Head of Communications

The Conservative Environment Network (CEN) is the home for conservatives who support responsible environmental leadership. We are looking for an experienced and strategic communications professional to help us make the case for conservative environmentalism and promote CEN’s campaigns in the media.

CEN’s media profile and output has grown significantly over recent years. We are a trusted commentator on environmental issues and, despite the Conservatives’ being in opposition in Westminster, many of the policy issues that CEN works on, from energy prices, to food security, to water pollution, continue to be prominent in the media. This role provides a great opportunity to campaign for market-led environmental action, develop a set of environmental narratives that resonate with conservatives, and showcase the environmental campaigning of CEN’s broad network of MPs, peers, MSPs, and councillors.

The successful candidate will be empowered to innovate and shape CEN’s communications strategy to grow our reach and impact. They will also have significant freedom day-to-day to seek out and exploit media opportunities to promote conservative environmentalism. We welcome applications both from candidates seeking a full-time, permanent position and from those seeking part-time, freelance work.

Main responsibilities:

• Build and maintain an extensive network of journalists, comment editors, and broadcasters, especially those in the centre-right media
• Generate and land stories in the media about the work of CEN, place reactive quotes, and secure broadcast media opportunities
• Draft, review, and place regular pro-environment op-eds
• Build and maintain a set of CEN caucus spokespeople for CEN campaigns
• Brief CEN team and caucus members ahead of media appearances
• Provide communications training and advice to the CEN team
• Edit the CEN blog and update the website
• Write the main CEN newsletter and edit the councillor magazine
• Revamp our digital communications output, manage the CEN social media accounts, and produce regular video content

Person specification:

• A strong belief in conservative environmentalism, experience of working with conservative politicians, and a knowledge of UK environment policy debates and narratives
• Demonstrable experience in a communications role
• A strong network of UK centre-right journalists
• Passionate about working independently as part of a small organisation
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Excellent political judgement and strategic thinking