Senior Press Officer

TN United Kingdom; Cheltenham; Remote; GBP 38,000 - 41,000; Full time

Job description

Contract Type: Fixed Term

Salary: Regional £38,304 - £40,354, London £41,719 - £43,769 per annum

Contract Type: Fixed term contract until January 2026 covering a secondment

Hours: Full time (30 hours over 4 days)

Location: Flexible across England, Wales and Northern Ireland

(London salary applicable to candidates who are based in the London office a minimum of two days a week)

We’re looking for a passionate, proactive and experienced Senior Press Officer to join the media team. You’ll use your excellent comms skills to design and deliver media strategies that achieve cut-through in crowded media spaces, raise our profile and brand awareness, and support campaigns that deliver wins critical to building a fair, zero-carbon future.

As part of this role, you will bring to life our work as an environmental justice organisation and ensure that the voices of those most at risk and already hardest hit by the climate and nature crises, both in the UK and overseas, are at the centre of our media and comms stories.

Key Skills:

1. Extensive experience pitching and placing impactful stories across mainstream UK broadcast, online and print media.
2. Proven relationships with journalists, editors, producers and broadcasters at national, regional and specialist climate and environmental outlets.
3. Ability to work well under pressure, meet tight deadlines and respond quickly to reactive opportunities.
4. In-depth knowledge of the UK media landscape and emerging comms trends.
5. Extensive experience delivering successful news and PR strategies.
6. Excellent writing skills with demonstrable ability to write for different audiences.
7. Experience managing crisis comms and reputational risk.

Key Attributes:

The successful candidate will have:

1. Ability to work as part of cross-organisational teams to deliver impactful campaigns and integrated multi-channel comms moments.
2. Proven ability to own and lead on key strands of press work and take decisions on the most suitable media approaches for delivering maximum impact.
3. Proven ability to write media materials like reactive quotes, opinion pieces and longer form articles for publication to a high standard, for a variety of audiences and media outlets.
4. Sound news judgement and an eye for a good story.
5. Understanding of ethical story-gathering principles when working with spokespeople with lived experience and/or storytellers.
6. Experience of working with volunteers and/or community groups, ideally supporting them to achieve media coverage or tell stories.

The team:

The media team is small but mighty. We have some exciting and ambitious team objectives to deliver that look at how Friends of the Earth is turning up in the media, alongside continuing to achieve impressive levels of coverage of Friends of the Earth’s work. Together, we will work to deliver the campaign wins that are critical to building a safer, fairer future, harnessing the power of stories from the frontlines of the climate crisis to change hearts and minds alongside the voices of our talented and growing pool of spokespeople.

Closing date: Monday 5th May 2025 (23:59)

Interview Dates: week commencing 2nd June 2025.

Please note we only accept applications via the Friends of the Earth Application System.

We offer a competitive range of benefits, good work/life balance including a 4-day working week with no loss of pay, excellent learning and development opportunities and a vibrant organisational culture.

Our staff body is currently under-representative of People of Colour, LGBTQIA+ people and people with long term conditions or impairments. We are committed to eroding these historic barriers, so as to create a movement in which people from all walks of life see themselves in, and so we particularly encourage you to apply if you belong to one of these groups or sit at multiple intersections of disadvantage. We are committed to the Disability Confident standard and will guarantee an interview to any candidates who declare a disability and who meet the essential criteria for the role.

Friends of the Earth staff who publicly represent Friends of the Earth (including all campaigners) are not allowed to also represent a political party. This is to ensure that there can be no confusion in the minds of the public about Friends of the Earth's party-political independence. Affected staff should also seek permission from the Senior Management Team if they wish to hold a non-public facing official role in a political party. If this is an issue, please do raise this with us as soon as possible.

Friends of the Earth is an international community dedicated to protecting the natural world and the wellbeing of everyone in it. We lead campaigns, provide resources and information, and drive real solutions to the environmental problems facing us all.