Role Purpose
This is an exciting opportunity to shape the voice and public profile of one of the UK’s most impactful social justice charities. As Head of Communications, you’ll lead our communications function at a strategic level, inspiring and influencing how we share our story with the world. You’ll craft and deliver bold, creative, and inclusive communications that raise awareness of Pact’s work and help us achieve our ambitious goals. From digital campaigns and media relations to powerful storytelling and brand development, you’ll ensure our voice is clear, compelling, and deeply rooted in the lived experiences of those we serve. As a key member of the Executive Team, you will also play a vital role in shaping the overall strategic direction of the organisation, leading organisation-wide projects and championing a culture of open, values-driven communication.
Key Responsibilities
• You will provide strategic leadership for all communications activity across the charity, working closely with colleagues to develop and deliver multidisciplinary communications plans that support corporate objectives. You will be responsible for evaluating communications performance, reporting against KPIs, and using data to drive improvement. You’ll play a key role in horizon-scanning and forward planning, ensuring our messaging is proactive and responsive to external developments.
• You’ll oversee all of Pact’s digital platforms, including our social media channels and websites, as well as those for the Prisoners’ Families Helpline. You will lead the creation and delivery of compelling content to engage and grow our audiences, ensuring a dynamic and consistent presence across both organic and paid-for channels.
• Marketing and branding will be central to your remit. You’ll lead the development of high-quality, accessible and inclusive marketing materials and publications that inspire and inform stakeholders, staff, volunteers and service users. You’ll ensure the organisation maintains a strong and coherent visual and written identity, and you’ll manage a library of media assets and case studies that bring our work to life. You will also offer trusted support and guidance to colleagues and volunteers promoting Pact’s services locally.
• A core part of the role will involve amplifying the voices of people with lived experience. You’ll oversee the regular generation of powerful case studies and service user stories to be shared across internal and external channels, always ensuring ethical and inclusive storytelling.
• You’ll also contribute to the planning and promotion of key organisational events, including staff and volunteer gatherings, stakeholder roundtables and receptions.
• Ultimately, you will be the guardian of the Pact brand and the leader of our communications culture – someone who empowers others, inspires creativity, and champions clear, compassionate communication at every level.
Person Specification
• You will have significant experience in a senior communications, PR or marketing leadership role, with a proven ability to develop and evaluate impactful strategies. You’ll be an exceptional communicator with a keen eye for storytelling and audience engagement, and you’ll have experience managing digital platforms and growing audiences through content innovation.
• Strong leadership and team management skills are essential, as is a collaborative, facilitative approach that brings out the best in others. You’ll need to be a confident relationship-builder, able to influence at senior levels and build trust with stakeholders, media, and partners.
• Ideally, you will bring experience or understanding of the voluntary, criminal justice or social justice sectors. A strong grasp of inclusive communication and accessibility standards is highly desirable, along with an ethical approach to storytelling that respects and amplifies lived experience.
How to apply:
Please note - interviews will be conducted during the final week of August and the first week of September, 2025.
If you feel that you meet the requirements of this exciting new role please complete an application form by clicking the 'apply now' button.
* We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.
Other information:
Pact (the Prison Advice & Care Trust) is a pioneering national charity that provides caring and life changing services to men and women in prison, to people with convictions on release and in the community, and to their children and families.
As an inclusive employer, we welcome requests for job adverts and descriptions in accessible formats (for e.g. larger text) for candidates with disabilities, including those with neurodiversity. Please contact us if you require any support in engaging in our recruitment process.
Location: Two days a week in Central Office (Wandsworth / Wormwood Scrubs) with regular travel across England & Wales
Department Marketing and Communications
Job Type: Full time, 37.5 hours per week, Monday to Friday
Contract Type: Permanent
Salary: £46,225 per annum £3,000 market supplement
Benefits: Generous Holiday allowance Season Ticket loan Cycle to work scheme Charity worker discounts Enhanced maternity package Wellness, inclusion, and diversity groups EAP scheme Life assurance
You may also have experience in the following: Communications Officer, Media Manager, PR, Public Relations, Public Relations Officer, Communications Manager, Marketing Communications, Campaign Manager, Project Management, Charity, Third Sector, Charities, NFP, Not for Profit, etc.
REF-222 719
Today, 12 children and young people will be diagnosed with cancer. We’ll stop at nothing to make sure they get the right care and support at the right time.
- Home-based, with regular travel to London and Bristol
- Closing date: 11 August 2025
- Interview date: w/c 18 August 2025
Change lives in a life-changing career
When a child or young person is diagnosed with cancer, their whole world can feel like it’s falling apart. Independence is taken and confidence is stolen. Stability no longer exists. The future suddenly feels uncertain.
The impact of cancer on young lives is more than medical. That’s why we exist. Our specialist social workers help children and young people with cancer and their families navigate the emotional and practical impact of cancer. We remove barriers, solve problems and prioritise wellbeing. And we stop at nothing to make sure they get the right care and support at the right time.
We challenge the systems and policies that surround children and young people, we highlight gaps and campaign for change. Because we know what a better future could look like. And we know what we need to do to make that future a reality. We need to push harder, reach further and work smarter. And we need the right people on our team to help us get there. People like you.
About the role
We’re looking for a Digital Marketing Officer with paid advertising and organic social media experience to join our Digital team.
As Digital Marketing Officer, you’ll be responsible for creating email marketing campaigns, running paid advertising activity and creating content across organic social channels to help teams across the organisation hit their objectives. You’ll be joining our friendly and expert Digital Engagement Team.
You’ll have previous experience managing email and paid marketing campaigns, creating content for social channels and using digital platforms including Meta Business Manager, Email Service Providers and GA4.
You will champion the voices of children and young people with cancer, and their families in everything you do.
This role is subject to a criminal record check. In the event of a successful application a basic criminal record check will be completed.
What will I be doing?
No two days are the same at Young Lives vs Cancer. So, summarising your ‘day to day’ isn’t easy. Here are some of the main things you’ll be doing, but you’ll find more details in the job description.
Email responsibilities
- Deliver end-to-end email campaigns including briefing, copywriting, creation in Dotdigital, send and evaluation
Paid responsibilities
- Deliver paid digital marketing campaigns in-house including running virtual challenge ads in Meta – working with the Product Lead to design the campaign plan, draft the copy, build in-platform, optimise and evaluate
- Assist with paid advertising campaigns run by our digital media agency, ensuring they have clear briefs, assets are provided on-time and campaigns are delivered to plan
General Digital Marketing responsibilities
- Be part of the team’s social media monitoring rota and moderate our social channels - ensuring comments are appropriately handled in line with the social media policy
- Create and schedule content across organic social channels to support key campaigns
- Monitor the impact of marketing campaigns reporting on KPIs and metrics using digital marketing tools including GA4, Lookerstudio, Meta Business Manager, Google Ads and Bing Ads in-platform reporting
What do I need?
Diverse perspectives and unique skillsets are at the heart of Young Lives vs Cancer. If you're passionate about making a positive impact and eager to learn, we encourage you to apply, even if you don't meet the criteria and person specification fully. Your potential is what matters most to us, and we’re committed to fostering an inclusive and supportive work environment to help you develop.
The key skills we’re looking for in this role are:
- Managing marketing campaigns across digital channels including email, paid media and organic social.
- Creating content for digital channels, including email, paid ads and organic social posts.
- Using an ESP to deliver end-to-end email campaigns and writing, building, sending and evaluating results (eg Dotdigital); experience building automations and implementing tests.
- Building and optimising paid advertising campaigns in Meta Business Manager. Desirable experience of running campaigns in TikTok Ads Manager and Google Ads Manager.
- Using GA4 to effectively track and measure campaign performance
- Using a social channel management tool (eg. Hootsuite).
- Using a CMS (eg. Wordpress) to build campaign pages
What will I gain?
For people to reach their full potential, they need the right environment. As a member of Team Young Lives, you’ll be made to feel supported, valued and appreciated. Here’s how we do it:
- Flexible working: we’re open to working hours outside of 9 - 5 and we can talk through your flexibility requirements at interview stage
- Wellbeing, Thinking & Growth Days: four days a year to to step back from the day-to-day and focus on your own learning and development
- Generous annual leave allowance
- Great family/caring leave entitlements
- Enhanced pension
- Access to our employee savings scheme
To find out more about our benefits package, have a look on our website.
Our commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging
At Young Lives vs Cancer, we recognise that opportunities for too many people remain a condition of their sex, ethnicity, class, gender identity, disability, sexual orientation – or a combination. This has never been acceptable to us as an organisation. We don’t just accept difference, we value it, celebrate it, nurture it and we thrive because of it.
We’re on a journey to be reflective of the diverse children, young people and families we support. We know we aren’t there yet, and we’re passionately committed to taking actions and making changes to be a truly diverse, inclusive and equitable organisation. This includes taking anti-oppressive action and removing barriers in our recruitment practices. We particularly welcome applications from members of minoritised communities. Our Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Belonging strategy will tell you more.
We operate an anonymised shortlisting process in our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. CVs can be uploaded, but we won't be able to view them until we invite you for an interview. Instead, we ask you to fully complete the work history sections of the online application form for us to be able to assess you quickly, fairly and objectively.
Accessibility
We’re committed to providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process and we’ll always aim to be as accommodating as possible.Please let us know in your application form of any adjustments or access requirements we could make to help you with the application process and interview.
To arrange an informal chat, please contact Tommy Beattie.
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