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About the Role

As a Public Affairs Manager at HS2, you will be responsible for delivering political and wider stakeholder engagement programmes that build confidence in the HS2 project, enhance the reputation of HS2 Ltd, and enable the delivery of the new high-speed railway. You will build, maintain, and improve relationships with key stakeholders, including national, regional, and local politicians, business groups, industry stakeholders, and international representatives.

Responsibilities

Build, maintain, and improve relationships with identified key stakeholders to build understanding, co-operation, support, and advocacy.
Manage meetings, events, and other engagement activities to support the delivery of Public Affairs engagement programmes and the wider External Affairs Plan.
Organise and deliver stakeholder visits to HS2 construction sites and our supply chain, working across External Affairs teams to maximise communications and engagement opportunities.
Prepare clear and concise briefings, presentations, and reports to support the delivery of public affairs engagement plans.
Manage proactive and reactive correspondence with identified key stakeholders, ensuring all responses are timely, accurate, and of high quality in both tone and content.
Develop effective relationships internally and across multiple contractors, working collaboratively to ensure timely, coordinated, and consistent two-way information flows between HS2 and identified key stakeholders, and to maximise opportunities for proactive communications and engagement.
Proactively identify opportunities to involve key stakeholders in the project and work with colleagues across HS2 to plan and deliver engagement activities.
Provide political monitoring, intelligence, and insight to inform and advise the External Affairs Directorate and wider business.
Develop and maintain an overview of the politics, stakeholder issues, and activities in identified areas, identifying and feeding back into the business key risks and opportunities.
Act as an external advocate for the organisation, attending networking events, building relationships, and promoting activity to support HS2 Ltd objectives and help deliver the programme.
Work with the Head of Stakeholder Engagement & Skills, the Public Affairs Lead, and Senior Public Affairs Managers to support the HS2 Delivery Leadership Team and Senior Leadership Team’s engagement with external stakeholders, including speaker opportunities.
Record and report on all planned and delivered engagement with key stakeholders, ensuring a consistent approach and alignment with HS2 processes.
Work as part of the Public Affairs rota, performing on-call out-of-hours duties when required.

Requirements

The post-holder is expected to behave at all times in a manner consistent with the HS2 values of Safety, Leadership, Integrity and Respect.
It is expected that you will actively promote and embed Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in all your work and support and comply with all organisational initiatives, policies, and procedures on EDI.
Applicants must already have the Right to Work in the UK at the time of application.
Right to Work validation is required prior to the interview stage.
Certain types of time-bound visas cannot be accepted.
Offers made to applicants will be subject to satisfactory completion of pre-employment checks, including Nationality & Immigration Status, employment references, DBS, Financial, and Education checks.
The first assessment of suitability for a role is based solely on the information in your CV.
CVs will be anonymised and personal information removed during the first stage of the application review to create a more diverse workforce.
Attach an updated Word version of your CV for each new application, ensuring you include evidence directly related to the criteria in the job advert.

Skills

Able to work with external audiences to build understanding and political support.
Able to build trust and collaborative working relationships with key internal and external stakeholders.
Able to produce clear, persuasive written and verbal communications, using a range of styles, tools, and techniques to tailor to the audience.
Able to influence and communicate with both internal and external audiences, including MPs and their advisers.
Able to analyse complex issues and provide clear and consistent advice, intelligence, and briefings, including to senior colleagues.
Able to manage own workload and competing stakeholder priorities to meet agreed deadlines.
Able to work flexibly and adapt quickly to changing priorities.
Able to respond effectively to reputational issues or crisis communications incidents.
Knowledge of local, regional, and national political and industry stakeholders.
Knowledge of how UK Parliament works and an understanding of the most effective methods of engaging with politicians at a local, regional, and national level.
Knowledge of the planning and parliamentary processes.
Understanding of the political environment within which HS2 operates.
Understanding of how to build support with and through wider audiences.
Experience of designing and delivering public affairs plans and campaigns.
Experience of working with political and industry stakeholders within a contentious or complex environment.
Experience of engaging with MPs, Peers, and political influencers.
Experience of providing advice on public affairs and reputation management.
Experience of developing persuasive content across a range of communications channels.
Experience of delivery against challenging timescales and developing requirements.
Experience of working on infrastructure projects of similar scale, scope, and complexity.

Location

London
Birmingham

Work Type

Full-time

Experience Level

Mid-level
Senior-level

Salary/Compensations

Birmingham £41,092 pa to c.£48,344pa
London £44,380pa to £52,212

Benefits

Flexible benefits fund of 15% which is paid on top base salary and is fully pensionable.
Range of competitive benefits available on the company website.

About the Company

HS2 Ltd endeavours to ensure everyone working for us and with us feels included, thrives and achieves their full potential.
HS2 Ltd is also a safety-critical organisation. Employees are required to ensure reasonable care of their own and others’ health and safety by taking personal responsibility for working to our ‘Safe at Heart’ programme principles and following safe working procedures at all times.
High Speed 2 (HS2 Ltd) will be the UK’s new high speed rail network.
The new scheme will shorten journey times between a number of Britain’s major population centres, boost the economy and create thousands of jobs.
HS2 Ltd will create a skills legacy and develop a diverse range of talent.
We aim to be a leader in EDI practice by creating a safe & inclusive working environment for all our staff - living our values of Safety, Respect, Integrity and Leadership.
In practice, this means we are positive and inclusive about making adjustments, providing flexible working, encouraging our staff networks to flourish and providing personal and professional development opportunities.

Equal Opportunity

HS2 Ltd endeavours to ensure everyone working for us and with us feels included, thrives and achieves their full potential.
We are positive and inclusive about making adjustments, providing flexible working, encouraging our staff networks to flourish and providing personal and professional development opportunities.
We aim to be a leader in EDI practice by creating a safe & inclusive working environment for all our staff - living our values of Safety, Respect, Integrity and Leadership.