Do you have experience working in media relations, public relations, or digital media? If the answer is yes, you could be a fantastic fit for our Communications Officer role.

We have two positions available, please read below about both of these great opportunities and if you wish to apply and have a particular preference with one of the roles, please state this in your covering letter.

The Opportunity

Salary: £31,586 to £34,314 per annum (£12,805 to £13,911 per annum)

Location: Your office base will be Chichester and a typical week will combine homeworking with attendance at the office. This is led by the needs of the service.

Contract and working pattern: 1 x Full time, 37 hours per week (12-month fixed term or secondment contract)

1 x Part-time, 15 hours per week (Permanent contract, days can be flexible)

Employer Pension Contribution: 19.70% this alters per annum on the 1 April each year.

Annual leave: 27 days holiday + Bank holidays = 35 days (Full time equivalent)

As a Communications Officer, you will deliver first-class communications and messages to communities across West Sussex.

Working as part of the county council's Communications & Engagement Team, you'll be working on high-profile campaigns and messaging across various channels and platforms, including social, digital and print media as well as providing media relations and handling by liaising with journalists.

Working with a supportive team, you will be involved in multiple projects simultaneously where your passion for communications, innovation and creativity, plus your eye for detail and how best to convey a compelling message will be greatly valued.

You'll be responsible for evaluating communications to showcase its impact. This will involve creating, managing, and monitoring plans, plus gathering quantifiable data through a variety of methods to track success.

You'll assist Senior Communication Officers and Communications Leads in promoting council campaigns, behavioural programmes, and projects efficiently. Understanding council services is crucial for recognising opportunities and building relationships with key staff. Training will be provided if this isn't your current area of expertise. You will need to be aware of both local and national news agendas to ensure the county council is seizing all opportunities and responding to current events.

You'll be required to participate in an out-of-hours on-call rota, for which an additional allowance is provided.

What are we looking for?

• Ability to develop creative ideas and editorial across all forms of communication and editing input for a range of platforms.
• Ability to write effectively for a range of audiences and communication channels including for the web and social media.
• Developed communication and interpersonal skills to effectively engage with clients and stakeholders, fostering strong working relationships.
• Problem-solving skills.
• Literacy and numeracy skills to understand and interpret research data and customer feedback and present analysis in the most appropriate way.
• Relevant theoretical and practical knowledge of processes, procedures and policies associated with working within a demanding communications service.
• Knowledge of communication methods, including social media, to effectively contribute to changing campaign objectives.
• Understanding of the media landscape and management of media sensitive issues.
• Understanding of the political landscape and politically sensitive issues.
• Experience of working on a variety of communications activities, particularly in a public sector environment.
• Experience/confidence of dealing with a range of people and services and planning on more than one campaign at a time.
• Experience of handling and responding to media enquiries.

For more information on the Key Skills as well as the Qualifications and/or experience required, please refer to the Job Description attached.

As well as adding real value to our service users and our communities, as an employer we recognise our employees are central in being able to achieve this. To recognise this, we want to help support your development and provide an great place to work ensuring you can fulfil your full potential, have access to a range of benefits including:

• a range of flexible working options, depending on your job role
• maternity, paternity, dependency and adoption leave
• volunteering opportunities
• training and development opportunities, including coaching and mentoring
• a range of discounts giving our staff access to hundreds of offers; groceries, travel, cinema tickets, days out, leisure activities, high street retailers and the opportunity to save over £1,000 a year through our West Sussex Choices benefits platform (see our Staff discounts page if you are a business looking to offer a discount)
• health and wellbeing benefits including access to our Employee Assistance Programme, Mental Health First Aiders and Voluntary Health Cash Plans.

Further information

The reference number for this role is CRS00886.

To apply, please follow the links below to upload your CV and Cover Letter. In your cover letter please outline your motivations for applying and explaining the skills and experience you can bring to the role (please refer to the key skills) ensuring that any gaps in employment are covered in your CV. Please ensure you have saved the job description attached to the main advert on our website as, once the job has closed, you may not have the opportunity to download again.