Head of Digital Strategy & Planning, New Media Unit
| Posting date: | 28 May 2025 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £67,126 to £77,813 per year |
| Additional salary information: | National - £67,126 - £71,795 London - £71,370 - £77,813 |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 11 June 2025 |
| Location: | London |
| Company: | Government Recruitment Service |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 408001/2 |
Summary
The New Media Unit (NMU) is part of the Government Communication Service (GCS) and sits within the Cabinet Office. The NMU was established in November 2024 with the clear goal to reach, connect and rebuild trust with audiences in the most effective way possible. Our aim is to provide the public with relevant, useful and authentic content when and where they want to receive it and communicate in an entirely new way.
The government has signalled a clear intention to focus on ambitious, measurable, long-term objectives that deliver better outcomes for citizens. This requires a new way of doing government which is more joined-up and better reaches the public to build awareness, understanding and trust in the government’s missions. The New Media Unit is a critical lever in achieving these long-term aims, bringing together the specialist skills required to reach citizens with content they want to consume at a time and place they want to consume it.
The team is evolving, and works in an agile way proactively delivering on missions-based campaigns and responding to nation-wide communications. We need people who think differently and who can respond quickly to the ever-changing media landscape. At its core this team is focused on flexibility and collaboration across the three pillars (Strategy, Campaign and Creative), working closely with the GCS Strategy & Campaigns and Applied Data & Insight teams, alongside No 10 and departmental communication teams across government.
This is a really exciting time to be joining the NMU as we look to expand our activity, test and learn different approaches and deliver communications which make a difference to people’s lives. This is a rare chance to be part of something truly groundbreaking, where your ideas will directly influence the future of digital communications at the heart of government.
What we’re looking for
We need outstanding leaders in digital strategy who have a high level of digital expertise and will put audiences at the heart of everything they do. We're seeking innovative and creative senior leaders to help craft our evolving vision. This is a unique opportunity to lead one of the biggest transformation projects in government communications, to help the government reconnect with citizens in digital channels. Most importantly, we want people who care passionately about delivering outstanding communication for the public.
We value colleagues who embrace change, think outside the box, and thrive in a dynamic environment where responsibilities evolve with our ambitions. We welcome applications from the widest range of people of different backgrounds, cultures and experiences. If you're passionate about making your mark and flourishing in an atmosphere that champions fresh thinking and adaptability, we want to hear from you.
About the Government Communication Service
By joining a communications team, you will become a member of the Government Communication Service (GCS), a well-established profession of communicators working across government departments, agencies and arm’s-length bodies. You’ll benefit from continuous professional development from our new learning and development curriculum, a network of skilled communicators sharing best practice, mentoring opportunities, and more!
For more information on how becoming a part of the Communications Profession can support your career and development please visit our careers page.
For our top tips on how to write your application, please take a look at our recruitment top tips for candidates guide.
Job Description Overview
The New Media Unit (NMU) is a brand new communications team at the heart of government, integrating strategy, media and creative roles into one, in-house team with a focus on rebuilding trust in government. The NMU is a high profile team, delivering priority work for those at the highest levels of government and therefore offers a very exciting opportunity to work closely with No10 colleagues.
The NMU works hand-in-hand with No10 and the Prime Minister’s office in order to deliver outstanding cross-government priority campaigns and initiatives to better reach citizens where they are, with content and creative they want to engage with, in the channels where they are most active.
It represents a step-change in the way the government communicates with citizens - more audience-led, more digital and more relevant to the way the public now gets their news and consumes their content.
The Head of Digital Strategy and Planning is a critical and senior leadership role in this team in setting the communications strategy, ways of working and culture for this new start-up, and to ensure the team’s success. We are looking for a highly experienced strategic leader, capable of proactively identifying critical communications problems to solve for our audiences and developing compelling and industry-leading propositions to answer them. The successful candidate will put extensive experience of audience insight and research at the heart of everything they do and will manage and develop a team of brilliant strategists and insight specialists to deliver cross-government digital strategy to help build trust in government.
Responsibilities & Duties
The Head of Digital Strategy and Planning is responsible for:
- Developing audience-led strategy, propositions, objectives and KPIs to meet the NMU’s long-term goals.
- Overseeing the development and implementation of audience segmentations, polling, research and insight and measurement of long-term goals, championing new ways of thinking and working closely with No10 on cross-government audience segmentation.
- Leading the engagement of departmental and policy teams across government to identify NMU opportunities and proactively ensuring the team has access to required information to deliver effective campaigns, and are constantly looking for new information sources and insight.
- Identifying and championing growth opportunities for NMU; developing compelling business plans, strategic propositions and campaign briefs in collaboration with the Head of Marketing.
- Playing a key role in guiding strategic decision-making alongside Senior Leadership Team members.
- Representing NMU at senior level both inside and outside of government.
- Inspiring and developing a high-performing team of collaborative, open and creative strategic thinkers.
- Leading by example on collaborative working across GCS to develop campaign approaches to drive genuine cross-team collaboration and join-up.
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