Communications and Engagement Advisor

Contents

• Location
• About the job
• Benefits
• Things you need to know
• Apply and further information

Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Darlington, Edinburgh, London, Salford

About the job

Job summary

This is an exciting time to join the Department for Business and Trade (DBT). As the department for economic growth, we aim to: redraw our rules to ensure businesses thrive, markets are competitive, and consumers are protected, secure investment from UK and international businesses, advise, support, and promote UK businesses to grow and export, open up new markets for businesses by removing barriers and striking trade deals, and promote free trade, economic security and resilient supply chains.

We are seeking a Comms and Engagement Advisor to join the Free Trade Agreement Utilisation (FTAU) team. FTAU aims to help ensure UK exporters are fully equipped to take advantage of new opportunities provided by FTAs, through a combination of trade policy expertise, deep knowledge of FTA markets, working with exporters and in partnership with DBT colleagues.

Our relationships are key to achieving our objectives and we collaborate with teams across DBT as well as other government departments. We also work closely with many external stakeholders such as Business Representative Organisations and directly with exporters, to ensure we are responding to the interests and needs of UK businesses looking to grow internationally.

The successful applicant will play a vital role within the FTAU team, helping support our business engagement across the UK to understand and access our FTAs. The role will require you to develop a network of UK businesses which trade internationally, as well as relationship manage some of the FTAU team’s strategic partners.

You will be required to develop knowledge on different global markets and a range of cross-cutting trade policy areas. The FTAU team is also involved in government-to-government collaboration with partner countries, which you will be expected to support on to ensure the needs of UK businesses are represented.

The role may occasionally require some periods of overseas travel, as well as some meetings outside of normal working hours to accommodate for time differences when needed.

FTAU is a friendly team with members from a wide variety of professions. As a team and department, we are committed to being an inclusive employer and building a culturally diverse workplace. We actively encourage applications from people from the widest possible diversity of backgrounds, cultures, and experiences. The team is high-performing, ambitious and inclusive, and is the ideal place for existing or aspiring trade professionals to make a difference and develop their careers. 

Job description

• Strategy: supporting the implementation of a business engagement strategy for FTAU, which ensures the team is targeting its engagement and business-facing activities in the most impactful areas.
• Communications: assist the team in designing and creating communication outputs to inform businesses of the benefits of the UK’s FTAs, working closely with the central comms teams in the UK and overseas. This will include the management of the team’s case study library.
• Stakeholder management: support the FTAU team’s engagement with businesses and Business Representative Organisations (BROs) by leading on stakeholder mapping. You will also be required to build and maintain relationships with our strategic partners.
• Coordination: providing logistical and administrative support to help deliver the external activity of the FTAU team with other external facing teams in DBT, such as international colleagues, External Affairs and Strategic Communications.
• Professional Development: commitment to continuous professional development to ensure up to date knowledge of FTAs, cross-cutting areas of trade policy, UK growth areas and international markets.

Person specification

Skills and Experience

Essential criteria

• Demonstrable experience of working with businesses and Business Representative Organisations (BROs) in a communications, external affairs or relationship management capacity.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, and comfortable communicating with a range of different stakeholders and audiences, including assisting with the preparation of presenting at roundtables and events.
• Strong organisational, planning and administrative skills, and comfortable managing and balancing competing priorities.
• Comfortable with developing and maintaining a network of external contacts, in support of the team’s engagement objectives.
• Team player who is flexible and proactive and can work across organisational boundaries.
• Ability to quickly alter your approach to delivery in a fast-paced environment.

Desirable criteria

• Experience and/or interest in supporting the implementation of engagement strategies for a range of different sectors, with measurable objectives.
• Knowledge of the trade policy environment, with an understanding of the broad range of policy areas that sit within a typical FTA.
• Experience and/or understanding of UK export policy and DBT’s export-facing activities.
• Experience of working with, and supporting, the running of campaigns for a range of different sectors.
• Experience of working in an international or internationally-facing team.

We seek dynamic, energised applicants who are comfortable working in client-facing and cross-organisational teams, delivering at pace and to a high quality, and who can demonstrate the following attributes:

• Self-starter who feels comfortable operating independently and can confidently represent DBT externally, whether with businesses, organisations, or counterpart governments.
• The ideal candidate will be a skilled collaborator, with strong written and oral communication skills, that enjoys working across the Department and engaging with internal and external stakeholders.
• You will be motivated and keen to deliver an important part of UK trade policy, while being able to adapt to changes, prioritise workloads and work at pace.
• You will be committed to your professional development. The FTAU team will invest in your L&D, which will be provided by a combination of external training, on the job experiences, and opportunities through the Trade Profession.

Behaviours

We’ll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Communicating and Influencing
• Delivering at Pace
• Working Together

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £32,858, Department for Business and Trade contributes £9,518 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

We recognise the challenges that people with (multiple) protected characteristics may experience on the job market and in their career progression. We are fully committed to being an inclusive employer and ensuring equal opportunities. We are keen to make our workforce as diverse as possible, and we hope to attract applications from underrepresented groups, including ethnic minorities, people with a disability, and people with gender diverse identities.

Please refer to the attached candidate pack for further information on our benefits.

The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Tiffany Burrows
• Email : tiffany.burrows@businessandtrade.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : dbtrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Further information

Our recruitment process is underpinned by the principle of appointment on the basis of fair and open competition and appointment on merit, as outlined in the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles.

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with these principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should in the first instance contact DBT by email: Resourcing@businessandtrade.gov.uk.

If you are not satisfied with the response you receive, you can contact the Civil Service Commission, which regulates all Civil Service recruitment.

For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their web pages: Click here to visit Civil Service Commission/Complaints

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