Student and academic marketing and communications manager jobs

We’re looking for an Events Manager to lead the delivery of a diverse and strategically focused events portfolio at Leeds Beckett University. This is a key role within the Stakeholder Engagement and Events team, responsible for ensuring events are purpose-driven, high quality and aligned with the university’s brand, reputation and student recruitment objectives.

In this role, you will plan, manage and deliver a broad programme of events that support the university’s strategic priorities. This includes responsibility for large-scale, high-profile events such as graduation ceremonies, alongside a varied portfolio of stakeholder, partnership and engagement events. You will ensure each event is designed to tell the university’s story, showcase its strengths and create positive, memorable experiences for prospective students, students, partners, staff and wider audiences.

You will provide leadership and direction to event and partnership officers, project teams and external suppliers, overseeing event planning, logistics, budgets, risk management and evaluation. Strong project management skills are essential, as you will manage multiple events simultaneously, often to tight deadlines, in a fast-paced environment.

Working closely with colleagues across marketing, communications, recruitment and academic services, you will ensure events are effectively promoted, consistently branded and clearly aligned with audience needs and strategic outcomes. You will use insight and feedback to evaluate impact, improve delivery and demonstrate the value of events in enhancing brand reputation, strengthening relationships and supporting recruitment.

At Leeds Beckett, we value diverse perspectives and offer generous annual leave and strong support for professional development. Join a collaborative team committed to delivering outstanding events that bring the university’s strategy to life and create lasting impact.

Job Title: Schools Engagement Coordinator (Inspiring the Future)

Reports to: Head of School Programmes

Location: Quantum House, 22 – 24 Red Lion Court, Fleet Street, EC4A 3AB. The role is open to hybrid working but the candidate would be expected to be in the office one day per week

Purpose: This is a fantastic opportunity to take on the role of Schools Engagement Coordinator for Education and Employers on the internationally recognised Inspiring the Future programme. As a charity, our mission is to: ‘ensure that every young person in our country, wherever they live, whatever their parents or carers’ circumstances, has the opportunity to meet a diverse range of volunteers to hear first-hand about jobs and the world of work’.

This key post is part of the Schools Engagement Team with responsibility for working closely with primary school and secondary school teachers and leaders to support them with running activities involving a diverse range of volunteers from the world of work. The role is rewarding and varied and will include supporting delivery of funded projects aimed at these audiences and general administrative support. 

Remuneration: £27k per annum

Additional Terms: We offer an excellent overall package with 30 days paid holiday, exclusive of Statutory Bank Holidays, plus a competitive pension scheme and a volunteering allowance of up to 5 days per annum – pro rata in accordance with the length of contract. Additional family friendly benefits, including enhancements to Statutory Payments.

Appointment Terms: Permanent and full time

Job Purpose:

Reporting to the Head of Schools Programmes, the Schools Engagement Coordinator is responsible for working closely with school staff in promoting and empowering schools to utilise Inspiring the Future and Primary Futures, alongside delivering virtual activities for schools. These programmes are an online system connecting schools to an enormous range of fascinating volunteers from the world of work for virtual or in person activities to raise aspirations, provide insight into jobs, tackle stereotypes and demonstrate how learning at school in the present links to opportunities in the future.

This role will be split between supporting the general self-service programme for schools nationally in an administrative capacity and delivering on funded projects including delivering activities to a case load of schools across parts of the country. There is opportunity to interface directly with children and young people from both secondary and primary schools. through facilitating virtual and in person interactive activities with volunteers.

What we are looking for in a candidate:

Education and Employers is a small charity working at a rapid pace to bring about change. This is a dynamic role for someone looking to gain a breadth of experience in the charity sector and keen to learn about the education sector and career-related learning, social mobility and volunteer engagement.  We are looking for someone passionate about motivating and inspiring children who relishes working with a range of stakeholders to create impactful activities.

The Engagement Coordinator will work closely with the Head of School Programmes and wider Inspiring the Future team to undertake the following key accountabilities:

Key Accountabilities:

The following areas are broken down to reflect the proportion of the role dedicated to each area, over the course of the academic year, with priorities differing at different times of year

Enquiries management and administrative support across the programme team:

• Managing the enquiries inbox and switchboard phone number, responding to enquiries from schools and volunteers about the charity’s work and programmes and how to sign up
• Providing targeted support to schools such as phone calls to primary, secondary schools and colleges independently utilising the programmes using a RAG (red, amber, green) system to convert them to successful activities
• Providing administrative support across the volunteer and school engagement teams, including record-keeping, data entry, meeting minute-taking, scheduling, event coordination, etc
• Monitoring new registrations from schools and sending welcome emails, keeping this up-to-date with the latest opportunities and messaging for schools
• Use Salesforce CRM to support with data management, assisting with maintaining up to date records and supporting data cleansing as needed
• Other ad-hoc administrative tasks as needed

School Engagement:

• Supporting new teacher registrants with onboarding processes such as welcome emails, platform demonstrations, info webinars
• Writing and coordinating persuasive communications campaigns to different groups of schools that have an interest in engaging with volunteers from the world of work
• In collaboration with rest of team, identifying need for and developing new resources and guidance to meet teacher needs and support them to make the most of our offers
• In collaboration with rest of team, developing and implementing new processes and technical improvements, to support increased school engagement.

Project Delivery:

• Recruiting and engaging schools according to the geographic or sector focus of a funded project
• Managing relationships with a case load of schools in different areas of the country to host planning calls, deliver sessions, gather evaluation data and ensure a legacy of independent usage
• Setting up virtual and face-to-face activities including school liaison, securing volunteers, test calls, setting up on the Inspiring the Future system and hosting on tech platforms e.g. Zoom
• Facilitating virtual and face to face activities to pupils to link with volunteers, hosting and designing themed sessions online to ensure an interactive and engaging experience for children and volunteers, following a Q&A or job guessing-game format.
• Supporting and co-hosting sessions to teachers including teacher training, staff meetings and info webinars to promote Inspiring the Future, deepen engagement and demonstrate independent usage
• Supporting the development of educational resources that provide insight into the world of work and different sectors

Person specification:

We are looking for someone with the following Skills/ Knowledge/ Expertise

Essential

• Minimum one year’s experience in a customer service, school engagement or school-based role
• Experience in successful relationship management – ability to engage confidently and sensitively with schools/colleges and at a range of levels of seniority up to and including headteacher level
• Outstanding customer service and telephone manner, including handling large volumes of email enquiries and dealing with difficult situations politely and assertively
• Strong organisational and administrative skills including close attention to detail and effective time management
• Persuasive and confident communicator who is influential, and effective in presenting a concept both in person and on the phone.
• Good level of education, demonstrating capability in producing written content to a high standard.
• Demonstrable experience of managing a diverse workload; being able to prioritise work and working under pressure.
• Good working knowledge and practical application of Microsoft Office tools

 Desirable

• Passion for supporting young people in realising their potential through harnessing skilled volunteers to engage in education
• Experience in virtual facilitation with children and young people
• Experience of project management and delivery
• Experience of client relationships management (CRM) databases, in particular Salesforce
• Experience of marketing to schools
• Experience of working in a small team
• Experience of working with volunteers
• Understanding of safeguarding, risk management and data protection
• Comfort and confidence in working with data to inform actions

Personal Attributes

• Commitment to uphold our charity’s five values - Inspiring, Inclusive, Innovative, Impactful, Integrity
• Flexible – responsive to changing operational context and new opportunities
• Team Player: working collaboratively and flexibly to achieve outcomes and is keen to add value to the organisation’s culture and ethos
• Able to undertake some occasional work in the evenings and at weekends
• Able to travel in the UK if required

Application process

The Education and Employers charity values having a diverse workforce.  We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals from all backgrounds. We offer a range of inclusive employment and family friendly policies as well as flexible working arrangements in order to support staff from different backgrounds. 

The closing date for applications is 9am on Wednesday 4th February and interviews will take place in the week of the 9th February. The organisation reserves the right to conduct interviews and appoint prior to the closing date dependent on the calibre of applications received.

Please send a covering letter of no more than 2-3 sides of A4 setting out your interest in and suitability for the role against the job description and person specification, together with an up to date CV. Please include your name and the role applied for in the subject line of your e-mail. Thank you

*Please note, in your cover letter we have a strong preference for human-written content. We want to hear about you, your genuine interest in the role, and why from your experience, skills, and personality you feel you are a great fit for the role

We will only consider applications with both a CV and covering letter and applications will only be accepted from those with the right to work in the UK with a valid passport/visa. 

Thank you for taking the time to consider this role. We very much look forward to receiving your application!

The Charity is fully committed to safeguarding those in our care. We plan our recruitment processes to ensure effective timelines for any required vetting processes such as enhanced DBS, qualification, reference and identity checks. The Charity also ensures that each staff member is appropriately trained for their duties with a comprehensive induction process on commencement and regular CPD in areas like safeguarding. 

About the Education and Employers Charity

Education and Employers is an independent UK based charity launched in 2009 with the original vision of “providing children and young people with the inspiration, motivation, knowledge, skills and opportunities they need to help them achieve their potential”. Our current strategic plan and mission is available to read here. It aims to achieve this by working with schools, employers, the national bodies that represent them and a wide range of other partners including the government and third sector organisations. The charity also works with partners internationally – more details here.

The charity runs Inspiring the Future, a free service which uses innovative match-making technology to connect volunteers with state schools and colleges, quickly, simply and at scale. Schools can very easily search a massive database of willing volunteers, filter against a wide range of criteria – e.g. subject, sector, career route and send them a message. It enables young people, wherever they live, whichever school they attend, the opportunity to meet people from a wide range of backgrounds doing jobs from across the whole world of work.

Over 90,000 people have already volunteered in the UK - people from all levels: apprentices to CEOs and all sectors: apps designers to zoologists and over 85% of English secondary schools and 42% of primary schools have registered with us. People can volunteer from an hour a year in a local primary or secondary school to chat informally about their job and career route, take part in career speed networking session, give careers insights, provide mock interviews or feedback on CVs through to serving as a governor or trustee.  There is also the opportunity to link up with schools for workplace visits, job shadowing and mentoring.

Inspiring the Future operates on a technology platform kindly developed in partnership with Deloitte, Salesforce and Ordnance Survey. It allows the charity to run national campaigns and others focused on specific geographic areas or economic sectors such as engineering, science, health and arts and culture. The campaigns have secured high profile support across government, business and teacher associations and ongoing corporate partnerships including our lead corporate partner Bank of America.

In partnership with the National Association of Head Teachers the charity has developed a version for primary schools called Primary Futures and over 6,500 primaries have already signed up. To see a short clip on how it works please click here.  All campaigns run through Inspiring the Future share a common objective: to broaden young people’s horizons, raise their aspirations and show them the range of opportunities and careers routes e.g. apprenticeships and university open to them. Over 5 million interactions between young people and volunteers from the world of work have already taken place.

Since the Charity’s launch it has sought to understand what difference employer engagement in education makes to young people and the economy. It works with academics and researchers from around the world and its own research is regularly cited by government and international organisations like the OECD. The research, which has informed and influenced a range of government policies, shows that employer engagement helps improve social mobility, reduces the likelihood of young people becoming NEET (not in education, employment of training), increases the amount they earn in adult life, helps them make better informed career choices and leads to improvements in educational attainment.

Martingale Postgraduate Foundation (Martingale) exists to fund and support the next generation of talented researchers. We believe that family income should not be a barrier to the pursuit of excellence, and our mission is to enable and nurture talented individuals from low-socioeconomic backgrounds to thrive within world-leading postgraduate research.

Martingale’s flagship programme is the Martingale Postgraduate Scholarship, which supports students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds to pursue and excel in postgraduate degrees, by providing:

• A fully-funded Living Wage Scholarship to pursue a one-year Masters degree or a four-year PhD.
• All tuition fees and research expenses, including a tax-free stipend for living costs.
• Tailored support to apply for Martingale courses at our partner universities.
• Access to Martingale programmes, including leadership training and connections with top academic and industry professionals.
• Membership of a pioneering community of talented researchers.

In the three years since Martingale launched, we are now supporting over 100 Scholars to undertake postgraduate degrees across our ten partner universities and have committed over £7.7m in Scholarships. We are continuing to expand our offer, bringing on new partners each year.

We are seeking an experienced communications lead to join our external engagement team and play a key role in shaping Martingale’s external profile and scholar recruitment.

As Communications Manager, you will lead on several critical aspects of Martingale’s work including all external communications from social media to PR, and brand management. Crucially, you will lead on the annual recruitment campaign for Martingale’s Postgraduate Scholarships. This three-month campaign each autumn is a fundamental part of Martingales work, ensuring we are finding and supporting as many talented people to apply as possible. Working closely with the Head of Communications and External Engagement, you will lead on all Martingale’s external communications.

A key responsibility will be ensuring that Martingale’s messaging is consistent, with a bold brand presence and strong collaboration with various external stakeholders including funders, universities, media, and government. You will also line manage the Events and Communications Officer who leads on all Martingale events and social media.

We are looking for a strong communicator with some leadership experience including line management, partnership management and external relations. You will bring excellent organisational skills, strong attention to detail, a proactive mindset, and a strong alignment with Martingale’s mission. We welcome applicants from a range of career paths who are excited to be part of a growing, fast-paced charity delivering meaningful impact.

Martingale Foundation is incubated by Purposeful Ventures who provide operational and strategic support. The Communications Manager will be employed by Purposeful Ventures.

About Purposeful Ventures

Our vision is for a fairer society where all young people thrive. We work with social entrepreneurs, organisations and philanthropists that share our vision. Through our work with these partners, young people are given opportunities in education and beyond, helping them reach their true potential.

Purposeful Ventures offers philanthropists and funders bespoke advice, using an evidence-based approach to help them to identify high-impact opportunities to fund. We then partner with visionary individuals and mission-driven organisations with strong theories of change. We help them turn great ideas into sustainable and successful ventures by offering fully individualised and very hands-on support, access to funding and a ‘high-challenge, high-support’ home. We do the minimum necessary and whatever it takes to succeed.

Key Responsibilities:

Working with the Head of Communications and External Engagement, you will lead on the design and implementation of end-to-end marketing for the recruitment campaign for Martingale Scholars:

• Ensure widespread marketing of the Martingale Scholarship opportunity across the UK, including in media (e.g., student newspapers), on university campuses and on graduate job boards.
• Coordinate an effective paid advertising campaign across multiple channels.
• Directly engage prospective scholars to increase interest and convince them to apply for Martingale opportunities. For example, leading email campaigns, visiting university campuses, or hosting webinars.
• Build relationships with university academics, careers departments, student societies, graduate careers platforms, and other organisations who work with Martingale’s target audience. Encourage them to share Martingale opportunities to relevant people.
• Develop marketing materials and coordinate circulation: leaflets, brochures, social media content, video, email and newsletters, case studies and interviews with relevant people incl. current scholars.
• Procure and coordinate any relevant external providers: e.g., paid digital advertising agencies.
• Manage the Applicant Tracking System, embed and manage a CRM system for enrolled scholars.

Manage brand and increase brand awareness:

• Manage and develop Martingale Foundation’s brand identity, and the identity of our programmes: visual identity, communication style, digital presence, in-person style and feel of events.
• Design and manage a creative and innovative social media campaign across multiple channels, incl. paid ads.
• Manage the website, including maintenance, development, and SEO – with agency support.
• Lead engagement with media outlets and relevant press, including student newspapers. Write engaging press releases and generate interest in Martingale.
• Develop innovative opportunities to grow Martingale’s brand awareness including opportunities for you or the CEO to showcase Martingale’s work.

Stakeholder management and communications:

• Produce and coordinate engaging communications and events for scholars and applicants, alongside the Programme’s team.
• Manage relationships with partner universities Marketing and External Relations teams, ensuring they are consulted and pleased with progress, while also delivering on their commitments.
• Develop collaborative relationships with charity partners or organisations with similar missions to Martingale, as well as potential employers of Martingale Scholars, and ensure they are aware of Martingale’s mission and progress whilst supporting recruitment and brand building efforts.
• Build productive relationships with funders relevant communications teams.

Organisation and team:

• Line manage the Events and Communications Officer, ensuring they are supported, clear on responsibilities and how they fit into the wider strategy of Martingale.
• Work across all departments in the organisation, ensuring that staff are supported to produce communications and that all Martingale’s work is being promoted effectively.

Monitor and report on the progress of the Martingale Foundation:

• Lead the production of impact reports.
• Collect and analyse data from applications, and annually review and refine the Martingale Scholarship’s recruitment campaign to make appropriate adjustments in future years.
• Assess, evidence and communicate the impact of the Martingale Foundation Scholarship in innovative ways.

General

• As duties and responsibilities change, the job description will be reviewed and amended in consultation with the post holder.
• The post holder will carry out any other duties as are within the scope, spirit and purpose of the role as requested by the line manager.

Key Requirements:

Essential Criteria

• Right to work in the UK

Experience and skills

Essential

• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, with the ability to effectively communicate with diverse audiences including senior stakeholders.
• Strong experience in communications within a mission-driven organisation.
• Good track record of developing and delivering highly effective communications campaigns.
• Strategic thinking combined with hands-on content expertise.
• Experience managing and cultivating partnerships.
• Understanding of UK education, social mobility, or research funding landscapes.
• Experience in managing an organisation’s social media and website (including wordpress or similar).
• Able to assimilate complex information quickly, identifying the pertinent points and making them accessible for a wider audience.
• Advanced IT proficiency: Spreadsheet, Word Processing, CRM or Databases, Email, Web-based applications.
• Experience managing multiple projects/workstream and priorities simultaneously, while maintaining attention to detail, prioritising, and meeting deadlines. 

Desirable

• Experience working with or within higher education or research organisations.
• Graphic design experience in Adobe.
• Proven experience line managing staff.
• Familiarity with charity fundraising or philanthropic communications.
• Experience delivering communications in a startup or scale-up environment.
• Experience in working with governance boards and/or trustees.
• Experience delivering ambitious recruitment campaigns.

Personal Characteristics

• Excellent interpersonal skills: able to build rapport and trusting relationships and able to work co-operatively in a multidisciplinary setting.
• A commitment to Martingale’s mission to support postgraduate students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds.
• Comfortable working in a rapidly growing and changing organisation with a degree of ambiguity – confident to create processes and ways forward where they might not yet exist.
• Creative and innovative: willing to think outside the box to maximise reach.
• Resourceful, able to act on initiative, hardworking, detail-oriented, and systematic.

Benefits

• 27 days annual leave plus bank holidays, rising to 29 days after two years of service and to 30 days after three years of service. This entitlement is pro rata for part-time employees. This entitlement excludes bank holidays.
• Full office closure between Christmas and New Year.
• A flexible approach to working with understanding and consideration for work-life balance and personal commitments.
• As a Purposeful Ventures employee, you will have the opportunity to be part of the TPT (The Pension Trust) scheme, our workplace pension scheme, where we make an 11% contribution; you are not required to contribute towards this scheme unless you choose to.
• Access to Charlie Perks, offering discounts and rewards at over 30,000 brands and retailers.

Are you passionate about building meaningful relationships and creating lasting impact through philanthropy? The University of Strathclyde is seeking a dynamic and experienced Donor Experience and Legacies Officer to lead stewardship and engagement for our major donors, scholarship supporters, and legacy pledgers.

This is a unique opportunity to shape donor journeys across multiple giving areas - from transformative scholarships and legacy gifts to major donations supporting research and teaching. You’ll work closely with inspiring students, academics, and colleagues across the University to deliver compelling donor communications, events, and impact reports that celebrate generosity and deepen engagement.

Brief Outline of Job:

To lead and deliver donor stewardship and engagement strategies for major gifts (donor gifts of £100k+), scholarships (UG and PG), and legacy giving. This includes creating compelling donor communications, managing cultivation events, and developing stewardship plans that support repeat giving and long-term relationships.

Major Gifts: Support the cultivation and stewardship of donors giving £100k–£1M+, including designing and delivering bespoke impact reports for major donors, organizing donor meetings, campus visits and events in collaboration with the Major Gifts team.

Scholarships: Support the development of and delivery of our scholarship fundraising strategy, including producing promotional materials and annual donor reports. Liaise with colleagues across the University to ensure effective scholarship delivery and reporting.

Legacy Giving: Lead the development of a new legacy stewardship strategy, including the introduction of a new giving circle for legacy pledgers, conducting face-to-face meetings with potential legacy donors and creating promotional content and opportunities.

Alumni Fund: Contributing to Giving Day and Alumni Fund Board activities. Support mass donor communications and stewardship initiatives.

Team Leadership: Line management of the Development Assistant and deputising for the Individual Giving Manager when required. 

If you’re a creative communicator, strategic thinker, and relationship builder with a flair for storytelling and donor cultivation, we’d love to hear from you.

Founded in 1927, the University of Hull has a long and proud history. Through our teaching, research and civic engagement, we are helping to shape and deliver the future prosperity of our region and far beyond. 

Leading the Philanthropy and Alumni Engagement team, the Director will drive the design and implementation of the University’s inaugural comprehensive fundraising campaign, launching it at the culmination of our centenary celebrations in summer 2028. Building on progress made to date, the Director will leverage the centenary to elevate the roles of philanthropy and alumni engagement in support of the University’s future ambitions. 

Person specification: 
- Extensive knowledge of philanthropy, preferably within higher education, including fundraising best practice
- Extensive knowledge of alumni engagement and its role in building connections and supporting wider institutional priorities
- Demonstrable track record of building relationships and working with prospects to secure gifts at the six-figure level and above
- Experience of leading philanthropic campaigns and exceeding fundraising targets
- Experience of leading and managing teams carrying out philanthropic and/or engagement activities 
- Experience of strategic and data-driven operational planning and performance management

Dixon Walter is leading the candidate search on behalf of the University. For more information and details of how to apply by 15 February, please see the candidate brief.

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