government relations jobs

Humane World for Animals UK is part of Humane World for Animals, a global animal protection organisation striving for a better future for animals through advocacy, education, and hands-on programmes. In the UK, we are an effective voice for animals running campaigns in wildlife protection, the fur trade, and farmed animal welfare, backed by hundreds of thousands of supporters across the country. A small but effective team, Humane World UK has big ambitions to create further positive change for animals both here in the UK and around the world.

About the position

Responsible strategic leadership and effective delivery of Humane World UK’s public affairs advocacy, this role is an exciting opportunity to create lasting change at scale. The role will be responsible for delivering public affairs components of all of Humane World UK's priority campaigns, including bans on imports of hunting trophies and fur, a ban on the use of farrowing crates for pigs, and adoption of plant-forward policies in public sector procurement. The role will also identify new and reactive opportunities to improve public policy for animal protection in the UK.

If you are results-oriented, persuasive, organised and have strong proven experience as a public affairs professional then we would like to hear from you.

Key areas of responsibility

• Undertake strategic policy analyses, and develop evidence-led policy positions, briefings, and statements, to support the effective delivery of Humane World UK campaigns to political audiences;
• Work with campaigns teams to deliver timely dissemination of Humane World UK’s briefing and policy outputs to targeted policy and political stakeholders, including through Parliamentary meetings and events;
• Monitor the national policy and political landscape, including parliamentary inquiries, consultations, written and oral questions, party political policy positions and government announcements, in order to recommend and draft responses;
• Work with Humane World UK's legal advisors to analyse draft legislation pertinent to Humane World UK’s campaigns, crafting proposed amendments and coordinating interventions to secure the most robust and enforceable animal welfare laws;
• Manage, and ensure team-wide effective use of, Humane World UK’s political monitoring tools and database, to inform political stakeholder relationship development and management;
• Create stakeholder maps and relationship development strategies for key policy-making stakeholders for each of Humane World UK’s priority campaigns, to strengthen our influence and reputation in the civil service, government, and parliament;
• Respond to public affairs and policy inquiries from the public, supporters, and the media;
• Report regularly on progress against agreed public affairs goals and metrics.

About you

Our successful candidate will be a confident, articulate and positive with a proven track in leveraging positive change the the public affairs/policy space. A proactive self-starter, you will have demonstrable experience of managing and developing strong, focused and ambitious teams, and a solution-focused approach to overcoming obstacles. You will have experience of building strong, trust-based, strategic relationships with political and policy stakeholders in order to deliver agreed goals, and you will ideally bring a network of positive relationships with you. You will have ambition and drive for creating positive change for animal welfare; a willingness to constantly learn and develop the most impactful, cost-effective, audience-tailored advocacy to politicians and policy-makers; and your work will be solidly underpinned by regular evaluation of progress and impact with a view to further improving strategies.

We are searching for an experienced public affairs professional to make a difference and be part of our sucessful and friendly team. If that’s you, please get in touch!

To apply

You must have an existing right to work in the UK, and you must reside in the UK, to be considered for this role. Please submit your CV and a covering letter via the CharityJob website by 11pm Sunday 11th January. Applications without covering letters will not be considered.

Note: Our policy is to offer a fixed one year contract to start with a view to convert to a permanent contract in year two.