Senior communications manager jobs in eynsford, kent

Location (UK): Office Hybrid* - London
Hours: Full-time, 35 Hours per week
Salary: £55,155 per annum (London)
Benefits: Read more about the excellent benefits we offer on our website
Contract type: Fixed-term - 2 years
Travel: Occasional travel across the UK including Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
Closing date: 23:59 hours, Sunday 4 January 2026

Join us and use your skills, knowledge, passion and energy to help us achieve a future free from arthritis.
You will join the UK Advocacy and Health Intelligence Department within the Chief Executive's Directorate. The team is responsible for leading UK strategy development and delivery across advocacy (policy, public affairs, campaigning) and health intelligence, working closely with colleagues across the UK to ensure effective delivery of the strategy in each nation. The department sits in the Chief Executive's Directorate to ensure driving positive change with and for people with arthritis is at the heart of the organisation.

The Department works closely with colleagues across the charity, including Services, Research and Income and Engagement to ensure we are joined up in our approach to arthritis.

About the role
The Researcher is a new, important post at Arthritis UK. Working within our Health Intelligence team, you will lead on providing expertise on the latest relevant research evidence, providing a responsive, robust and balanced assessment of the available evidence and any key gaps to shape the charity's UK advocacy agenda, and drive organisational priorities. Working across a range of issues you will play a crucial role in ensuring that the experiences and needs of people living with arthritis are understood and acted upon, and that arthritis is taken seriously across the UK.

About you
If your knowledge, skills and experience include the following then we'd love to hear from you:

• In-depth knowledge and experience in working in health-related, research.
• Experience in the synthesis and evaluation of research evidence across a range of sources (including grey literature), including in the design and delivery of rapid reviews.
• Experience in communicating clearly and succinctly to non-technical and non-expert audiences, through both written formats (e.g. briefing papers) and verbally (e.g. via presentations and meetings with senior stakeholders), with a robust approach to accessibility throughout communication.
• Demonstrable understanding of how research can be used to shape policy and practice.
• Experience of consistently applying a range of techniques and research methods applicable to framing research questions, evidence review and research evaluation.
• Able to communicate findings and conclusions clearly to non-specialist and specialist audiences.
• Educated to at least master's degree level or equivalent.

*As a hybrid worker the expectation is that you will spend around 40% of your working time in our office spaces or working in community settings. As an inclusive employer we will consider home-based working for anyone where office-based hybrid working would be a barrier to being able to work for us, for example for someone living with a long-term health condition or disability.

Benefits
Your excellent benefits include:

• Flexible hours, environments and working practices to promote a healthy work/life balance.
• Health and wellbeing support - including the Employee Assistance Programme (free confidential 24/7 support with mental health, legal and financial queries).
• Simplyhealth cash plan.
• Supportive and inclusive culture, with a wide range of employee networks and support groups available to join.
• Learning and personal development opportunities.
• Competitive annual leave, with the option to buy/sell up to five days per year.
• Generous pension plan, with employer contribution of up to 10%.
• Life Assurance plan (4 x salary).

Application deadline and shortlisting 
We advise candidates to apply early as we reserve the right to close applications ahead of this date.  
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. 
We do not wish to receive contact from agencies or media sales. 

Please note that we do not use Artificial Intelligence (AI) during our recruitment and selection processes, and we would respectfully ask that you also refrain from using AI during the selection process. Whilst we do recognise that AI may be a beneficial tool for some when aiding research and preparation for an application or interview, we want to maintain a fair, inclusive and positive recruitment experience at Arthritis UK where candidates can feel supported to demonstrate their experience, knowledge, and skills without the use of AI generated answers.

Interview
Interviews are expected be held Thursday 15 January 2026, Arthritis UK London office

As a Disability Confident Leader, we guarantee you will be offered an interview if you disclose a disability and demonstrate sufficient evidence within your application that you meet the essential criteria for this role. We will also make any reasonable adjustments you may require for your interview.

About us
We have made a commitment in our Diversity and Inclusion Strategy to increase the diversity of our charity and we welcome candidates from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences. We want our employees, volunteers and trustees to represent the broad diversity of the communities of which we are a part.

There are over 10 million people living with arthritis. That's one in six, with over half of those living in pain every single day. The impact is huge as the condition slowly intrudes on everyday life - affecting the ability to work, care for a family, to move free from pain and to live independently. Yet arthritis is often dismissed as an inevitable part of ageing or shrugged off as 'just a bit of arthritis'. We don't think that this is OK. Arthritis UK is here to change that.

Arthritis UK is committed to keeping children, young people and vulnerable adults safe from harm. During the recruitment process we will undertake safer recruitment practices and relevant checks to ensure applicants are suitable to work with children, young people and vulnerable adults.

Arthritis UK is a Registered Charity No: 207711 and in Scotland No. SC041156.

Purpose of the job

This role is responsible for the design of UK Youth’s support to young people, youth organisations and youth workers. This could include structured youth work programmes, funding and grants+ programmes, professional development programmes, and campaigns.

You will lead and oversee end-to-end design processes, ensuring that UK Youth develops fully packaged offers that respond to the evidence base and people’s needs, drive forward our strategy and achieve incredible impact. You will work across UK Youth teams, with external design partners, and meaningfully involving young people and the professionals who support them in the design process.

You will be experienced in developing high quality funding propositions (proactively and in response to new business opportunities). You will be confident in taking a human-centred design approach to tackle some of the youth sector’s knottiest problems.  You will design solutions to important problems, ensuring that they are feasible, equitable, impactful and scalable.

In 2026, our priority topics for youth work programmes and network development are: mental health and wellbeing, employability, social cohesion and community safety.

 As a leader, you will work closely with research, evaluation, policy, service delivery, network development, and fundraising teams. You will help to improve the skills and confidence of colleagues across UK Youth to apply design methods in their own work and collaborate effectively with the Design team.

Why work at UK Youth?

UK Youth wants all young people to be equipped to thrive and empowered to contribute at every stage of their lives. Youth work can be life changing (and even life saving.) In 2026, we will be launching our new strategy, positioning UK Youth to unlock youth work so that every young person in the UK can benefit. We work with others to ensure that the youth sector is strengthened and that provision is youth-led, evidence-informed, and delivers high-quality outcomes.

 UK Youth plays a unique role in addressing the lack of investment in the youth sector, the lack of cross-sector understanding in how youth work makes a difference, and the limited opportunities to embed effective solutions. These factors lead to mass inequality of access to youth services for young people. Come and be part of this change in a driven and supportive team that puts evidence at the heart of our work.

Role Responsibilities

• Designing Solutions

• Developing new business and funding propositions

• Embedding Human Centred Design

• Building a strong external network to support the Design team’s work

• Operations

Experience we're after

• Significant experience of leading and overseeing the development of new business propositions and proposals to time-limited funding opportunities

• Significant experience of designing interventions (digital and/or physical) for young people and/or those who support them 

• Experience using human-centred-design methods and mindsets; managing projects across the end-to-end design process

• Proven track record of inspiring and motivating diverse teams and improving collaborative ways of working across teams and departments

• Experience of developing high quality programme content and curricula for young people, youth workers and/or outdoor learning instructors (desirable)

• Experience of commissioning and managing external design freelancers and consultants (desirable)

• Experience of designing and/or delivering professional development programmes (desirable)

What we can offer you

We offer a competitive range of benefits, good work/life balance, excellent learning and development opportunities and vibrant organisational culture:

• Flexible/Agile Working

• 27 days annual leave plus bank holidays (pro rata for part time employees)

• Funded training provided in; Safeguarding, GDPR, Information and Cyber Security & Equality & Diversity

• Other training available in support of your personal and professional development

• Pension scheme (currently UK Youth match employee contributions up to 5%)

• Membership of our life insurance scheme which would pay-out up to 4 times your salary

• Employee Assistance Programme to support employees both professionally and personally

• 20% discount off bookings at Avon Tyrrell, our New Forest Outdoor Centre, including camping, lodges and outdoor activities.

• IT equipment provided for the duration of contract

• CycleScheme and TechScheme

How to apply

If you would like to be considered for this fantastic opportunity, please complete an application via our completely anonymised recruitment system provided by Applied which looks to create a fair and unbiased application process for all. Scroll to the top of the page and start your application.

Closing date: Sunday 4th January 2026 at 23:59pm

Provisional Interview Dates: 12th and 13th January 2026

As this role involves working in a regulated environment with young people, any offer will be conditional to satisfactory background checks, which include criminal record check and employment reference.