Context:

The post holder will work in the Innovate UK team responsible for the delivery of Innovate UK’s business growth support, in particular the business growth service Innovate UK EDGE.

Innovate UK’s Business Growth function delivers wraparound support to the nation’s innovation-focused SMEs to help them develop into investment-ready businesses with the very best chance to go on to grow and scale. Innovate UK EDGE is Innovate UK’s primary business growth support service. Its 330+ innovation and growth specialists, including 25 Scaleup Directors, provide small to medium sized innovation-focused companies across the UK with advice and access to resources to accelerate their growth. Its specialists are based at 19 independent organisations in a consortium, our ‘delivery partners’, who also drive local marketing of our services under the Innovate UK EDGE brand. Our goal is that more of the companies we work with will be better quality, investor ready and have the very best chance to go onto grow and scale.

You will work as part of Business Growth’s engagement function, alongside our 15 operational colleagues who develop and steer the delivery of our portfolio of activity. You will also liaise with Innovate UK’s central communications team, our UK delivery partner marketing teams and marcomms teams at international peer organisations to coordinate activity.

Please find more on Innovate UK EDGE and the businesses it serves here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrMOhOrmeR6nWrhJbwfwQ0F1njWRsSh7b

We particularly welcome female applicants as women are under-represented within Innovate UK in this type of role.

Job Purpose:

It is an exciting time to join our growing team, which works at the business end of innovation: reach and engagement is a priority for Innovate UK and there is a strong focus on increasing the profile and understanding of Innovate UK and its impacts as it helps realise the opportunities for the UK economy and society outlined in the Government’s 2021 Innovation Strategy.

The Business Growth function, including Innovate UK EDGE, is in the vanguard, with events that attract Government ministers, expert views that media outlets such as the BBC want to hear and most importantly, results achieved by clients in areas such as scaling, investment and internationalisation that inspire them to share stories about our role in their business success.

You will fulfill a central role in implementing our internal and external communications strategies: you will shape messaging and compelling narratives that encourage colleagues to harness our capabilities and that inspire more suitable innovation-focused businesses to engage with and benefit from our service, reaching them through owned, earned and paid channels.

You will also support colleagues who focus on stakeholder and regional delivery partner engagement, to embed our offer with relevant regional and national innovation, investment and business growth support organisations and networks. Digital is central to everything we do, so you will be collaborating with your digital product & comms colleagues to deliver and amplify communications.

The role holder will be encouraged to develop with relevant training through UKRI and the Government Communications Service.

Key Responsibilities and Accountabilities:

• Collaborate closely with the Senior Communications and Marketing Manager to translate our engagement strategy into impactful, measurable activity
• Help organise and help in the preparations for regular and ad hoc internal communications opportunities, including events, webinars and reports that update our colleagues and celebrate achievements
• Help identify and develop mutually beneficial initiatives with external partners such as events, industry, supplier and media organisations
• Plan and prepare content on key aspects of the service, working with in-house thematic experts and business clients. This content might range from news releases to case studies, brochures, opinion pieces and presentations. You will also coordinate the production of audio-visual and textual content from external providers and manage our library of content to ensure it is easily assessable by the whole team
• Develop our foresight capability and monitor for relevant internal and external opportunities to convey our messages
• Build relationships with operational and comms colleagues across the organisation
• Carry out limited manipulation of visual assets using software such as Photoshop or Canva
• Contribute to digital activity ranging from social media posting, website updating and content-orientated SEO activity
• Monitor and evaluate the success of campaigns and marketing activity conducted centrally and by our delivery partners, working with our digital lead and partner coordinator
• Join or deputise for the Senior Communications Manager at any internal or external meetings where required, such as liaison meetings with senior representatives of our parent organisation
• Interrogate our impact data for insights that help us explain and promote the service to our key audiences; also grow your understanding through interactions with target businesses

This is not an exhaustive list and you might be encouraged to undertake any other duties across the wider directorate, commensurate with the Band and level of responsibility of this post, for which the post holder has the key experience and/or training.

Person Specification:

Qualifications:

Essential –

• Educated to degree level, or with equivalent experience

Desirable –

• Additional relevant qualifications in communications are desirable

Experience:

Essential –

• Strong B2B comms and marketing experience, public or private sector (e.g. for professional services or business support organisations)
• Content creation experience (producing content - especially written - and managing content creation)
• Proven experience managing multiple concurrent projects and various work streams successfully, with regard for team priorities
• Proven experience of liaison across stakeholders and senior colleagues with tact and diplomacy to complete projects
• Familiarity with productivity tools e.g. Slack, remote meetings tools e.g. Teams and graphics and content creation software e.g. Photoshop or Canva. Familiarity with PowerPoint and Excel / Google Sheets
• Experience of working with sensitive information and handling it according to relevant legislation
• Experience of working with people from diverse backgrounds and a wide range of functions
• Demonstrable interest in science, technology, innovation and its role in society and the economy

Desirable –

• Substantive experience of one or more core comms or marketing disciplines such as public relations, internal comms, digital marketing, direct marketing, branding and positioning
• Familiarity with a mainstream website CMS system
• Events management experience
• Experience of procurements
• Financial and budgeting experience
• Experience of qualitative / quantitative research
• Awareness of the Government’s agenda for business and innovation

Skills:

Essential:

• Strong attention to detail and a commitment to quality and accuracy
• Excellent communications skills, written and verbal
• A professional approach to engaging directly with clients and stakeholders, to answer queries, educate and drive engagement
• Strong interpersonal skills and a collaborative working style; able to work effectively with colleagues to find solutions to challenges
• Excellent organisational skills and time management skills: able to plan your own time effectively to successfully deliver required outputs, ideally taking an overarching strategy as a reference point for prioritisation
• The ability to work with autonomy and at pace in an environment with competing demands, requiring agility
• Demonstrable creative thinking skills
• The ability to identify and summarise key points from complex discussions and documents and translate them into communications goals and activity
• Self-awareness, flexibility and good personal resilience in fast changing environments as well as high levels of discretion and tact
• A willingness to challenge preconceptions and offer well-reasoned and considered judgements to all levels of stakeholder
• Clear and concise reporting on activity in written and verbal form
• An eye for impactful visual design
• Habitual record keeping for accountability and the swift retrieval of key information

Competencies:

All team members demonstrate compatibility with and capability against our Core Competencies such as:

Thinking and Problem Solving – Stakeholder management – Communication skills – Influencing – Self-awareness/Self-management – Strategic awareness – Working with others– Project management

Travel Requirements:

Field-based: There will a requirement to travel, mostly national, and there is some flexibility in this. Innovate UK staff make extensive use of telepresence tools for meetings to minimise unnecessary travel.

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%

Job contact :

Name :
Recruitment@ukri.org
Email :
Recruitment@ukri.org

Recruitment team :

Email :
Recruitment@ukri.org