Principal policy advisor jobs
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Starting Salary: £44,766 - £48,225 (including London weighting)
Contract: Permanent
Location: UK, Hybrid working with a minimum of 40% of your time in the London Office
Job Profile
This role will lead CAFOD’s policy and advocacy work aimed at building a fairer global financial system. The post holder will have a solid understanding of contemporary global economic issues, including the global debt crisis, development finance and the workings of international multilateral organisations. Working closely with CAFOD’s overseas partners and within UK and global networks, this role will hold policy expertise on behalf of the organisation. This will involve developing policy positions and representing the organisation externally. The role will work closely with CAFOD’s government relations and campaigns colleagues to lobby decision-makers and mobilise supporters as part of our economic justice work. Sitting within the Advocacy, Policy & Campaigns team, the role is managed by the head of department.
Key Responsibilities
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Leading the development and delivery of CAFOD’s global economic justice advocacy strategy
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Working in partnership with UK and global organisations to develop evidence‑based policy positions
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Influencing UK, regional and global policy debates on the global debt crisis, and other economic justice issues
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Representing CAFOD in coalitions, to decision makers, in church networks and at international forums
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Writing policy briefings, reports and communication outputs
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Building relationships with external stakeholders and decision makers and UK and global levels
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Ensuring advocacy is grounded in strong analysis, partner experience and a commitment to social and environmental justice
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Supporting advocacy work of partners and global networks on debt cancellation and financial system reform
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Providing strategic and technical advice across the organisation
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Any other relevant duties reasonably required
Safeguarding
All CAFOD staff share responsibility to promote and maintain a strong safeguarding culture, including identifying the key actions they should take given their role and responsibilities.
Job Specific Competencies
- Strong background working in international economic policy and/or international development policy
- Excellent analytic and research skills and an understanding of how to form strategic policy positions
- Experience of developing strategic advocacy plans
- Experience of lobbying decision makers
- Background working with partners and coalitions, both in the UK and overseas
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
CAFOD is a welcoming, supportive workplace committed to a safe, inclusive culture where everyone is respected. CAFOD will make reasonable adjustments at every stage of the recruitment process to ensure candidates with disabilities or individual needs are fully supported.
Safeguarding for Children and Vulnerable Adults
CAFOD recognises the personal dignity and rights of children and vulnerable adults, towards whom it has a special responsibility and a duty of care and respect. CAFOD, and all its staff and volunteers, undertake to do all in our power to create a safe environment for children, young people and vulnerable adults and to prevent their physical, sexual or emotional abuse. CAFOD is committed to acting at all times in the best interests of children and vulnerable adults, seeing these interests as paramount. Any candidate offered a job with CAFOD will be expected to adhere to CAFOD’s Safeguarding policy and sign CAFOD’s Code of Behaviour as an appendix to their contract of employment and agree to conduct themselves in accordance with the provisions of these documents.
All offers of employment will be subject to satisfactory references, and appropriate screening checks can include criminal records and terrorism finance checks. CAFOD also participates in the Inter Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. In line with this Scheme, we will request information from job applicants’ previous employers about any findings of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and/or sexual harassment during employment, or incidents under investigation when the applicant left employment. By submitting an application, the job applicant confirms his/her understanding of these recruitment procedures.
Registered Charity
101 - 500
CAFOD is the official Catholic aid agency for England and Wales tackling poverty and injustice across the world.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Thank you!
Reducing the Risk is an Oxfordshire-based charity with a growing regional and national reputation for delivering high-quality, victim-centred domestic abuse services. Established in 2007, we empower communities, train multi-agency professionals, and provide critical Independent Domestic Violence Advisor (IDVA) services to ensure the safety and wellbeing of adults and children at risk.
We are now looking for an exceptional, values-driven leader to build on these strong foundations and guide us through our next exciting phase of growth and innovation.
The Role
As our next Chief Executive Officer, you will work closely with an ambitious Board of Trustees to shape and deliver the charity’s strategic plan. Inheriting a highly skilled, dedicated team of practitioners and a network of over 1,800 Domestic Abuse Champions, you will balance compassionate strategic vision with sound operational and financial leadership.
Key Responsibilities
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Strategic Leadership: Develop and execute the charity's strategic plan, driving innovation and service development across our local and national footprint.
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Income & Sustainability: Diversify income streams beyond traditional grants, growing our accredited training and consultancy services into sustainable earned revenue.
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Partnership & Influence: Act as the principal public voice for the charity, building high-impact relationships with statutory, corporate, and voluntary sector partners.
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People & Culture: Foster an inclusive, high-performing, and trauma-informed workplace culture that prioritises staff wellbeing.
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Governance & Compliance: Oversee robust risk management, safeguarding frameworks, and regulatory compliance alongside the Board.
Who We Are Looking For
You are a credible, resilient senior leader with a proven track record in the charity, public, or social impact sectors. While a background in the domestic abuse sector is highly valued, what matters most is your ability to navigate complex funding environments, secure multi-source income, and champion victim-centred practices. You are a collaborative relationship-builder who combines commercial awareness with genuine empathy and integrity.
How to Apply
To apply, please submit your up-to-date CV alongside a covering letter explaining how your experience meets the job description and person specification.
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Application Deadline: Midday, 14th August
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Shortlisting: 19th August
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Interviews: 26th August (In-person at our Oxford office)
Registered Charity
11 - 20
Dedicated to the safety of adults and children at risk of domestic abuse and to the empowerment of the professionals and volunteers who support them.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Thank you!
Actively Interviewing
This organisation is scheduling interviews as applications come in. They're ready to hire as soon as they find the right person. Don't miss your opportunity, apply now!
About us
Carers UK’s vision is to create a society that recognises, values and supports carers. As the leading national charity for unpaid carers, we exist to make life better for carers, however caring affects them. Our support, advice, information and campaigning work are now needed more than ever, as unpaid carers are providing more and more care, adversely impacting on their own health and wellbeing.
About the role
We recognise the value of social media in communicating with all our audiences; whether unpaid carers or their friends and families, employers, politicians, service providers, supporters and all those people who may become a carer for a partner, family member, friend or neighbour and will need information, support, and to know that there are people working to make their lives better.
This role works with colleagues across the organisation, including our senior management team - but also in partnership with external organisations and agencies - with targets set for engagement (and other indicators of the success of our campaigns). We're working on multiple campaigns simultaneously; whether that's Carers Week, campaigns to influence changes to the law to better support carers, encouraging unpaid carers to join us as members, updating on activities in the devolved nations or getting people to fundraise for Carers UK. And we use a mix of owned, earned and paid communications to drive engagement in a challenging and crowded environment in order to get our messages to cut through. It's a busy, but varied role, in a supportive and collaborative team.
About you
Working within the communications and marketing team, you'll be confident in managing our social media accounts (we have many), ensuring we're using platforms to get our messages out to both wide and targeted audiences with engaging and timely content.
You'll be happy using tools for social listening, interacting with our audiences and building our reach. You'll be familiar with key metrics for social engagement and will be reporting back to colleagues and other stakeholders - and using this data to constantly improve our communications.
You'll be skilled in writing longer form content for our members' magazine, Caring, proof reading articles, posting content on our websites, creating graphics and making sure our content is engaging, audience focused and dynamic. Oh, and you probably know your way around an emoji set and are not scared of a well timed pun. Plus you'll have a great eye for detail and be confident in your ability to prioritise (and sometimes reprioritise) your workload as needed.
We're a small but effective communications team and pride ourselves on getting stuck in and supporting each other when we need to deliver big on fast moving projects, so you'll need be able to juggle lots of demands while recognising the importance of always hitting deadlines.
Diversity and inclusion
Carers UK is committed to becoming a diverse and truly inclusive organisation; fostering an environment and working culture that celebrates and promotes diversity and inclusion. We strive to create a workplace where our colleagues and volunteers can truly be themselves and feel like they belong and constantly seek to ensure all voices are heard.
To embrace this culture of diversity, our employee and volunteer recruitment should reflect our stakeholders and the society that we serve and support, regardless of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, physical abilities, disabilities or religious practices. We value individual diversity and are actively building diverse teams here at Carers UK and value our colleagues from a wide range of backgrounds.
As a membership charity for carers, we particularly seek employees and volunteers with a real understanding of the issues faced by carers. Reasonable adjustments can be made to the process and role, dependent on the needs of the applicant.
We are proud to be an Employers for Carers member. We have signed the Menopause Workplace Pledge and achieved the Disability Confident Employer accreditation. We aim to offer interviews to those who have a disability covered under the definition outlined in the Equality Act 2010 and who meet the minimum criteria for the role. The minimum criteria can be found under the Essential section of the Person Specification of the recruitment pack. Please let us know if your application is being made under the Disability Confident Scheme. You are not required to share the nature of your disability or long term health condition. You will need to state in your email application that you are making your application under the Disability Confident Scheme as you consider yourself to be disabled, or as having a disability. If you meet the minimum criteria then you will be offered an interview.
At Carers UK we want our application process to be as accessible as possible. If you need any adjustments to apply please contact us to discuss.
The closing date for applications is 5pm, Tuesday 18 August.
Carers UK anonymises all applications prior to shortlisting.
Carers UK reserves the right to appoint at any stage, should an outstanding candidate emerge.
Carers UK are actively interviewing as we receive applications.
Carers UK may carry out online and social media checks before a formal offer is made.
