We are recruiting for our new Public Affairs Manager at an incredibly important and exciting time for colleges, and the wider education and skills system.

The Public Affairs Manager will play a key role in both making sure that we fully capitalise on the opportunities of systems reform and increased funding – whilst ensuring that colleges have the sufficient authority, funding and support to respond to the ongoing crisis.

Managing our parliamentary and wider political engagement will include:

• Developing and managing our relationships with parliamentarians, ministers, opposition parties and advisors, including attendees meeting and briefing senior AoC colleagues where appropriate.
• Supporting colleges to deliver impactful political engagement – including both through support for individual colleges, and in developing effective public affairs strategies to ensure a prominent college voice regionally and nationally.
• Managing our engagement with relevant parliamentary committees and groups, ensuring we are feeding in to relevant inquiries and are frequently asked to give evidence.
• Developing the role of the APPG on FE and Lifelong Learning, ensuring it delivers real impact in terms of parliamentary engagement and public profile.
• Ensuring high-quality briefings are produced for parliamentarians on key issues, and that colleges are referenced regularly in relevant debates.
• Ensuring that internal colleagues and our member colleges are kept fully informed on political developments.

We are looking for someone with excellent knowledge of legislative process and parliamentary business combined with proven experience of successful networking, negotiation and influencing skills and the ability to build effective and sustainable partnerships to achieve shared aims. You won’t necessarily have worked in education and skills policy previously, but you will have a proven ability to learn new policy areas quickly, and will be adept at describing complex policy issues clearly to non-experts. A self-starter, you will have the ability to prioritise and manage competing pressures and will have demonstrable people management skills.

Full details including the job description & person specification can be found on our website here: https://www.aoc.co.uk/vacancies/public-affairs-manager