Partnership manager jobs in Cowley, oxfordshire

Reports toDirector of External Relations

Hours37.5 hours per week 

Salary£56,959.05 - £63,886.54

ContractFixed Term Contract - 12 Months

LocationRemote (with occasional travel across UK) 

BenefitsA generous package including 25 days holiday per year plus public holidays, employee pension scheme with 4% employer contribution, Cycle2Work scheme, 365 days a year Employee Assistance Programme 

About SafeLives

We are SafeLives, the UK-wide charity dedicated to ending domestic abuse, for everyone, for good.

We work with organisations across the UK to transform the response to domestic abuse. We want what you would want for your best friend. We listen to survivors, putting their voices at the heart of our thinking. We look at the whole picture for each individual and family to get the right help at the right time to make families everywhere safe and well. And we challenge perpetrators to change, asking ‘why doesn’t he stop?’ rather than ‘why doesn’t she leave?’ This applies whatever the gender of the victim or perpetrator and whatever the nature of their relationship.

Last year alone, we delivered more than 700 sessions to over 15,000 learners across the UK in policing, health, housing, justice, education and the specialist sector. And we have reached 90,000 adult and 100,000 child survivors through programmes designed and delivered with partners.

In the last 9 years, close to 7,000 perpetrators have been challenged and supported to change through flagship interventions developed by our Drive Partnership and the programme continues to expand year on year.

Together we can end domestic abuse. Forever. For everyone.

Description

You will provide strong and steady leadership for SafeLives’ communications, marketing and public affairs work over the next year, communicating our Whole Picture Strategy, finding what works and helping it happen to end domestic abuse for everyone for good.

You will shape and deliver strategic communications and influencing work to reach decision-makers, strengthen public trust, and support our mission to drive real change in the UK’s domestic abuse response.

You will be able bring to together robust data, the voice of survivors, and the view of practice experts to position SafeLives at the centre of the conversation with professionals, key policy and decision makers and influencers as a credible and trusted voice.

You’ll lead a cross-functional team of comms, marketing and public affairs colleagues to:

• Strengthen core messaging and consistency around our Whole Picture strategy and the WP Framework, to support delivery and impact
• maintain our communications and marketing and our brand
• provide oversight of our influencing through policy and public affairs, working with senior colleagues where escalation is required
• support income generation through targeted marketing, and support for fundraising
• ensure we are sharing evidence, data and research in support of our strategy

You will connect reactive work with long-term strategic priorities, ensuring our external engagement supports our strategic priorities, policy goals, and income generation ambitions. And you will lead high-quality responses to breaking news and emerging issues, providing clear strategic advice to the Senior Leadership Team and acting as a trusted lead on reputational risk.

You will ensure SafeLives is visible, authoritative and survivor-centred in public and policy conversations, with timely responses, briefings and support, ensuring our communications and influencing are clear, consistent and drive impact.

You will work with our training, practice, and fundraising teams to drive our business development and income generation, as well as helping us to understand all our audiences and better meet their needs.

And as part of the Operational Management Team (OMT), you’ll work closely with colleagues to ensure an inclusive and supportive organisational culture, role modelling our values.

Undertake any other duties as may reasonably be required.

Responsibilities

1. Leadership

·Provide calm, structured and values-led leadership across the Comms, Marketing and Public Affairs team.

·Ensure reliable systems, processes and workflows for communications, marketing and public affairs.

·Set expectations, priorities and working rhythms that bring stability and clarity to the team.

·Promote a supportive, inclusive and collaborative culture with clear communication channels.

2. Core Narrative, Messaging and Evidence Sharing

·Lead the development of SafeLives’ core messages, ensuring they are used consistently across all teams, and the development of our influencing asks.

·Translate SafeLives’ research, data and evidence into accessible, impactful content for external audiences, including practitioners, policy and decision makers.

·Ensure all outputs are survivor‑centred, values‑aligned and evidence‑led

·Develop our brand to reflect our approach to equity, equality, diversity and inclusion and in line with our values - human, rigorous, brave and inclusive.

·Oversee production of communications, marketing and policy materials that help to amplify our Whole Picture strategy and our related priorities.

3. Communications and Media Leadership

·Lead SafeLives’ overall communications strategy and activity.

·Oversee media relations, with strong focus on clear messaging and reputational resilience.

·Implement rapid-response and crisis‑comms protocols with clear escalation to Directors.

·Lead the development and management of our website, digital channels and content strategy.

·Ensure SafeLives is timely, authoritative and survivor‑centred in its external interventions.

4. Marketing and Audience Engagement

·Lead marketing strategy to support:

·Statutory and voluntary income generation

·Training uptake

·Consultancy and practice development

·Fundraising and supporter engagement

·Strengthen audience insight, segmentation and targeting.

·Oversee campaigns that bring SafeLives’ strategy and evidence to life and drive measurable action.

·Ensure that communication and marketing resources are used effectively to support business development.

5. Public Affairs and Policy

·Provide strategic alignment between SafeLives’ core messaging and evidence sharing and our influencing work

·Ensure public affairs activities and outputs (briefings, consultations, correspondence) are clear, accurate and consistent with SafeLives’ communications approach.

·Maintain awareness of political and policy developments relevant to SafeLives’ mission, advising Directors on risks and opportunities for influencing, working with colleagues across the organisation to develop policy.

·Senior level engagement will be led by Directors, as needed, with this role and the public affairs team leading stakeholder engagement and supporting preparation, messaging and follow‑up.

6. Planning, Governance and Performance

·Lead forward planning for all communications, marketing and public affairs activity.

·Set realistic, measurable KPIs that support the delivery of our comms and influencing strategy and our income generation.

·Embed continuous improvement processes and ensure compliance with GDPR and data protection.

·Oversee budgets for communications, marketing and public affairs, ensuring value for money and resource prioritisation.

7. Authentic Voice

·Ensure that the voices, experiences and priorities of survivors remain at the heart of all external communications.

·Support colleagues and Pioneers who use lived experience in SafeLives’ work in a trauma‑informed and respectful way.

Person Specification

Experience

·Strategic communications, including influencing, brand/profile raising, media relations and reputation management in complex, high profile environments (E)

·Media relations, including securing high quality coverage and rapid-response experience (E)

·Developing and delivering effective communications and marketing cmapaigns, including support for fundraising and income generation (E)

·Digital communications across owned, earned and paid media (E)

·Experience using data, research and evidence to inform communications, influencing and storytelling (E)

·Understanding of public affairs or policy environments within the social sector (D/E)

·Leadership and people development, ideally across multi-disciplinary teams (E)

·Influencing professional and policy audiences through clear, impactful communications, information and guidance (E)

·Working with people affected by domestic abuse to support storytelling and influence change (D)

Skills

·Confident in providing strategic communications advice aligned with organisational strategy and policy priorities (E)

·Exceptional written, oral and influencing skills, including excellent writing and editing ability (E)

·Strong political and media awareness

·Excellent judgement under pressure, making sound, values‑led decisions at pace (E)

·Ability to turn complex and fast‑moving information into clear messaging for different audiences, particularly professional and policy maker audiences (E)

·Strong issue and risk management in sensitive public contexts (E)

·Excellent digital and social media skills (E)

·Strong analytical skills to design and deliver campaigns (E)

·Numerate, with experience preparing and managing budgets (E)

·Strong planning, prioritisation and ability to meet multiple deadlines (E)

·Able to identify problems early and propose solutions (E)

·Commitment to equity, equality, diversity and inclusion (E)

·Commitment to ending domestic abuse (E)

Competencies

Leadership, organisational and strategic awareness 

·Inspires trust and confidence in others 

·Commitment to SafeLives’ values – Human, Rigorous, Inclusive and Brave - underpins all actions and decisions 

·Remains calm, decisive and collaborative in fast-moving situations, while maintaining message clarity, survivor focus and organisational credibility

·Demonstrates an understanding of how your own role contributes to achieving SafeLives’ goals 

·Is responsive to change which helps achieve goals

·Pursues tasks/goals with energy, drive and need for completion 

Teamwork & collaboration 

·Fosters an inclusive working environment so that others can contribute effectively 

·Supports colleagues in demanding situations, recognises the importance of well-being in self and others, accepts help and support from other team members 

·Listens to the views of others and shows flexibility in working with collective decisions 

People management and decision making 

·Ability to lead and manage effective teams and create an inventive, responsible and generous team culture 

·Strong focus on quality, performance and impact 

·Coaches staff to reach their full potential 

·Makes effective decisions on a timely basis 

·Judgement and problem solving is based on identifying outcomes and victim focus 

Communications and relationship management 

·Communicate with energy and direction 

·Ability to build strong and effective relationships with key internal and external stakeholders 

·Promote and contribute to cross team working 

·Speaks and writes clearly and effectively and in a timely manner, tailoring communication to suit the audience 

·Maintains confidentiality 

Delivering quality 

·Self-starter with the ability to use initiative and judgement to identify problems and propose solutions 

·Excellent organisational skills including the ability to manage multiple projects and meet tight deadlines 

·Takes responsibility for own workload, acts on own initiative, seeks feedback from others, evaluates own performance and then acts upon it 

·Tries out new ideas and ways of working and identifies and shares learning 

Influence 

·Inspires confidence and trust– demonstrating high standards of integrity, honesty and fairness 

·Actively engages the knowledge, ideas and contributions of others 

·Uses appropriate techniques to influence others 

About us

Foxglove is a non-profit that exists to make the use of technology fair for all. When Big Tech companies abuse their power, their workers or the planet – and when governments use technology to oppress, exclude or discriminate – we litigate and campaign to fix it.  

Big Tech companies have become so large – gobbling up a huge slice of the global marketplace and an unprecedented treasure hoard of user data – that they’re now more powerful than many states. The harmful effects of this concentration of power are everywhere – threats to our democracy, to our privacy, decimated workers’ rights and platforms rife with disinformation and hate. Big Tech and AI data centres are rapidly expanding, resulting in huge strain on energy and water supplies. Worldwide governments are ploughing ahead with the use of algorithms and mass data systems to cut costs and increase efficiency often resulting in digital tools that entrench unfairness and leave the most vulnerable in society in crisis. All these problems are only getting worse with generative AI.

Foxglove works to bring the rule of law to the tech and AI giants who have upended our public square, workplaces, and social lives. We have a strong track record. We’ve launched landmark cases seeking structural changes to big tech’s harmful business models, supported 180+ Facebook content moderators fired for trying to form a union to sue Facebook and their outsourcing company, Sama – winning world-first judgements. We're urging competition regulators worldwide to stop Google’s theft of independent news. We’ve filed the UK’s first legal challenge to a data centre permission decision, forced disclosure of secret contracts between tech giants and the NHS, stopped a racist Home Office visa streaming algorithm, helped make grading fair for UK A-level students and challenged the Department of Work and Pension’s use of an algorithm unfairly flagging disabled people for benefit fraud investigations.   

We are a small but growing team of lawyers, communications experts, and campaigners. We are a CIC, not a practising law firm. We partner with legal firms on cases, directing litigation in multiple jurisdictions. Our work is global, and we work in partnership with lawyers, civil society, unions, and people impacted by Big Tech.

About you

You are a highly experienced lawyer with a strong interest in using the law to hold governments and companies to account. You see the law as a tool for structural change, not just individual wins. You think strategically about how litigation, campaigning, and coalition-building can work together. You appreciate the value and impact of movements and are as comfortable drafting legal arguments as you are speaking to a journalist, or rallying those who've never heard of judicial review to a joint cause. You care about power, meaning who has it, who doesn't, and how to shift it. You follow the ways Big Tech and governments are reshaping society, and you don't just find it interesting: it makes you want to act. You're a sharp, compelling writer who can make complex legal arguments land with different audiences. You're a self-starter who spots opportunities and runs with them, but you're equally invested in the team around you. You share credit generously, help sharpen others' thinking, and understand that lasting change is collective. Most importantly, you believe in making the use of technology fair for all.

If this is you; if you want to take on some of the most powerful companies and governments in the world, and you think the law is one of the tools we have to do it; if you are seeking a role where the work is urgent and the stakes are real, we would love to hear from you.

The role

The post holder will work alongside our Co-Executive Director, Head of Legal and Legal Administrator in developing and managing Foxglove’s legal work. You will develop and drive forward a significant number and range of cases, including the development of case theories, investigating and collecting evidence, drafting correspondence, evidence and submissions. You will also be responsible for coordinating and managing external legal teams, in multiple jurisdictions. This will require you to have the comfort and ability to navigate diverse settings, while also having the insight to weigh up the benefits and challenges of pursuing cases in different jurisdictions. You will serve as an external representative for Foxglove’s work, writing and speaking on topics of relevance. You will also be a sparring partner for others in the team, bringing a creative mindset and political savviness. UK and international travel are required. Flexibility with working hours will sometimes be needed.

Key responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

Case Development and Management

• Build connections, and listen to affected communities, unearth and pursue issues caused by tech injustice, coming up with innovative legal solutions.
• Build and maintain relationships with impacted community members, unions, other lawyers, experts, co-counsel, intervenors, civil society organisations, whistleblowers, and the public.
• Explore and develop new and undiscovered opportunities for Foxglove to be impactful and effective in our work.
• Effectively work with the co-Executive Director and Head of Legal to develop and implement Foxglove’s legal strategy.
• Manage multiple cases at any one time, while also thinking to the future regarding cases that should be explored and developed.
• Draft and comment on technical and legal documents and correspondence.
• Lead evidence gathering.

Compliance and Risk Management

• Manage court deadlines and time limits where applicable.
• Ensure regulatory compliance in all aspects of your work and our cases.
• Always maintain the strictest standards of client confidentiality.
• Always maintain the strictest concern for and awareness of data protection and Foxglove policies.
• Keep up to date with the global political and litigation landscape concerning tech justice.

Other

• Help ensure communities’, workers’ and affected individual’s voices are heard in our campaigns, communications and advocacy work.
• Contribute to external representation and writing, including through media appearances, social media posts, blogs and op-eds.
• Contribute to the development of materials for advocacy purposes including video or audio testimony, photographs etc.
• Support others in our legal team, across Foxglove, and the relevant ecosystem in developing strategies to use the law to hold governments and companies to account.
• Other ad hoc tasks as required.

Person Specification

Essential

• Substantial experience in legal practice and conducting litigation and a demonstrated understanding of litigation strategies.
• Creative thinking and imagination.
• A strong interest in using the law to hold governments and companies to account.
• Qualified lawyer in any jurisdiction with at least 10 years of legal experience.
• Significant experience in legal practice in the UK.  
• Demonstrable commitment to supporting marginalised communities to access justice.
• Ability to learn new areas of law quickly and develop new areas of work.
• Good political antennae and excellent relationship building and management skills.
• Experience conducting cases from initial advice through to trial.
• Relevant experience in analysing complex factual and legal situations and helping to advise clients in accordance with their aims.
• Experience in dealing sensitively with clients, whistleblowers and experts.
• Experience in working on complex matters, which require analysis of large amounts of documents and data.
• Excellent communication skills, demonstrated by the ability to communicate accurately, clearly, concisely and persuasively, both verbally and in writing.
• Excellent time management skills demonstrated by the ability to organise and prioritise a complex workload and work to tight deadlines.
• Experience in working and leading a team environment.
• Comfort with working at both the details-driven operational level and big-picture strategic level, as well as the ability to navigate between the two.

Length and Salary

The role is permanent. The annual salary is £88,400 per annum less any required deductions for income tax and national insurance.

Our team works remotely, and this role can be based anywhere. We would prefer you to work within or close to UK office hours, but this is flexible. Our team travels every two months for team days and twice a year for team retreats. This role will include significant UK and international travel. Only candidates with the right to work in their location will be considered.

How to apply

Please make your application via Applied, answering the application questions and uploading your CV. We will not review applications sent via a job board or to our email. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis with first round interviews likely to take place in May for selected candidates.

Foxglove does not use AI in its recruitment processes, except to detect applications for AI use. As a tech- justice organisation, we ask the same of our candidates.

Foxglove is being supported in this search and appointment process by SCHC Advisors. For a confidential conversation to learn more about the role, please contact Sophia Copeman.

Foxglove is growing and we are striving to build a team that is inclusive. We will create a diverse and adaptable environment where we support people to do their best work. We believe an effective and creative team is made up of people from different walks of life. You can read more about how we work and what we offer our staff on our website.

We encourage people from historically disadvantaged or underrepresented groups in the legal profession to apply.

If you require any reasonable adjustments to complete this process, or have any questions, please get in touch with Sophia Copeman.

If you would like to know more about how we process your data as part of the recruitment process you can read our recruitment data use policy.

Want to challenge the disruptive role of the fossil fuel industry in our politics, society and culture? Culture Unstained is looking for a Campaigner to join our small but impactful team in the UK, at a key moment in the exciting campaign to end fossil fuel sponsorship of culture.

If you’re committed to climate justice and its intersecting struggles including decolonisation and anti-militarisation and inspired by art, culture and creativity with a strong understanding of the politics of the climate crisis and the dynamics of the fossil fuel industry’s ongoing role in driving it - we want to hear from you!

Key Details

• £52,186.09 pro rata, working from home, 3.5 days per week, 18 months fixed-term contract
• Application deadline: end of Sunday 10 May 2026 (midnight, UK time)
• Applicaition process: please visit our website for full application guidance and documents
• Interview dates: w/c 18 May. Interviews are provisionally scheduled to take place on 20 and 21 May.
• Suggested start date (negotiable): w/c 20 July 2026

Employment conditions

Salary: £52,186.09 pro rata (£36,530.26 for 3.5 days).

Location: Working from home, with preference for candidates in the UK.

Hours: 3.5 days per week with occasional evening/weekend work for which time off in lieu will be given. We allow for flexible working but with some core hours. 

Duration: 18 month fixed-term role. 

Benefits: 10% employer pension contributions; flexible hours; 21 days holiday per year for a 3.5 day per week post (plus bank holidays and Christmas break and your birthday); a caring and learning culture within a non-hierarchical workers cooperative; progressive employment policies including generous paid sick leave, paid carers’ leave and paid family leave. As part of trying to create a more sustainable organisation, we have adopted a shorter working week.

We particularly welcome applications from marginalised groups, especially people of colour and other ethnic minorities, people who identify as LGBTQIA+, Disabled people and those who identify as working class or have done so in the past. If we can offer support with the application process please do get in touch. If you’re excited about this role but your experience doesn’t align fully with the job description, we’d love you to apply anyway. Please contact us if you require any support or adjustments for you to navigate this application process.

About Culture Unstained

Culture Unstained is a campaigns and investigations organisation which primarily works to end fossil fuel sponsorship of culture, undermining the industry’s ‘social licence to operate’. We believe that targeting cultural sponsorship gets to the core of challenging the disruptive role of the fossil fuel industry in our politics, society and culture. 

We work to end the social legitimacy and cultural power the fossil free industry currently gains from its involvement in culture and art – most visibly by sponsoring museums, galleries and other arts organisations – in order to bring about a world where cultural organisations draw an ethical red line and proudly reject funding and other ties to those involved in fuelling the climate crisis. 

We adopt an intersectional, rather than single-issue approach, to our campaigns and are committed to climate justice. This means joining the dots between fossil fuel sponsorship, militarisation, frontline struggles, decolonisation and restitution campaigns, and Palestinian liberation. 

Over the last decade, we have made cultural spaces into some of the most visible battlegrounds for a showdown between people and polluters. We have spearheaded headline-grabbing campaigns that have mobilised new networks of artists, workers and youth activists, and led to major wins, including the end of Shell and Equinor’s partnerships with the Science Museum and BP’s sponsorship of the Royal Opera House and The British Museum’s major exhibitions. In 2025, as a result of our track record of success and ongoing advocacy work, the Museums Association trade body passed a new Code of Ethics which now expects museums to ‘transition away from’ fossil fuel sponsorship.

As a Workers’ Co-operative, we all participate in decisions relating to overarching strategy and working conditions.

About the role

Culture Unstained is looking for a Campaigner to join our small but impactful team in the UK, at a key moment in the exciting campaign to end fossil fuel sponsorship of culture. 

You will be working with our existing team on core campaigns such as the Science Museum and The British Museum, as well as contributing to our wider strategic work, which includes:

• Centring and amplifying the demands of impacted communities, in line with our values of climate justice and decolonisation.

• Cultivating opposition to fossil fuel sponsorship in the theatre and live music sectors, building upon our existing campaign against the Royal Bank of Canada’s sponsorship of The Old Vic theatre and instigating our first mobilisations against the recent fossil fuel sponsorship deal of a major music venue.

• Developing a mandate for sector-wide bodies, governments and multilateral organisations to implement bans on fossil fuel sponsorship and advertising, following the precedent of controls on tobacco promotion.

• Achieving consistent parliamentary scrutiny of fossil fuel industry conduct and cultural sponsorship through wider strategic engagement with parliament and culture sector bodies, alongside international advocacy activities.

• Researching and campaigning on fossil fuel industry influence on education and young people, including STEM education programmes and competitions.

• Creating the conditions for a broader cultural shift by engaging with artists and the wider culture sector through advocacy, relationship-building and convening e.g. providing sector-facing guidance on ethical sponsorship and fundraising.

• Strengthening the national and international ‘Fossil Free Culture’ movement, by resourcing and supporting allies across the wider movement.

Once in post, your role will likely mainly focus on two or three of the above areas depending on your skills, experience, interest and fit with the wider team. We would welcome ideas from you at the interview stage relating to any of our areas of work.

Key responsibilities

In this role you will be responsible for developing and implementing the campaign to end UK fossil fuel sponsorship of culture in collaboration with the rest of the team. Our work is often fast-paced and reactive, and key responsibilities include:

• Incorporating climate justice and solidarity principles into our work and creating opportunities to centre people on the front lines of climate justice and intersecting struggles;
• Contributing to research and investigations work to scrutinise fossil fuel companies’ sponsorship deals and business plans;
• Undertaking strategic media and communications work to ensure that fossil fuel sponsorship remains one of the most controversial debates within the culture sector and more widely, including pitching media stories, writing press releases, building relationships with key journalists in the mainstream and arts media, and producing public communications materials such as briefings, blogs and social media content; 
• Direct engagement with decision-makers and regulatory bodies through, for example, written consultations, meetings, parliamentary events;
• Building relationships across the culture sector and with networks of NGOs, campaigners and frontline organisations, and working collaboratively with a range of organisations/contacts at significant campaign moments
• As a member of a Workers’ Co-operative you will also participate in decisions relating to overarching strategy and working conditions, as well as maintaining the effective running of the organisation.

About you

We are interested in your skills and potential for the role and realise that these may not come from formal educational qualifications or specific work experience, so please feel free to draw on any experience which has been gained in any informal, unpaid, self-directed or community-based settings to tell us why you’re right for the role. We understand you might not have direct experience of everything listed but if you feel you could be a good fit for our organisation, please do apply.

• You have a demonstrable commitment to climate justice and/or its intersecting struggles including decolonisation, anti-militarisation and broader social justice campaigns.
• You have experience of working as part of, or in solidarity with, communities on the front lines of social and/or environmental justice struggles, and/or groups which are under-represented in the climate justice movement.
• You’re inspired by art, culture and creativity with a strong understanding of the politics of the climate crisis and the dynamics of the fossil fuel industry’s ongoing role in driving it.
• You can develop and implement campaign strategies and/or action-focused research and investigations to bring about real-world change.
• You have strong written and oral communication skills in English, and can write and edit high quality briefings, punchy blogs, effective press releases and impactful social media posts, as well as undertaking and writing-up new research. 
• You have the ability to quickly process information and translate it into new campaign strategies, tactics and materials, and some experience of successfully placing stories in the mainstream media, speaking to journalists or being a spokesperson;
• You enjoy working and taking decisions collaboratively and accountably as part of a small team in what is often a fast-paced environment, and are self-motivated with a high level of initiative and the ability to manage your work independently.
• You might (but not necessarily) also have a background, skills or experience in:
  • Strategic communications or public affairs;
  • Engaging decision makers in achieving policy change;
  • Sectors where the fossil fuel industry is seeking to buy influence and social legitimacy such as the culture sector (live music, theatre, museums etc), science or STEM education.
  • Experience of submitting successful funding applications and managing organisational finances.