Communications jobs in Reading, west berkshire

Job Title: Equipment Advice and Outreach Officer

Reports to: Chief Executive / Practice Lead

Contract: Fixed term, 18 months

Hours: Part-time, approximately 22.5 hours per week (0.6 FTE)

Location: Home-based in England, with regular travel across a large region and occasional overnight stays

Salary: £20,556 (Full-time equivalent salary (FTE): £34,259)

About Pathfinders Neuromuscular Alliance

Pathfinders Neuromuscular Alliance is a user-led charity run by and for people with muscle-weakening conditions. We provide advocacy, peer support, information, training and campaigning to help disabled people live with greater confidence, connection and control.

We are developing a new service model to help adults with neuromuscular conditions identify practical needs relating to equipment, adaptations and wider day-to-day transitions, and to connect them to people with relevant lived-experience expertise.

Purpose of the Role

The Outreach and Practitioner–Evaluator will help Pathfinders identify adults with neuromuscular conditions who may benefit from practical support around equipment, adaptations and wider day-to-day challenges.

The role is not primarily to provide complex specialist advice directly. Instead, the postholder will:

• build relationships with services and organisations to identify potential clients
• hold structured conversations to understand people’s needs
• offer initial information, practical resources and signposting
• connect people to Pathfinders’ lived-experience specialists where more specific insight is needed
• support the development of reusable lived-experience resources, including short videos, blogs and written guidance
• collect routine feedback and help document and evaluate the service

Pathfinders’ lived-experience specialists are people with direct personal experience of neuromuscular conditions and of specific issues, transitions or practical solutions. A key part of this role is helping people access that expertise.

The role is to help people make sense of what might help, what routes may be available, and who they may need to speak to next. It is not to guarantee that equipment will be obtained, but to improve people’s understanding, preparedness and access to relevant expertise and pathways.

Main Responsibilities

1. Outreach and relationship-building

• Build and maintain relationships with clinics, hospices, charities, networks and other relevant services.
• Travel regularly to external settings to identify potential clients and raise awareness of the service.
• Confidently approach professionals, families and individuals to explain the offer and encourage engagement.
• Help create practical referral and engagement routes into the service.
• Prioritise outreach activity in line with project aims and agreed target regions.

2. Needs identification and support coordination

• Hold 1-to-1 conversations with adults with neuromuscular conditions and, where appropriate, family members or supporters, to identify practical needs relating to equipment, adaptations and wider day-to-day challenges.
• Provide initial information, signposting and relevant resources within agreed boundaries.
• Recognise when an issue would benefit from connection to a Pathfinders lived-experience specialist and facilitate that connection.
• Recognise when an issue requires statutory or clinical input and support onward referral or escalation where appropriate.
• Work with Pathfinders staff to help ensure people are connected to the most appropriate source of practical or professional support.

3. Working with lived-experience specialists and resource development

• Work with freelance lived-experience specialists to identify practical solutions, insights and examples relevant to the issues raised by service users.
• Support and encourage lived-experience specialists to share their expertise in accessible ways.
• Help coordinate and develop practical resources based on lived-experience knowledge, including short videos, blogs and written guidance.
• Contribute to ensuring these resources are accessible, organised and responsive to recurring needs identified through the service.

4. Documentation and evaluation support

• Maintain accurate records of outreach activity, contacts, needs identified, resources shared, onward connections and follow-up.
• Support the collection of routine feedback, including post-support forms and short follow-up conversations.
• Use agreed templates and systems to document contacts clearly and consistently.
• Share reflections and emerging themes with the team to support ongoing learning, evaluation and service development.

5. Teamworking and service development

• Participate in regular supervision, planning and reflective review meetings.
• Work collaboratively with the Chief Executive, Advocacy Officer, freelance lived-experience specialists and external partners.
• Contribute to the refinement of service processes, boundaries and referral pathways.
• Support dissemination of learning through briefings, webinars or other outputs as required.

Additional Requirements

• Regular travel across England is required, typically around once per week, with priority given to areas closest to the postholder’s base in the first instance. 
• Some travel may involve overnight stays.
• The postholder must have access to and use of a car for work purposes, although train travel may be used for some visits.
• Travel expenses and mileage will be reimbursed in line with organisational policy.

Person Specification

Essential

• Confident, outgoing and comfortable starting conversations with new people in professional and community settings.
• Experience of outreach, community engagement, advice, advocacy, support work or case coordination.
• Strong organisational skills and confidence managing follow-up, coordination and documentation.
• Comfortable using forms, spreadsheets, databases or case-recording systems and completing paperwork accurately.
• Familiarity with equipment, adaptations or practical support issues affecting disabled people.
• Ability to identify needs and know when to seek support, connect someone to lived-experience expertise, or refer on.
• Strong communication skills and a sensitive, respectful approach with service users, families and professionals.
• Ability to work independently while remaining well connected to a small team.
• Able and willing to travel regularly across England, including occasional overnight stays.
• Access to and use of a car for work purposes.
• Commitment to inclusion, dignity and user-led practice.

Desirable

• Experience of working alongside people with lived experience to co-produce support or resources.
• Experience of gathering feedback or supporting service evaluation.
• Knowledge of health or social care systems.
• Personal or close lived experience of disability or long-term conditions.

We are aiming to recruit immediately for this role with the first round of interviews on 1st June, but will conduct further interviews if necessary until we identify a suitable candidate.

Product Lead – HOSTHub  

(Operational Product Delivery) 

Reports to: Operations Director (Head of Delivery) 
Contract: 1.0 FTE (Temp to Perm) 
Location: Remote (UK or International) 

Role Purpose 

The Product Lead – HOSTHub is responsible for identifying, prioritising, and resolving day-to-day product challenges across HOST’s digital platform. 

HOSTHub serves as the operational backbone of the organisation, enabling delivery across finance, legal, partnerships, and hosted partner services. In this role, the Product Lead ensures the platform functions effectively in practice—by understanding user needs, surfacing issues early, and driving the design, prioritisation, and rapid delivery of solutions. 

While contributing to the longer-term product vision in collaboration with the leadership team and development partners, the primary focus remains on operational product delivery. This includes managing fortnightly sprint cycles, maintaining a dynamic and prioritised backlog, and ensuring continuous alignment between user requirements, internal processes, and platform capabilities. 

The role requires a highly hands-on individual who thrives at the intersection of users, internal teams, and developers, with the ability to translate real-world challenges into clear, actionable product decisions. 

Core Responsibilities 

1. Product Problem Identification and Prioritisation 

Lead the ongoing identification of friction points, inefficiencies, and system gaps across HOSTHub use cases, including those impacting hosted partners, funders, and internal staff workflows. 

Maintain a dynamic, prioritised backlog of product issues and enhancements, informed by user insight and operational impact. 

Work closely with delivery teams across finance, legal, partnerships, and community support to understand how the platform performs in practice and where it falls short of user needs. 

Translate operational challenges into clear, well-defined product requirements that are actionable for development teams. 

Ensure prioritisation is driven by delivery urgency, risk exposure, and opportunities for efficiency, rather than abstract feature development. 

2. Sprint Management and Delivery Execution 

Own the end-to-end delivery of the product, managing fortnightly sprint cycles. 

Set sprint priorities, create and refine tickets, and ensure all development work is well-scoped, logically sequenced, and ready for delivery. 

Collaborate directly with development contractors to run sprint planning, stand-ups (where applicable), and sprint reviews. 

Validate completed work against real user workflows before release to ensure quality and usability. 

Maintain clear visibility of progress, risks, and dependencies, escalating blockers and trade-offs to the Operations Director as needed. 

Provide bi-weekly sprint reports outlining delivered outcomes, outstanding issues, and upcoming priorities. 

3. User Engagement and Feedback Loops 

Establish continuous feedback loops with both internal users (staff teams) and external stakeholders (hosted partners and funders). 

Conduct structured user conversations to understand how systems are used in practice, not just how they were designed to be used. 

Validate proposed solutions with users prior to development where appropriate, ensuring alignment with real needs. 

Ensure user insights consistently inform backlog prioritisation and shape sprint scope. 

Maintain a clear view of user satisfaction grounded in qualitative feedback, not just survey-based metrics. 

4. Cross-Team Operational Alignment 

Act as the central point of coordination across product, delivery teams, and external developers. 

Ensure HOSTHub effectively supports real operational workflows across key service areas, including Project Hosting, Hosted Grantmaking, and Capacity Building. 

Partner closely with Finance, Legal, and Partnerships teams to align system functionality with compliance, contractual, and reporting requirements. 

Identify and resolve misalignments between team processes and platform functionality, either by adapting the system or clarifying and standardising ways of working. 

5. Development Oversight  

Manage the day-to-day relationship with the development team, ensuring requirements are clear and issues are addressed promptly. 

Ensure all development outputs are practical, functional, and aligned with real operational needs. 

Avoid over-specification and unnecessary complexity, prioritising simple, implementable solutions. 

Track defects, rework, and technical debt, incorporating them into sprint priorities where they have a meaningful operational impact. 

6. Data, Workflow, and System Effectiveness 

Ensure HOSTHub captures and delivers data that is accurate, actionable, and aligned with reporting requirements. 

Identify and implement opportunities to automate key workflows, reducing manual effort across teams. 

Partner with internal stakeholders to ensure system logic supports compliance and audit requirements in day-to-day operations. 

Maintain clear, practical documentation of key workflows and system behaviours to support effective operational use. 

7. Risk, Compliance, and System Integrity 

Work closely with the Legal Lead and Operations Director to ensure product decisions do not introduce unmanaged risk. 

Prioritise data protection, security, and system reliability as core product considerations. 

Ensure compliance requirements, including data protection and financial controls, are embedded in how the platform operates in practice. 

Take clear ownership of system incidents or failures, coordinating response and ensuring timely resolution and follow-through. 

8. Contribution to Product Direction 

Contribute to longer-term product thinking, including roadmap development and the ongoing evolution of the system. 

Provide grounded input to strategy based on observed user behaviour, operational constraints, and delivery realities. 

Ensure product direction remains focused on solutions that are practical, scalable, and genuinely valuable to users. 

Key Relationships 

Internal: Operations Director, Finance Team, Legal Lead, Partnerships Director, Community Support Team, Data Analyst, Training Lead. 

External: Developers, technical providers, hosted partners, funders. 

Performance Indicators 

Reliable delivery against sprint commitments, with a clear connection to resolved operational issues. 

Reduction in recurring user-reported problems across key workflows. 

Demonstrable improvements in system usability and efficiency for internal teams and hosted partners. 

A well-maintained backlog with clear, transparent prioritisation rationale. 

Strong alignment between platform functionality and operational delivery needs. 

Timely identification and effective resolution of system risks and critical defects. 

Required Experience 

5–8 years’ experience in hands-on product management or product delivery roles, with clear ownership of day-to-day execution. 

Proven experience managing sprint cycles and working directly with developers to deliver iterative improvements. 

Strong track record of identifying user needs and translating them into effective product solutions. 

Experience working with complex operational systems involving multiple user groups and workflows. 

Ability to operate effectively in environments with evolving and loosely defined requirements. 

Comfortable working across technical and non-technical teams, acting as a practical bridge between them. 

Familiarity with system integrations, workflow tools, and data-driven platforms (e.g. CRM systems, finance platforms automation tools) 

Strong prioritisation skills, with the ability to balance urgency, impact, and feasibility. 

Clear, structured communication style, enabling effective coordination and delivery clarity across teams. 

About The Role

Every day at Alzheimer’s Society, people affected by dementia come to us for support, information and hope. A carer looking for advice late at night. A family trying to understand a diagnosis. A supporter wanting to fund change. Digital plays a huge part in helping people find what they need, when they need it most.

We’re looking for a Digital Campaigns and Optimisation Manager to help shape those experiences.

This role is about making our digital channels feel clear, accessible and human. You’ll help create better online journeys across campaigns, content and platforms, making it easier for people to access support, connect with our work and take action.

You’ll work closely with colleagues across fundraising, marketing and digital, bringing together creativity, insight and empathy to improve how we engage with people online. Whether you’re designing a website journey, improving campaign performance or using data to spot opportunities, your work will help create digital experiences that genuinely make a difference.
We’re looking for someone who shares our values. Someone who cares about inclusion, believes in working together and wants to use digital to create positive change for people affected by dementia.

What you’ll do
You’ll help bring our digital activity to life, making sure the experiences we create are useful, engaging and easy to access for everyone.
In this role, you will:

- Deliver and improve digital campaigns, content and user journeys across our platforms, including the Society’s main website and fundraising platforms.
- Use insight, feedback and testing to understand what people need and improve their online experience.
- Work with teams across the organisation to support campaigns and digital projects from idea through to delivery.
- Use tools like Google Analytics 4 to track performance, spot opportunities and guide decisions.
- Help make sure our digital content is accessible, inclusive and user focused.
- Support a culture of continuous improvement, collaboration and learning within the team.

No two days will look the same. One day you might be improving a donation journey to help raise vital funds. The next, you could be helping make support content easier for someone with dementia or their family to find and understand.

About you
You’re someone who cares about creating digital experiences that work well for real people. You enjoy solving problems, improving journeys and working with others to make things better.

- Improving digital content, websites or user journeys to help people find what they need and take action.
- Supporting or managing people as part of a positive and collaborative team.
- Using CMS platforms such as Drupal, WordPress, Umbraco or similar systems to manage website content.
- Working in agile or flexible ways, with the ability to adapt and keep improving things over time.
- Using data and tools like Google Analytics 4 to understand what’s working well and where digital experiences can be improved.

You’ll also bring strong communication and organisational skills, an understanding of accessible and inclusive digital content, and a genuine passion for creating great online experiences.

At Alzheimer’s Society, you’ll be part of a team that is determined to make a difference where it matters most.

Interviews are provisionally scheduled to take place on the week commencing 22nd June via MS Teams.

About Alzheimer's Society
Dementia is the UK's biggest killer. One in three people born in the UK today will develop dementia in their lifetime.

At Alzheimer's Society, we're the UK's leading dementia charity and the only one to tackle all aspects of dementia by giving help and hope to people living with dementia today and in the future. We give vital support to people facing the most frightening times of their lives, while also funding groundbreaking research and campaigning to make dementia the priority it should be.

Together with our supporters, we're working towards a world where dementia no longer devastates lives.

Our values make sure that our focus is clear for the challenges and opportunities ahead and remind us of what we all stand for.

Our commitment to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging

We need to ensure the voices around our table better reflect and understand the communities we exist to serve. We strongly encourage individuals to apply who have a disability, impairment or health condition or individuals who identify as Black, Asian or from another minority ethnic background, as these groups are currently under-represented at Alzheimer's Society.  

We want everyone we work with, as a colleague, volunteer, supporter, or someone we support, to feel included and that they belong at Alzheimer's Society. 

Our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy here along with our internal employee forum and Employee Lived Experience network groups help us promote inclusion and belonging, becoming an engaged and inclusive organisation for all our people. 

Our hiring process

During your recruitment process we want to make sure that you bring your whole self and can be at your best. We are working hard to ensure our recruitment process is as inclusive as possible, so please do inform us of your experience and anything you think we could do better by completing our candidate survey when you apply.  Please also contact Alzheimer's Society Talent Acquisition Team via [email protected] for application support or any adjustments you might need.

To ensure fairness and consistency to select the best candidate for this role, all our applications are anonymised up until an interview has been confirmed. We recognise the benefits of AI, but if you're considering using it to submit your application, we encourage you to reflect on the value it truly adds. AI tools often lack the personal touch and authenticity that set candidates apart. We want to hear your unique perspective, experiences, and skills, so we encourage you to showcase them in your own voice.

We try to avoid closing roles early where possible, however if we receive a high volume of applications, we may close earlier than the advertised closing date. Should this occur, we will aim to provide you with at least 48 hours' notice.

We are committed to safer recruitment and ensuring the welfare of those we work with, due to the nature of some of our roles, we might need to carry out a Criminal Record Check at the relevant level. You can read more information via our Website.

Giving back to you

Our employees work hard every day to make a true difference in people's lives. We are proud to support them with a range of benefits, recognition and many options for working agilely, all contributing to a strong work life balance. We also have various learning programmes to support you in your development and help you grow to realise your potential and shape a career with Alzheimer's Society. 

You can also visit our Working for Us pages, which give you more information about what it's like to be an employee at the Society.

Are you passionate about supporting children, young people and adults who are autistic and/or have a learning disability? 

We are seeking to recruit a highly skilled Key Worker for our Key Worker Service in East Berkshire. The role is diverse and service user centred. It would suit someone with significant experience in supporting young people and young adults with autism and Learning Disabilities and their families.

The day-to-day work will involve a flexible approach to coordination and direct support for the young person and their family, as well as providing responsive communication at times of increased need. This is an exciting role which allows for the Key Worker to support families to navigate the system whilst advocating for them and ensuring that their voice is heard.

There will be opportunities for collaboration and co-production - our vision is to provide young person and family centred support, whilst influencing system change to achieve better outcomes for more children, young people and adults under the age of 25.

The service will be provided across the entire East Berkshire footprint covering Slough, Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, Bracknell Forest.Although the team is “virtual”, there will be frequent (weekly) travel within and across the East Berkshire area, therefore being a car driver with access to a car is essential, as well as being based near the local area. 

The Key Working Function has been developed as a response to the NHS England & NHS Improvement Long Term Plan (LTP) commitment that by 2023/24, children and young people with a learning disability, autism, or both, with the most complex needs will have a designated Key Worker, applying the recommendations made by Dame Christine Lenehan in ‘These are our Children'. The East Berkshire Key Worker Service has been established since 2023 and continues to develop and evolve. 

We are looking for someone who:

• has significant experience of working with individuals with Learning Disabilities and/or who are Autistic as well as their families.
• has an understanding of mental health and how this may impact this service user group 
• Is tenacious and passionate about advocating for our families, whilst respectfully challenging professionals and working collaboratively with other agencies
• Able to complete frequent visits to service users and have the ability to be flexible to complete visits/meetings at short notice within working hours across the East Berkshire area

A Barnardo's Project Worker 3 job description and person specification is attached to the advert for this role. This is a generic role description in use throughout the organisation to cover all roles at the given salary band. The Additional Information Sheet outlines the specific responsibilities, skills and experience required and it is important that you read this carefully before you apply.

When completing your application form, please refer to the skills, knowledge and experience required as detailed in the Person Specification and also in the Additional Information Sheet. This should be done with an understanding of the context of the service described.

Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date. We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible.

Where a role is advertised as fixed term, we are happy to consider secondment opportunities. Please discuss this with your line manager and the hiring manager for the role.

Pay & Reward Framework

We know that our colleagues go above and beyond in delivering our vital work, driven by their passion and commitment to Barnardo's values.  We also know that we can only realise our ambitions and achieve better outcomes for more children, thanks to the talent, hard work and creativity of our people. 

For all these reasons, we are committed to a new approach to pay and reward, to ensure it is fair, attractive and progressive, which was rolled out in April 2023. This is a positive change for the charity, and a part of our People & Culture Strategy. It will assist us in supporting colleagues to belong, thrive and grow in their colleague journey at Barnardo's and in time will offer clear routes of progression for colleagues in both their career and their pay. 

Whilst the full pay band and salary range is advertised, our approach to starting salaries is to appoint between the minimum to mid-point of the pay band – this ensures that pay steps are available to reward our colleagues annually based on their contribution to excellence and alignment to our values and behaviours.  More details on Barnardo's pay framework can be found upon application. 

Benefits

Workplace Offer: What it means for you

Our hybrid working initiative is based on trust, flexibility and empowerment. We understand our workplace offer means different things to different people, and we encourage those conversations. This may mean working at one of our stores, services, working at home, in the community, at one of our Collaboration Hubs or depending on the role any combination of these. Please read through the advert carefully to understand the remits of hybrid working that will be specific to the role.

Barnardo's require colleagues to be UK residents, based in the UK and to complete their roles from within the UK (with the exception of colleagues providing Barnardo's services in Jersey and colleagues who live in the Republic of Ireland providing services in Northern Ireland)

• Barnardo's believe in creating equality of opportunity in the workplace and supporting people to manage their work-life balance; we are therefore open to offering flexible working arrangements.
• Annual Leave entitlement for full-time colleagues is 26 days per annum, increasing to 27 days per annum, after 3 years Barnardo's service, 29 days per annum, after 5 years Barnardo's service and 30 days per annum, after 7 years Barnardo's service. Those working less than full time are entitled to the same level of holiday pro rata
• The ability to buy up to another 5 days annual leave via our Buy Your Leave scheme
• A host of family friendly leave options including company Maternity Paternity and Adoption pay; together with all family additional leave options
• Service related sick pay from day 1
• Access to a Group Personal Pension with a matched 4% or 6% contribution from Barnardo's. Ability to pay via salary sacrifice to garner both tax and NI savings on your own contribution
• Death in service cover of 4x annual earnings for all staff contributing to our Group Personal Pension
• Cycle2work scheme
• Interest free season ticket loans
• Discounts and cashback from at high street shops including major supermarkets, cinemas, gyms, leisure/theme parks, holidays and much more via our Benefit Portal
• 20% discount at Barnardo's stores
• Opportunity to purchase a health cash plan to claim towards dental, glasses, therapy etc
• Free access to round the clock employee assistance program for advice and support
• Access to Barnardo's Learning and Development offer

*T&C's apply based on contract

About Barnardo's

We are committed to being an inclusive employer and cultivating a culture where everyone can belong and thrive through inclusion and connectivity. We want our workforce to be reflective of the communities we work with, and for equality, diversity and inclusion to be embedded in everything we do. We are a Disability Confident Leader, are progressing our ambition to be an anti-racist organisation with Anti-Racism Commitments and actions in place and have networks for colleagues who are disabled, LGBT+, Black and Minoritised Ethnic and Women. We particularly encourage applications from Black and Minoritised Ethnic and/or disabled candidates who are currently underrepresented in our workforce. For disabled applicants, we offer reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process.

Our basis and values