Senior Strategic Communications Officer WCC620939

Job Details:

Salary range: £41,580 - £45,399 per annum 
Work location: Westminster City Hall, 64 Victoria Street, Westminster, SW1E 6QP 
Hours per week: 36 
Contract type: Permanent 
Closing date: 25 May 2025

About Us:

THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM 

Corporate Services in Westminster City Council is a world of extraordinary stories. Where people use their vision and commitment to open doors for the next generations. 

Nothing beats the feeling of helping someone find their passion. At Westminster City Council, our City Lions team helps young local people engage with culture, creativity and dreams. When they came across a lonely, isolated 16-year-old who called himself a failure, they knew what to do. They worked 1-2-1 to find the thing this boy really loved. YouTube, it turned out. But it’s impossible to turn that into a career, right? Wrong. A week later, he was enrolled on the British Film Institute film-making programme. It was the ultimate light-bulb moment. And it turned him into what he is today – a budding Spielberg with a world of opportunity at his feet. 

Please view the extraordinary story of the Impossible Dream here.

The Role:

As Senior Strategic Communications Officer, you can make your own powerful contribution to Westminster’s success. Using customer insights to support the development and implementation of strategic campaigns and communication activities, you’ll develop and outline plans that identify the tools that will successfully engage with audiences, influence perceptions and change behaviour. You’ll then deliver a range of coordinated activities across the marketing and communications mix to deliver the best outcomes, report on the effectiveness of campaigns, and make recommendations to improve their delivery.

Advising your colleagues on the best ways to successfully create, implement and deliver effective campaigns, you’ll use your experience and insights to identify target audiences and partners, support decision making and help improve our overall approach to communications. Interpreting data to identify stakeholders and audience insights, you’ll also offer high-quality business partnering across the council, and act as the strategic communications point of contact for internal clients.

Your work won’t stop here – your additional responsibilities will be working with colleagues within the wider communications team to respond to media queries, generate positive press coverage and keep up to speed with changes in policy and operations. Building influential networks and embedding the latest innovations the industry has to offer, we’ll expect you to scan the communications landscape to identify risks and optimise opportunities. Committed to building excellent relationships with your colleagues, local communities, businesses and education and faith groups, you’ll also be a committed and inspirational team worker.

Please refer to the Job Description for more information. 

About You:

With a degree, a marketing/communications qualification or equivalent practical experience, you’ll have experience of using a variety of tools, techniques and channels to work on creative, proactive communication strategies. Skilled at handling sensitive enquiries that require liaising with stakeholders and external agencies, you’ll be capable of working in a political environment, and ready to understand and respond to a range of different ideas and perspectives.

Your desire to understand society’s changing landscape, the ways people make decisions and how they react to brands will allow you to present information clearly using different media while adjusting your tone of voice for different audiences. And your knowledge of the issues facing local government and the legal, financial and political context of public sector management will mean that you’re ready to build collaborative relationships and connections across different areas of our organisation.

It goes without saying that you’ll have superb interpersonal and communication skills, and the ability to manage deadlines, timetables and competing priorities. An inspirational and collaborative team worker, you’ll also have a keen eye for detail, excellent organisational skills and a clear understanding and commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion.

Westminster City Council is committed to supporting Care Leavers into the workplace. Care Leavers seeking their first job and who wish to be considered under our scheme, will automatically be invited to interview should they meet the essential criteria for the role.

What We Offer:

Westminster is an amazing place. We are home to more than 200,000 residents from all backgrounds, over 50,000 vibrant and vital businesses and three-quarters-of-a-million people work in Westminster. Westminster City Council’s strategy is to work towards a Fairer Westminster. A Fairer Westminster is one in which our communities are at the heart of our decision-making and help to determine the city’s future. By working directly with our communities and other partners, we can build a more inclusive city that celebrates our diverse communities, and where residents, workers and visitors from all backgrounds will feel welcome and safe.   
 
At Westminster City Council, we pride ourselves on being an inclusive workplace and employer of choice. We encourage and welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that, at all levels, represents the communities we serve. We champion equality, diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued, has a sense of belonging and is empowered to be their best, that is the Westminster Way. To find out more about how we do this visit  https://www.westminster.gov.uk/health-and-social-care/public-health-strategy-policies-and-reports/equality-duties  
 
As a forward-thinking Council we appreciate that people work in different ways, therefore our staff benefit from working a range of flexible working patterns as well as Agile working.  
 
The Council is a Disability Confident Employer. If you have declared a disability in your application, we guarantee an interview if you meet the essential criteria of the job. If you are invited for interview, you will be asked if you need any reasonable adjustments in order to attend, and we will make these wherever possible.