1380 - Senior Press Officer

at  Welsh Government

JOB SUMMARY

As a Senior Press Officer, you will lead on communicating some of the most important and high-profile issues facing Wales today.
Working with policy, marketing and digital colleagues – and with your line-manager - you’ll lead on communicating our messages through the media, engaging with different audiences and developing exciting campaigns.
Working with your team, you will provide media advice and support to Cabinet Secretaries and senior officials. Through monitoring and evaluating your media work, you will ensure objectives are being met.
Developing strong and constructive working relationships with journalists is key to the role, as well as reaching out to key external influencers and experts.
Delivering positive coverage in the media is a central part of the job, so a good news sense, creativity and enthusiasm is essential. A big part of this is successfully selling-in stories to news editors and journalists – so, we’re looking for someone with a positive, resilient, can-do attitude.
Responding swiftly and accurately to breaking news, you must be able to effectively horizon scan to spot potential problems. Working with your team, you will implement crisis management strategies if they arise.

JOB DESCRIPTION

• Work closely with Cabinet Secretaries and Ministers, senior policy officials and communication teams to develop and deliver creative and imaginative media plans and campaigns;
• Cultivate strong relations with UK, Welsh, regional and specialist media, as well as key digital platforms;
• Ability to work to a deadline, independently and as part of a team;
• Respond swiftly and accurately to reactive media queries and breaking news stories;
• Correct and rebut inaccurate news stories when necessary;
• Use excellent judgement to become a trusted adviser to Cabinet Secretaries and senior policy colleagues;
• Build good working relationships with journalists and other partners, providing advice and guidance when required;
• Support the Chief Press Officer in managing the press team by directly line managing a team of more junior press officers, setting their priorities and managing workflow, providing leadership and guidance and supporting their development;
• Use a full range of insight and evaluation tools to target communications and assess their impact, using the information to continuously improve;
• Adhere to high professional standards, including very good writing skills;
• Keep abreast of developments in the communications landscape, in particular how best to incorporate digital and social media into integrated communications plans and share learning with colleagues;
• Work with communications colleagues in other disciplines to deliver cross-cutting strategic communications activity and develop wider knowledge of all communications activity;

NATIONALITY REQUIREMENTS

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Communications / Marketing