Public Affairs Officer

About us

Humane Society International/UK (HSI/UK) is part of Humane Society International, a global animal protection organisation striving for a better future for animals through advocacy, education, and hands-on programmes. In the UK, we are an effective voice for animals running campaigns in wildlife protection, the fur trade, and farmed animal welfare, backed by hundreds of thousands of supporters across the country. A small but effective team, HSI/UK has big ambitions to create further positive change for animals both here in the UK and around the world. 

About the position 

Responsible for supporting the effective delivery of HSI/UK’s public affairs advocacy, this role is an exciting opportunity to create lasting change at scale. The role will involve providing public affairs and policy support for all of HSI/UK's priority campaigns, including bans on imports of hunting trophies and fur, a ban on the use of farrowing crates for pigs, and adoption of plant-forward policies in public sector procurement. The role will also help identify new and reactive opportunities to improve public policy for animal protection in the UK. 

If you are results-oriented, persuasive, organised and have strong proven experience as a public affairs professional then we would like to hear from you. 

Key areas of responsibility 

• Support the creation and delivery of public affairs and policy change strategies for HSI/UK’s priority campaigns; 
• Work with Senior Manager, Public Affairs and campaigns teams to deliver timely dissemination of HSI/UK’s briefing and policy outputs to targeted policy and political stakeholders; Help monitor the national policy and political landscape, including parliamentary inquiries, consultations, written and oral questions, party political policy positions and government announcements, in order to recommend and draft responses; 
• Support the creation of high-quality written outputs for various public affairs and policy audiences, including policy briefings, blogs and consultation responses; 
• Contribute as an effective user of HSI/UK’s political monitoring tools and database, to inform political stakeholder relationship development and management; 
• Help create stakeholder maps and relationship development strategies for key policy-making stakeholders for each of HSI/UK’s priority campaigns to strengthen HSI/UK’s influence and reputation in the civil service, government, and parliament; 
• Support HSI/UK events and communications by helping to organise high quality parliamentary and public affairs events, assisting with responses to public affairs and policy inquiries, and representing HSI/UK at political and other relevant meetings pertinent to HSI’s campaigns; 
• Report regularly on progress against agreed public affairs goals and metrics. 

About you 

Our successful candidate will be confident, articulate, and positive with a proven track record in leveraging positive change in the public affairs/policy space. A proactive self-starter, you will have demonstrable experience of providing effective public affairs and policy support to help achieve political goals, and a solution-focused approach to overcoming obstacles.  

You will have excellent oral and written communication skills, a keen understanding of the UK political landscape, and experience of building strong, trust-based, strategic relationships with political and policy stakeholders in order to deliver agreed goals, and you will ideally bring a network of positive relationships with you.  

You will have ambition and drive for creating positive change for animal welfare; a willingness to constantly learn and to help deliver the most impactful, cost-effective, audience-tailored advocacy to politicians and policymakers; and your work will be solidly underpinned by regular evaluation of progress and impact with a view to further improving strategies. 

We are searching for a public affairs professional to make a difference and be part of our successful and friendly team. If that is you, please get in touch! 

To apply 

Please submit your CV and a covering letter by 11pm Sunday 3 March. 

The full application process will involve: 

CV and covering letter  

Brief written exercise  

Interview (via video call)  

Reference Check