Head of Marketing and Communications

Head of Marketing and Communications

Directorate: External Relations

Reporting to: Director of Development and External Relations

Responsible for: five staff in the Communications team

Based: Our Head Office is based in London, but we have an agile working policy enabling people to work at another UK location up to 4 days/week. Requests for permanent remote working will be considered

Terms: Full time (35 hours per week), permanent. Requests for flexible working will be considered.

Salary: £45,448 - 55,744 per annum

Role overview

The Head of Marketing and Communications is responsible for the strategic direction of the BSA's marketing and communications activity. Working with senior colleagues, you will develop and oversee the marketing and communications strategy for the BSA overall, as well as some of its high-profile programmes. You will have responsibility for the full spectrum of the BSA's communications function, from digital marketing to traditional media relations, and for communications output across earned, owned and bought media platforms, leading a small team to deliver against the goals set at both a programme and organisational level.

You will oversee a small, centralised communications budget (

Key responsibilities

The main responsibilities of this role are to:

Leadership:

• Lead and inspire the Communications team, with line-management responsibility for three manager-level roles.
• Foster a collaborative, values-driven working environment for the Communications team across the organisation, including with Fundraising, Policy, and Programme teams.
• Work closely with the Director of Development & External Relations and Chief Executive on key strategic and emerging issues such as stakeholder-engagement, thought leadership, and crisis communications.

External communications:

• Develop and deliver a bold and exciting marketing and communications strategy for the organisation, based on our strategy and business plan.
• Have overall accountability for the marketing and communications output for all BSA programmes and their respective brands, including the British Science Festival, CREST Awards, British Science Week, For Thought, and others.
• Have oversight of the BSA's corporate communications strategy and BSA brand, offering support and leadership to colleagues on the delivery of the strategy.
• Have oversight of British Science Week, including planning and delivery of the annual PR campaign, as well as supporting the Education and Community Engagement teams on the programme content (e.g., activity packs, grants).
• Act as the BSA's lead on messaging and tone of voice, ensuring consistency and appropriate use across all communications output.
• Lead our engagement with media, journalists, influencers and other relevant stakeholders to raise the profile of the BSA and its programmes.
• Set the direction and maintain oversight of the BSA's digital communications output, including our websites and social media channels, supporting colleagues to develop and deliver innovative content ideas.
• Lead on the evaluation and impact reporting of all communications activity, including providing reports to the BSA's Council and other senior stakeholders / funders.

In addition, the post-holder will be expected to:

• Support colleagues across the organisation especially at busy times or on specific areas of expertise.
• Support on internal communications, such as coordinating internal opportunities to promote collaborative working across the organisation.
• Other duties as reasonably required by your line manager.

About you:

• The Head of Marketing and Communications role would suit someone who has experience in delivering broad, multi-channel marketing and communications campaigns for a range of audiences.
• We'd expect the successful candidate to have extensive experience in communications, including media relations, digital comms, and stakeholder influencing. You should be an excellent storyteller, with an eye for a compelling story or narrative.
• You do not need to have worked in a science-based organisation previously, but it would be beneficial to have an understanding of the UK's research and/or education and youth landscape.
• You should have experience of leading high-performing teams by motivating them to achieve and exceed the expectations set for them.

Benefits:

• Agile working policy enabling you to work at home or in another UK location up to 4 days per week, if office-based, and to vary your working hours outside our 10am - 12pm and 2pm - 4pm core hours, subject to the needs of the BSA;
• 27 days holiday per annum plus bank holidays (pro-rata for part-time employees)
• Up to two days paid leave per year for significant voluntary commitments in support of professional and personal development, such as being a trustee of a charity or a school governor
• Auto-enrolment pension scheme (4% paid by employer)
• Up to five days' unpaid leave per year (this is down to the Manager's decision and ensuring it does not affect work)
• Life assurance from your first day, subject to scheme rules
• Occupational sick pay: up to six weeks' full pay per year (pro-rata for part-time employees)
• Confidential telephone counselling service, offered by our legal insurance
• Interest-free loan for season ticket, bike to work, and assisted study
• Discounts may be offered on Science Museum tickets and in the shop.

The closing date for applications is 23:59 on Wednesday 8 January 2025.

First interviews are due to take place w/c 20 January 2025, and second interviews are likely to be w/c 27 January.

You will be informed as soon as possible after the application deadline whether you have been selected for interview.

Interested?

If you would like to find out more, please click the apply button. You will be directed to our website to complete your application for this position.

As part of the British Science Association's commitment to being a Disability Confident employer, all disabled applicants who meet the 'essential criteria' for this vacancy will be offered an interview under our guaranteed interview scheme.

If you wish to apply under the guaranteed interview scheme, you will be asked to indicate this when you submit your application by selecting 'yes' in the relevant box when asked during the application process. Applicants do not need to state any further information or declare their disability at the application stage.

The BSA follows government advice in that it is important to note that there may be occasions where it is not practicable or appropriate to interview all disabled people that meet the minimum criteria for the job. For example, in certain recruitment situations (such as a high number of applications), we may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people.

In these circumstances, we could select the disabled candidates who best meet the minimum criteria for the job rather than all of those that meet the minimum criteria, as we would do for non-disabled applicants.

Whether you are applying under the scheme or not, if you are successful in being shortlisted, we will ask candidates with disabilities or long-term health conditions to let us know if they need any adjustments during the recruitment process.

No agencies please.