Senior Public Affairs Advisor - 7240
Save the Children UK has an exciting opportunity for a strategic and politically-minded individual with extensive policy knowledge & experience to join us as our Senior Public Affairs Advisor.
Please note: This is a 12 month FTC.
About Us
Save the Children UK believes every child deserves a future. In the UK and around the world, we work every day to give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. When crisis strikes, and children are most vulnerable, we are always among the first to respond and the last to leave. We ensure children's unique needs are met and their voices are heard. We deliver lasting results for millions of children, including those hardest to reach.
About the role
As Senior Public Affairs Advisor, you will lead Save the Children UK's political and public affairs work on one of our key strategic priorities – including protecting children in crises, tackling UK child poverty, and advancing the Sustainable Development Goals. You will design and deliver high-impact influencing and change strategies, build and maintain strong relationships with Parliament and key stakeholders, and ensure our advocacy drives meaningful policy outcomes for children.
Working collaboratively across the organisation, you will support colleagues, children, and priority audiences to engage confidently and effectively with decision makers. This role is ideal for someone with strong experience in international development and humanitarian aid, and a deep understanding of international cooperation and foreign policy, who is motivated to translate global evidence and child-centred priorities into impactful political influence in the UK.
In this role, you will:
- Lead political strategy and thought leadership on international development and the future of international cooperation, shaping ambitious and credible policy change.
- Build and manage high-level relationships with parliamentarians, ministers, senior civil servants, and key external influencers to drive impact.
- Provide clear, timely political insight through monitoring, analysis, and briefing to inform advocacy and manage political and reputational risk.
- Deliver high-impact advocacy by drafting compelling briefings and enabling children, families, and colleagues to engage directly with decision makers.
- Strengthen public affairs capability across Save the Children by coaching colleagues and working collaboratively across teams and regions.
About you
To be successful, it is important that you have:
- Strong understanding of UK political systems, processes, and trends.
- Solid policy expertise in international development, international cooperation, and humanitarian issues.
- Proven ability to analyse political insight, manage political risk, and use this to drive effective influencing.
- Demonstrable experience delivering strategic, creative lobbying and advocacy that achieves political change, including through events and campaigns.
- Excellent relationship-building and communication skills, with the ability to explain complex issues clearly and work effectively across teams and coalitions.
- Strong planning, project management, and organisational skills, with the flexibility to adapt in a fast-changing environment.
- Commitment to Save the Children's vision, mission and values.
What we offer you:
Working for a charity provides one of the best benefits there is – a sense of purpose and reward for helping others. However, we understand the importance of giving back to our employees to ensure a happy and healthy working environment and work/life balance.
- We focus on flexibility, inclusion, collaboration, health and wellbeing both in and outside of work.
- We provide a wide range of benefits which will reward your hard work, motivate you, and inspire you to work to improve the lives of children every day. You can read more about our benefits here.
To learn more about the position, please review the Job Description in the attached Documents.
Closing date: midnight on Sunday 25 th January
Please note: To avoid disappointment, you are advised to submit your application as soon as possible as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if a high volume of applications are received. This is to ensure that we can manage application levels whilst maintaining a positive candidate experience. Unfortunately once a vacancy has closed, we are unable to consider further applications.
Location & Ways of Working:
The majority of our roles can be performed remotely in the UK, but at times you will be required to come to your contracted office (usually between 2–4 days per month, depending on the needs of your role, team, or service). For many roles, this is likely to be the minimum required to deliver impact.
This will be discussed and agreed with your manager / team and we encourage candidates to discuss our ways of working in more detail at interview stage.
Please note: travel costs to your contracted office will be at your own expense.
Flexible Working - We are happy to discuss flexible working options at interview.
Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion:
Save the Children UK believes in a world that is fair, inclusive and equitable where all children have the opportunity to change their world. We apply this to our workforce and we are committed to developing and supporting a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organisation where all employees have a sense of belonging and feel that they can be "Free to Be Me". We are not looking for just one type of person - we want to recruit people who can add fresh perspectives, innovative ideas or challenge that disrupts the risk of group think.
We are especially interested in people whose childhood experiences - of life on a low income, of migration, of being in a racialised community, of the care system, of being LGBT+ or in an LGBT+ family or living with (or with someone with) a disability - help us to see things we might otherwise miss. Whatever your story is we want to hear it because we know that different voices, ideas, perspectives and knowledge, working together will enable us to better the lives of children around the world. This is the reason why we are all here.
To see our full statement please visit this link: https://jobs.savethechildren.org.uk/our-policies/diversity/
Salary Structure:
Save the Children is committed to paying staff in a fair and equitable way and will benchmark all salary offers in line with the pay of existing staff. To see our full offer please visit this link: Save the Children | Careers
Interview Expenses:
Candidates should note that unfortunately it is not our policy to reimburse expenses accrued when attending interviews at Save the Children UK unless you are requested to attend an interview in an alternative location to where the role is based.
Pre-employment Checks:
Any Employment with Save the Children UK will be subject to the following checks prior to your start date:
- a satisfactory police record check to include a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check and/or an International Criminal Record Check (If applicable)
- receipt of satisfactory references
- proof of eligibility to work in the national location for this role
If you have any questions, we have an FAQ section here.
For anything else you can email us on: careers@savethechildren.org.uk
- Group:UK Impact
- Location (Role):London (Farringdon)
- Contract Type:Fixed Term Contract / Internal Secondment
- Full / Part Time:Full time (flexible working options available)
- Contract Duration:12 months
- Closing Date:25 January 2026
- Salary Range :£61,500
- Hours Per Week:35