HS2 (High Speed 2)
Public Affairs Manager
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Location: London or Birmingham based
Base salary: Birmingham £41,092 pa to c. £48,344 pa / London £44,380 pa to £52,212 depending on skills and experience. In addition, we offer a flexible benefits fund of 15% which is paid on top of the base salary and is fully pensionable, as well as a range of competitive benefits - check them out in the Benefits section on our website.
About HS2 Ltd
HS2 Ltd endeavours to ensure everyone working for us and with us feels included, thrives, and achieves their full potential. 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.
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. To build, maintain, and improve relationships with key stakeholders – including national, regional, and local politicians, business groups, industry stakeholders, and international representatives.
- Build, maintain, and improve relationships with identified key stakeholders to build understanding, cooperation, 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 maximize 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 maximize 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 organization, 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.
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About You
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:
- Knowledge of local, regional, and national political and industry stakeholders.
- Knowledge of how the 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.
Type of Experience:
- 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.
The post-holder is expected to behave at all times in a manner consistent with the HS2 values of Safety, Leadership, Integrity, and Respect.
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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 organizational initiatives, policies, and procedures on EDI.
Additional Information:
As HS2 Ltd do not hold a sponsorship license from the Home Office, we are not able to provide sponsorship to any applicant. Applicants must already have the Right to Work in the UK at the time of application and our process involves a Right to Work validation prior to the interview stage. Note, there are certain types of time-bound visas that we cannot accept.
Any offers made to applicants will be subject to satisfactory completion of pre-employment checks which include Nationality & Immigration Status, employment references, DBS, Financial, and Education checks.
We ask for a variety of detail in your online application, however, we perform the first assessment of suitability for a role based solely on the information in your CV. In a further development of our efforts to create a more diverse workforce, your CV will be anonymised and personal information will be removed during the first stage of the application review. This removes bias from the process and makes it even more important that you 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. Watch this video on how we remove bias in the recruitment process: Removing bias in the recruitment process - YouTube.
Any applications received after the closing date will not be considered.
About HS2 Ltd
High Speed 2 (HS2 Ltd) will be the UK’s new high-speed rail network. As well as improving capacity, 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.
HS2 Ltd is also a safety-critical organization. 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.
HS2 Ltd endeavours to ensure everyone working for us and with us feels included, thrives, and achieves their full potential.
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