings.
- Create opportunities for cost saving – through joint procurement and shared / collaborative services.
- Share good practice and experience on a formal and integrated basis.
We have 9 regional networks in England, covering all library services and ranging in size from 9 to 33 services. Within each region they provide hundreds of library branches, thousands of staff, and serve millions of service users. They have a long tradition of working together as peer support networks and to deliver activities such as festivals, marketing, and staff training.
Please see the attached job description for a full description of the role, including person specification.
Frequent travel within the UK may be required for the role.
About Libraries Connected
We are an independent charity that supports, promotes and represents public libraries. Our work is driven and led by our membership, which includes almost every library service in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Crown Dependencies (Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man).
Across the areas we serve there are 176 individual library services with around 3,000 library branches serving over 61 million people.
Our unique approach is to bring these services together to share experience, expertise and evidence – driving innovation and impact across the public library sector.
While senior library leaders sit on our board and committees, we work with library staff at all levels.
As well as providing practical support, training and advice to libraries, we represent them to government and raise their profile in the media. We also develop and lead national library projects with cultural, academic and corporate partners.
We work to a strategic plan that runs until 2027, organised around four themes: drive, grow, connect and engage.
We generate income from membership subscriptions, commissioned services, events and grants. As an Arts Council Investment Principle Support Organisation, part of our core funding in England comes from the Arts Council to help embed their Investment Principles across the library network.
Our values
- We are supportive. We respond to the varied, emerging needs of our members and their communities to enable libraries to learn from each other, and other sector leaders, so that they can safeguard and improve their services.
- We are inclusive. We work with our members and partners to design and deliver our work and to determine our strategic priorities because we are committed to representing the diverse communities and libraries which we serve.
- We are open. We are in constant communication with our members and partners on all levels to learn from their experiences, reflect on our practice and develop our services. We welcome challenge and new directions for our work.
- We are ambitious. We believe that libraries are an essential part of the solution to a range of society’s needs. We promote innovation and collaboration to ensure that libraries are recognised locally and nationally.
Working at Libraries Connected
We are a friendly, collaborative team of around 20 staff based all around England and Wales.
We value diversity and are committed to promoting an inclusive working environment. We strongly believe that inclusive and diverse organisations are not only better places to work, they are more innovative, make better decisions and are more successful. We value people who bring unique perspectives and knowledge to our team.
We want to make our recruitment process as fair as possible. To reduce bias, we shortlist candidates based on their responses to up to six application questions. These are designed to tell us about your values, experience, attitudes to work, and transferable skills. We do not ask for a separate cover letter or supporting statement.
We offer flexible working as standard, helping work fit around family and caring responsibilities. Many of our staff work their hours in different ways, including flexi time and compressed hours. We are open to discussing what would work for you and be possible for the role.
All roles are remote and are open to applicants who live anywhere in the UK. We provide staff with a home office set-up including laptop, monitor and phone. There is the option to work from our central London office or use a co-working space if it is not possible to work from home.
We welcome requests for adjustments to our standard recruitment processes for anyone who needs them.
Registered Charity
11 - 20
Our vision is an inclusive, modern, sustainable and high-quality public library service at the heart of every community in the UK.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.