Head of communications jobs in cambridge, cambridgeshire

This role will play a leadership role in delivering our ambitious policy influencing programme, helping to shape and implement influencing plans to bring about the changes needed to reduce, prevent and eventually end the need for food banks in the UK.  It will provide management and oversight to some of our strategic projects.

Role responsibilities

· Developing and implementing Trussell’s influencing strategy

Working with teams across the organisation to ensure key groups, including our community of food banks, corporate partners, churches and church-related organisations have a clear role in our policy influencing approach.

· Planning and delivering impactful public affairs activity

Ensuring systems are in place to help plan, monitor and evaluate public affairs activity and maximise opportunities to engage with key audiences, including Parliamentarians, advisers, and UK Government Ministers; and support close working with colleagues in all UK nations and regions.  Managing the development and delivery of public affairs activity to support high profile influencing campaigns.

· Building and managing strong relationships with key external stakeholders

Developing relationships, partnerships and networks to help raise the profile, credibility and influence of Trussell and our policy positions, particularly in the UK Parliament.  Representing Trussell and promoting the organisation’s policy position to key audiences, including in meetings and events with Parliamentarians.

· Developing public affairs support to the food bank community

Working closely with a small team of Network Policy and Research Officers and the Organising and Local Mobilisation team to support our community of food banks to build and maintain strong relationships with their local MPs.  Ensuring public affairs activity is well aligned to campaign strategies involving the food bank network.

· Embedding participatory approaches across our public affairs and wider influencing activity

Supporting further development of a participatory approach to policy influencing to ensure it is rooted in the lived experience of individuals affected by poverty.  This includes ensuring an ethical approach in line with our values.

· Providing advice and line management

Have line management responsibility for individuals within the team, providing pastoral and development guidance along with task management on key projects.  This includes regular 1:1s, objective setting and collaborative monitoring, and support with development needs.

Person Specification

Technical skills and minimum knowledge:

· Track record of successfully influencing politicians and key decision-makers to achieve strategic goals at different levels of government.

· Track record of delivering strategic public affairs activity based on robust evidence, from development to evaluation.

· Can explain components of effective policy influencing, including knowledge of the machinery and structure of government (UK, devolved, local) and experience of informing campaigns activity to mobilise support for policy change.

· Demonstrates a good understanding of policies that affect UK poverty and hunger.  Can explain policy motivations of main political parties and can advise on how to influence them most effectively.

· Excellent written and oral communication skills, particularly in demonstrating enthusiasm and experience when communicating complex topics to non-specialist audiences.

· Experience of line managing, including dealing with performance issues and supporting team development.

Behaviours and competencies:

· Works collaboratively, managing challenges in a constructive manner

· Balances competing priorities and work to tight deadlines

· Demonstrates a dedication to the values of Trussell

· Demonstrates empathy for people from disadvantages, marginalised or socially excluded backgrounds

· Role models inclusive behaviour, values and leadership

We’re looking for a well-organised person, with excellent attention to detail and a can-do attitude. You will enjoy undertaking a variety of work from project work to administration. You will have gained two-years work experience in grant making, so will be comfortable working with others and will feel confident using IT applications and databases.This role is remotely based, you’ll be in touch with the rest of the team on a daily basis, but you’ll also feel comfortable undertaking tasks yourself and will competently manage your own time.You will also have a passion for our values and our work. If this sounds like you, we’d love to hear from you!

We’re looking for a strategically-minded leader to take forward our work in schools, including managing our new ‘Creating Supportive Environments’ project over the next three years. With knowledge and experience of the secondary school context in particular, the Programme Manager will lead on the development, delivery, and evaluation of new interventions in schools to sit alongside our ongoing delivery of the Rainbow Flag Award in the East of England.

Unifrog’s mission 

We’re on a mission to level the playing field when it comes to young people finding and applying for their next step after school. We're achieving this by bringing all the available information into one single, impartial, user-friendly platform that helps students to make the best choices, and submit the strongest applications. We also empower teachers and counselors to manage the progression process effectively.

Our outlook is global - we work with schools and universities all over the world, from the US to New Zealand, and from Italy to Hong Kong. We want to make it so that young people can compare every opportunity taught in English, wherever it is in the world, and have all the support they need to make successful applications.

We have a clear social purpose, and we’re hugely ambitious. We already work with over half of UK secondary schools, and hundreds of international schools. We are growing rapidly in terms of the number of our customers, in terms of how much they use our platform, and in terms of the breadth of products we offer (check out this video to hear more about the Unifrog platform).

Our team is at the heart of our business and is integral to our success. We work hard to foster a culture of openness, happiness and innovation, and we commit to helping every individual learn and grow so that they can reach their full potential. We want to hire talented people, whatever their background. If you are excited by our mission and are ready to work hard, please don’t hesitate to apply. We look forward to hearing from you!

We believe in the power of diversity. If you are from an ethnic minority background, we would like to strongly encourage you to apply.

Teaching Resources at Unifrog

One of the most important parts of Unifrog is a searchable library of hundreds of teaching resources, covering careers guidance, progression, SEL, and PSHE. 

Each week the lessons are used by tens of thousands of teachers in the UK and around the world. 

We aim for our lessons to be plug-and-play, to be truly educational, to make it easy for schools to make the most of the Unifrog platform, and to be fun even when they deal with difficult subjects. We always try to make the learning as active as possible.

In December 2023, we launched our Courses tool. Students can browse and take short online courses in a range of engaging and challenging topic areas, many of which are created in partnership with universities and employers.

We create courses that fit into five main strands:

• ‘Careers in…’ courses introduce students to a career sector and spotlight a few specific roles within the sector, e.g. ‘Careers in art’. 

• University subject tasters give students an idea of what studying a particular university subject is like, e.g. ‘The complicated reality of criminology’.

• Life skills courses help students prepare for life after school/college, e.g. ‘Preparing for the workplace’.

• Virtual work experience courses combine a series of work-based tasks and live webinars with an employer, e.g. ‘Virtual work experience with the BBC’.

• Teacher/counselor courses help staff members in various roles get the most out of the Unifrog platform.

The role and responsibilities

As Teaching Resources Creator, your main focus will be creating and editing teaching resources and courses. Topics will include:

• Careers guidance

• University, college and apprenticeship applications

• PSHE and SEL

• Skills

• Revision 

• Work experience

You will be expected to create lessons and courses to a high standard, which will involve: 

• Researching the topic

• Producing content in line with our teaching and learning standards and Resource Library handbook 

• Responding to feedback from your line manager, from others on the Unifrog team, from employer/HE partners, and from teachers in our partner schools.

`

What we’re looking for

• Essential: QTS and relevant secondary school teaching experience

You must have Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) and a minimum of 3 years teaching experience across at least two key stages from KS3-5.

• Adept at creating exceptional teaching resources 

Above all else, you need to be brilliant at creating teaching resources, and to love doing it. You will have had significant professional experience creating teaching resources, and delivering them to students.

• Creativity

We want you to come up with great ideas for how to teach topics to students in fun ways.

• Quest for feedback

We want to be as close to our users as possible. You’ll be able to seek out feedback from colleagues, teachers, and students.

• Attention to detail

You will have excellent writing and proofreading skills.

• Ability to work in a team

You’ll regularly ask team members for their input; to do this, you need to be an excellent communicator and team player.

• Ability to work independently

Creating hundreds of brilliant teaching materials is a long-term project that requires organisation, discipline, and resilience.

• Ability to work to tight deadlines

We’re really excited about our upcoming projects. We have a long list of them to get done, and many have strict deadlines. You need to be able to deliver things on time.
 

Working together

You’ll work in our existing Teaching Resources team, which consists of experienced teachers and resource creators. You’ll also be in regular contact with the Written Content team, plus people on our marketing, sales, account management, and strategy teams.

In the Teaching Resources team, we commonly brainstorm new ideas as a group, share insights from our own teaching experiences, provide feedback on other team members’ work, and get feedback from teachers and students at our partner schools.

You’ll be managed by the Head of Teaching Resources.
 

Benefits

Go to our jobs page for a full list of the excellent benefits we offer our team.

• Join one of ‘the best organisations to escape to’ and help transform careers and destinations in schools. We’re also a certified Great Place to Work.

• Become part of a committed, dynamic, and growing company. We want to build our team for the long term: if you do well, we will do our best to make sure you want to stay at the company for a long time.

• Professional development is important at Unifrog. You will define your own 6-month objectives and will be supported by your line manager and the rest of the team to achieve them. You will have an annual training allowance to spend on what you need to grow and progress.

• Influence the company’s direction: we love to promote great ideas, wherever they come from.

• Play a role in democratising access to learning: Unifrog makes a difference in young people’s lives. Every week you’ll have your work in front of hundreds of thousands of students, and tens of thousands of teachers.
   

Key details

• £36,000-£38,000 per annum pro rata (Grade B) and a share in a company-wide performance bonus. 

• 28 days paid holiday per year (plus bank holidays) (pro rata).

• 12 month FTC.

• Full time (please note we are unable to consider part-time applicants).

• Working hours are 9:00am to 5:00pm, Monday to Thursday, and 9:00am to 4:30pm on Friday. 

• Work remotely, or flexibly in our London office.

• Start date: We're looking for someone to start as soon as possible but you must be available from 1st of October at the latest.

• To discuss any details about the role before applying, please contact Mhairi (details on our website).

• We can only consider candidates who have the right to work in the UK.

Application process

• Deadline: 10:00AM (BST) on Tuesday 24th June 2025.

• Stage 1: Application form (~1 hour) ✍️

• Visit our website to upload your CV and complete the questions and tasks below. Please note that we do not review CVs at this stage of the application process so please be as specific as possible about your experience.

• i. With reference to examples of your recent experience, what would make you an excellent candidate for this role? (250 words)

• ii. Upload one complete, standalone lesson PowerPoint on a careers/PSHE/SEL topic of your choice, which fulfils these criteria:

  • 30 minute lesson;

  • Includes notes for teachers delivering the lesson;

  • States the intended secondary year group audience on the first slide;

  • Is well-structured, clear, and written to a high standard; and

  • Supports the teacher in being plug-and-play and informative about the topic you’ve chosen.

  • You can send us an existing lesson PowerPoint, there is no need to create anything new or align your presentation to Unifrog's visual identity. There is also no need to provide accompanying worksheets, handouts, etc.

  • Your presentation can be in either PowerPoint or Google slides format. Please provide a dropbox or google drive link to your presentation, ensuring you have set access permissions to “anyone with the link can view”. 

• iii. We’re creating a course for 14-16 year old students who want to learn more about what it means to be self-employed in the UK. Section 1 of the course, which explains what self-employment is, has already been written.

  • Your task is to write part of Section 2 of the course, which will explain the advantages and disadvantages of being self-employed.

  • Write 250 words to be included in Section 2, either on:

  • the main advantages of being self-employed

  • OR

  • the main disadvantages of being self-employed

  • Feel free to use headings and bullet points to structure your writing. Do not add activities.

• Stage 2: Task (~ 2 hours)

• Stage 3: Video call interview (1 hour) ��

• Standard Q&A from a panel of three, including questions about your experiences and how these relate to the role, and scenario questions based on common situations you might face (plus time for your questions)

• Stage 2 tasks will be scheduled after the application deadline. Video call interviews will be held on 7th July 2025.

• Your answers are an opportunity to let us know more about your motivations and experience. While we understand that candidates might want to use AI to improve parts of their application, we strongly encourage you to write your answers independently. 

• Please note, we compare all answers to an AI generated answer. Where we suspect AI has been used to write the majority of the answer, this will be taken into consideration when scoring

Inclusion and diversity at Unifrog

• Within the company we try to foster a culture of innovation, and a happy working environment, both because this is the right thing to do, and because we think this results in the most effective team. To this end we believe in open communication, celebrating successes, supporting each other, not being afraid to be wrong or to fail, and promoting good ideas wherever they come from.

• As a platform that supports teachers and students from a huge variety of backgrounds it’s important that our team and leadership reflects this diversity. This is something we are actively working towards and prioritising. We want to embed diversity, equity and inclusion across everything we do, continually evaluating policies and practices to make sure they are inclusive and equitable.

• To make sure everyone’s voice is heard and people have the opportunities to learn to be better allies in the workplace, we encourage the team to share what they’re celebrating, facilitate training and group discussions, and seek regular feedback about what more the company could do to help people feel included.

• To ensure that our recruitment process is consistent and fair, we anonymise your application and therefore do not see your name, personal, educational or professional background. We also randomise the order of responses so that it’s less likely that a candidate is advantaged or disadvantaged by where their answers appear compared to other candidates.

The Support Services Co-ordinator provides the key interface between those looking for support and the resources at Lupus UK. 

This is a new role. We have identified the need for a specialist role leading on the delivery and development of our support services, including recruiting and training volunteers to deliver those services. The aim for this role is to create a fully responsive support service for the UK wide lupus community.