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Highways England are responsible for operating, maintaining and improving England’s motorways and major A roads. Over recent years, investment in our highways has increased, this has led to advances in technology, such as smart motorways; enabling traffic to flow better. However, even more is yet to be done. Considering that a third of all traffic, two thirds of heavy goods vehicles, and 98% of UK businesses rely on them, and you can see why our roads, and what we do, matters so much.

It’s an exciting time to begin a career with Highways England as we invest £11 billion in our motorways and A Roads boosting capacity, tackling congestion and improving safety which is why we’re so grateful to our c 4,500 employees around the country. At the same time, we’ll improve how we work. That means we will be able to; plan roadworks better to minimise disruption; clear incidents more quickly; and save more than £1 billion by working more efficiently. When you work with us, you're helping to connect communities, sustain business and support the economy.

The Role

We have an exciting opportunity for a Public Affairs Manager to join Highways England on a permanent basis, based in the north of England. The role offers the chance to play a key role in further establishing the Public Affairs function at Highways England. Your primary responsibility will be to help develop and deliver a public affairs strategy and programme to connect us with key stakeholders and issues across the north of England. Working in a small team of public affairs professionals you will be required to build relationships with senior stakeholders, provide strategic public affairs support and advice to our teams and leaders in the region and represent Highways England at external events.

Please Note - this role will require the successful candidate to travel around the Country to other Highways England offices and attend external events.

Day to Day

  • Support development of Highways England’s public affairs strategy;
  • Develop and deliver a regional public affairs programme that builds familiarity with and support for Highways England and its work;
  • Support senior leaders and regional teams in their stakeholder engagement activity;
  • Build high value relationships across the north and represent Highways England at external events;
  • Monitor the external stakeholder environment and bring actionable intelligence into the business;
  • Work as part of an integrated communications function to deliver a range of public affairs campaigns;
  • Lead the delivery of regional parliamentary engagement activity, including the delivery of regular surgeries for Members of Parliament;
  • Support the ongoing establishment and development of public affairs at Highways England.

About you

  • An experienced public affairs professional with an excellent working knowledge of government and parliament;
  • Strong oral and written communication skills with an ability to bring clarity to complex issues;
  • Strategic and astute – able to see the bigger picture but with a real eye for detail;
  • Comfortable, confident and discrete in the company of senior stakeholders;
  • Organised and flexible, with an aptitude for dealing with changing and competing demands at short notice;
  • Driven, ambitious and able to work with high levels of autonomy;
  • Ideally with some knowledge of the regional political and stakeholder landscape in the north.

Closing date

Applications for this post closed 11:59pm on Thursday 3rd May 2018