At the Royal College of Nursing we're an optimistic organisation. As the largest trade union of nursing staff and students in the UK - with around 435,000 members - all we can see are the infinite possibilities for a brighter future. Join us and you will too.

RCN UK HQ Office (London), 35 hours per week, permanent contract.

As a Public Affairs Adviser you'll use your skills, knowledge and experience of influencing to deliver positive change for nursing staff.

We'll look to you to develop and implement strategies for building and maintaining relationships with key influencers and lead public affairs activity on cross-organisational projects. You'll use your in-depth parliamentary knowledge to identify opportunities to influence stakeholders to achieve our priorities and objectives.

Lobbying on behalf of our members will be your primary role, but you'll also contribute to integrated communications, policy and industrial relations campaigns. A key part of what you do will be to suggest innovative approaches to grow our network of supporters.

As our Public Affairs Adviser you'll use your enthusiasm, your excellent written and verbal communications skills to achieve legislative and/or policy change to the benefit of our members.

A key part of what you do will be to lead on the organisation's response to legislation, seeking to influence and amend where appropriate. You'll also advise colleagues on public affairs activity and intelligence, identifying opportunities to promote the RCN to external audiences.

In your role, you'll influence critical decisions about our political engagement, as well as how we facilitate and support members to become more politically active. You'll provide advocacy support to members to become politically engaged. As our Public Affairs Adviser you'll contribute to organisational wide projects, for example on legislative or policy change, whilst influencing stakeholders and building key external relationships.

As well as exceptional communications skills, to join us you'll need an in-depth knowledge of Parliament and lobbying tactics, and how these work best within a membership organisation. You'll need to be results driven, able to work under pressure and to tight deadlines and, ideally, have a background in health care or trade union lobbying.