Communication assistant jobs in Westminster, greater london
Are you a qualified finance professional who enjoys working in partnership with others to turn financial insight into better decisions? Join Shelter as a Senior Finance Business Partner and play a key role in supporting our directorates to plan, prioritise and deliver work that helps end the housing emergency.
About the role
This role will be leading in the financial business partnering needs of our Income Generation directorate.
Among your responsibilities will be the need to align financial plans to operational and strategic plans and make sure they’re clearly understood by Business Units. Seeing that each Unit is provided with a channel of effective, two-way communication with Finance will be important too. And, when it comes to seeing that they receive regular relevant and useful financial insight and analysis, again, we’ll count on you to deliver. You’ll be working within a great finance department to achieve this, who work as a team of experts to safeguard resources and support decision making across Shelter. We strive to ensure Shelter is financially sustainable in order to achieve our vision of a home for everyone.
Role specifics
We’re looking for a qualified accountant who is confident working with colleagues across an organisation and able to explain financial information clearly to non-finance audiences. You’ll have experience assessing financial risk and producing clear, insightful analysis to support good decision-making. With strong attention to detail, excellent numeracy and solid Excel skills, you’ll be comfortable managing your time, meeting deadlines and reprioritising when needed. Experience of charity finance and working with fundraising teams would be an advantage.
Apply to be part of our team and be the change you want to see in society.
Benefits
We offer a wide range of benefits, including 30 days of annual leave, enhanced family friendly policies, pension and interest free travel loans. Our employees also have access to a tenancy deposit loan, payroll giving, cycle to work scheme and an employee assistance programme.
We are happy to talk about flexible working, personal growth, and to promote a workplace where you can be yourself and achieve success based only on your merit.
About the team
Shelter’s Finance Team sits within the Strategy Enablement Directorate, which also includes HR Operations, Technology and Data, and Governance, Planning and Property. The Finance Team consists of 32 people led by the Assistant Director of Finance.
This role sits within the Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) Team. FP&A produces financial reports and analysis, provides expert advice, and enables collaboration to support effective decision making throughout the charity.
How to Apply
Please click ‘Apply for Job’. You are required to submit your work history and a supporting statement. The supporting statement should include your responses to the points in the ‘About You’ section of the job description of no more than 350 words each.
Please provide specific examples following the STAR format and ensure you demonstrate how you address the behaviours below in your responses:
- We prioritise diversity and have an inclusive and open mindset
Any applications submitted without a supporting statement will not be considered.
About Shelter
Home is a human right. It’s our foundation and where we thrive. Yet everyday millions of people are being devastated by the housing emergency.
We exist to defend the right to a safe home. Because home is everything.
We need ambitious, passionate people to join us. This is your chance to play a part in the fundamental change we are striving to achieve.
Our enemy is the social injustice at the core of the escalating housing emergency. To win this fight, we must be representative of the people we are here to help and those who support our movement. In all our people decisions, we take pride in being inclusive, equitable and transparent. We are committed to combating racism both within and outside Shelter. We welcome you on our journey to becoming truly anti-racist.
Safeguarding statement
Safeguarding is everyone's business. Shelter is committed to protecting the health, wellbeing and human rights of those we support, and enabling them to live free from harm, abuse and neglect. All our staff will be expected to observe professional standards of behaviour and conduct their work in line with our Safeguarding Policies.
Shelter does not accept unsolicited CVs from external recruitment agencies nor accept the fees associated with them.
Thank you!
Using Anonymous Recruitment
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This is a hands-on role that moves between two registers: structured qualitative research with proper analytical underpinning, and fast-turnaround reactive policy work. You will need to be genuinely comfortable in both able to run a multi-month thematic publication and turn around a tight briefing or consultation response within 48-72 hours when a policy window opens.
The role will lead The Difference's qualitative research and insight function, including research workstreams tied to the Difference Schools Partnership's annual thematic priorities, and our Harmful and Abusive Behaviours (HaB) workstream convening a sector council to build a shared framework for how schools understand and respond to peer-on-peer harm. You will produce briefings, evidence submissions and publications, manage external research partners, and work with the CEO, Head of Policy and Communications team to launch research with real impact. The role reports to the Head of Policy and works closely with colleagues across Strategy, Research and Programmes.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead The Difference's qualitative research and insight function, running research workstreams tied to annual DSP thematic priorities and emerging strands on MAT inclusion and LA working
- Design and deliver qualitative research with schools, MATs and local authorities interviews, focus groups, school visits and thematic analysis translating findings into evidence and policy recommendations
- Lead the Harmful and Abusive Behaviours research workstream, convening a sector council, producing briefing material and managing the route from convening to publication
- Produce timely, citable evidence for policy influence including drafting briefings, consultation responses and evidence submissions on fast turnaround
- Project manage publication cycles from scoping through to launch, working with coalition and media partners to maximise reach and tracking policy traction post-launch
- Brief, manage and integrate the outputs of external research partners where commissioned (e.g. FFT Datalab, Pro Bono Economics)
- Capture and develop case studies from DSP schools and the wider Difference network
About The Difference
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Every day, the equivalent of 5,500 children are suspended from England's schools, doubling their likelihood of being NEET by 24. The Difference is a young education charity founded to change this story through whole school inclusion. We train school leaders, carry out our own research, and turn frontline insights into policy recommendations lobbying Ofsted and the Department for Education to improve funding and support for inclusion. Our vision is to see lost learning falling nationally by 2030.
About You
Essential
- Dual capability across reactive and structured research : comfortable producing tight briefings on a 48–72 hour turnaround and running multi-month qualitative publications
- Experience in education research, policy research or applied social research, with examples of published, commissioned or internally-influential work
- Strong qualitative research skills : interview and focus group design, thematic coding, framework development, synthesis across multiple sources
- Persuasive writing for mixed audiences : able to write clearly and concisely for policymakers, school leaders, the press and the sector, and comfortable ghost-writing for senior colleagues
- Project management discipline : able to run multiple workstreams in parallel, manage your own deadlines, and keep colleagues and external partners on track
- Comfortable working at pace in a fast-moving environment where priorities shift as policy windows open and close : self-directed, flexible and able to make good judgement calls under pressure
- Shared values with The Difference and personal commitment to improving life outcomes for young people
Desired
- Strong working understanding of UK education policy, particularly around inclusion, exclusion, SEND, accountability and school improvement
- Confident data literacy and basic quantitative analysis : comfortable interrogating population-level datasets and translating findings into accessible policy language
- Understanding of why language matters when writing about behaviour, exclusion and vulnerability, and the ability to frame behaviour as a signal of unmet need consistently across all work
- Lived experience or insight into the school experiences of marginalised young people
- Experience of working in or with schools, multi-academy trusts or local authorities
- Existing relationships in education research, policy or sector organisations
Please see the attached Job Description for full role details and person specification.
We are committed to building a diverse team and strongly encourage applications from under-represented groups in the charity sector. As part of our commitment to fairer recruitment, all applications will be assessed with names and protected characteristics redacted.
Registered Charity
21 - 50
The Difference exists to improve the life-outcomes of the most vulnerable children by raising the status and expertise of those who educate them.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.