Job summary
The Prime Minister?s Office enables the Prime Minister to deliver the Government?s overall priorities and to communicate the Government?s policies to Parliament, the public and international audiences.
From the Policy Unit, Press Office, Switchboard and Custodians to the Events & Visits team and the Private Office support; the diverse No.10 team draws on varied expertise from across the Civil Service and beyond.
The teams come together to deliver excellent service to the Prime Minister while also making No.10 a great place to work.
Job description
The Strategic Engagement team supports No.10 North to build and design its engagement approach to ensure it is strategic, insight-led and delivers value for the First Secretary of State and the Prime Minister.
We enable consistent, high-quality engagement with strategically important partners across the UK to support the design and delivery of the Prime Minister?s ambitious agenda for No.10 North.
Our work is fast paced and varied ? planning and delivering engagement that will build strong local and national partnerships around a shared vision that will drive the delivery of rewiring the state and good growth in every postcode.
The Head of Strategic Communications will work within the Strategic Engagement team, and alongside the No.10 Downing Street Communications team, and be a member of the unit?s corporate leadership team.
Key Responsibilities include:
- Building strong, productive relationships with strategically important stakeholders aligned to the purpose of No.10 North.
- Working with communications teams and senior leaders in No.10, across government, Mayoral Strategic Authorities (MSAs) and local authorities across the UK, the Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise (VCFSE) sector, academia, business and investment to identify joint communication opportunities.
- Keeping the Strategic Engagement Unit focused on supporting No.10 North strategic policy outcomes: overseeing the communications strategy and work plan for 26/27, ensuring that the unit delivers against its stated business and corporate improvement objectives and is able to adapt to meet new demands as they arise.
- Building a high-performing team: play an active role in the corporate leadership of the Strategic Engagement Unit and lead a sub-team, ensuring they are empowered and included in delivering their work and supported to develop in their roles.
Essential skills and experience:
- Setting and delivering strategy: Experience of developing and implementing strategies that deliver clear and measurable impact.
- Communicating for impact: Highly developed communication skills across all content and multiple platforms.
- Driving continuous improvement: A ?test and learn? mindset with experience of driving continuous improvement in the work of a team or across organisations at rapid pace (including use of digital solutions and generative AI).
- Project delivery: Experience of setting up, monitoring and evaluating the impact of projects and programmes.
- Leading in a complex environment: Highly developed leadership and management skills, with experience of creating high performing inclusive teams and supporting individuals to stay resilient and adaptable in a rapidly changing context and with shifting demands.
Desirable Criteria:
- Organisational change experience: Experience of working on organisational transformation and change (e.g. culture change, capability improvement).
Additional information:
Office for the Prime Minister policy is that a minimum 60% of your working time should be spent at your principal workplace.
For some roles, due to their nature and the business need, this may be up to 100%.
Requirements to attend other locations for official business will also count towards this level of attendance.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process: Leadership, Seeing the Big Picture, Communicating and Influencing, Delivering at Pace.
Benefits
Alongside your salary of £71,734, Cabinet Office contributes £20,781 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme.
Learning and development tailored to your role.
An environment with flexible working options.
A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity.
A Civil Service Pension which provides an attractive pension, benefits for dependants and employer contributions of 28.97%.
A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by one day per year up to a maximum of 30.
Things you need to know
Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience.
Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action.
Selection process details
This vacancy is using Success Profiles , and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths and Experience.
Application process
A candidate information session will be held on Monday 9th November 2026, 15:30-16:00, on MS Teams.
Further information
A reserve list may be held for a period of 12 months, from which further appointments can be made.