Contract: 12 month initial contract (with the intention to become permanent as funding allows).

Hours: Full time (open to 4 days per week).

Location: London/Hybrid. This is a UK based role; you must have the right to work in the UK to be considered. You are expected to be in our London, Victoria office 2 days a week.

Salary: £40,000- £45,000 FTE per annum plus an additional office allowance of £2,000 per annum pro rated.

Travel: This role requires regular travel into Westminster for meetings and some domestic travel will be required through the year. Overnight stays will be required during party conference season and to support our summer youth residential.

Benefits: 30 days annual leave, flexible working environment, enhanced sick pay, 5% employer / 3% employee pension contribution, bike to work scheme.

Reporting to: Director of Strategy & Delivery Please note: Owing to the nature of this role, any offer of employment with Bite Back will be subject to a satisfactory enhanced DBS check.

Do you want to work with a vibrant, dynamic and youth driven organisation that is committed to creating healthy futures for British children by improving the food system?

Be part of the creative, agile and growing team behind Bite Back’s exceptional teenage activists. Join us as our Senior Public Affairs Manager and contribute to our journey to help make the food system healthier and fairer. See below for more details about the role and how to apply.

At Bite Back we are committed to ensuring our team is representative of the diverse world around us and therefore we encourage candidates with a range of lived and professional experiences to apply. We particularly welcome applications from people of colour, LGBTQ+ people and disabled people. We will use positive action under the Equality Act 2010 to appoint from these underrepresented groups if two candidates are equally qualified.

About Bite Back

We’re surrounded by junk food. From the moment we're born, every second of every day, children are being targeted. Giant companies manipulate them with colourful, cuddly, clever marketing, deceive them with packaging claims and pump products at them that are full of junk. It's become the cultural wallpaper. Now, it risks destroying the health of a generation.

Over a third of 10/11-year-olds leave primary school with an increased risk of developing food-related conditions like type 2 diabetes and heart disease in their future.

The good news is, it's totally preventable. And we're biting back.

Bite Back is a youth activist movement challenging a food system that's been set up to fool us all.

We do this by:

1. Calling out the manipulation of the junk food giants.
2. Demanding higher standards from food marketing and from everyday food itself.
3. Mobilising and equipping young people in the fight for better food.

We do all this so we can bite back against a global epidemic of food-related ill health.

Role Description

We are seeking a Senior Public Affairs Manager, to lead our national public affairs activity, influencing the government to help deliver evidence-based policies that will make a real difference to children’s health. This is an exciting opportunity to work on the forefront of an urgent and politically salient policy area while also collaborating with young people to ensure their voices and lived experiences are heard by policymakers.

This is an exciting time to join Bite Back and take our public affairs strategy forward with the Government. We have already seen significant policy wins in the past year and have big ambitions to drive more progress in 2025. In 2024 our youth activists gave evidence to the House of Lords, hosted parliamentary drop-in sessions and made memorable appearances at party conference fringe sessions. This is an opportunity to build on that success and raise Bite Back’s profile even further amongst policymakers at a time when the Government is charting its new strategic approach to improving the food system as well as its 10 year plan to save the NHS.

The Senior Public Affairs Manager will report to our Director of Strategy & Delivery and be responsible for developing and implementing all our public affairs activity, ensuring alignment with our campaigns team and working closely with our partners in other organisations to bring about meaningful change. This is a great opportunity for someone looking for the chance to lead high profile public affairs activity at an organisation with growing impact.

Responsibilities

The Senior Public Affairs Manager is accountable for:

• Developing and delivering a 3-year public affairs and influencing strategy to galvanise action, building the profile of Bite Back, our young campaigners and secure support from political stakeholders at all levels, and both nationally and locally.
• Ensuring this strategy remains “live” and flexible. Adapting it to political and policy change as necessary.
• Planning a pipeline of tactical public affairs activities that take advantage of key opportunities and mechanisms to build relationships with a growing number of political advocates.
• Managing and delivering other political events throughout the year such as influencing roundtables, receptions, including at least one Parliamentary drop-in event and two Party Conference fringe sessions per year.
• Translating young people’s insights and policy context into messaging for policymakers and distil policy detail into key points for young people to engage with and campaign on.
• Providing strategic advice to the team on political developments and adapt strategies and plans accordingly. Upskilling and advising the wider Bite Back team and young people on political activities and processes.
• Providing line management support on public affairs to the Policy & Engagement Executive.
• Searching for external opportunities and events where our young people may be able to present their lived experience to policymakers either through giving formal evidence or playing a speaking role.
• Working with our youth team to engage and support our youth leaders to speak with policymakers including development of briefing materials, preparing and running training sessions and attending meetings.
• Drafting letters, submissions, briefing notes and other outreach materials to engage policymakers, Government and manage dissemination and follow up.
• Conducting political stakeholder mapping, perception auditing and contact tracking to inform strategic political engagement plans and evaluation.
• Collaborating with the content and campaigns team to translate public affairs moments and messaging into exciting, accessible content for our supporter audiences.
• Working closely with other organisations via established coalitions and more informal coordination around key issues, working collaboratively at the highest levels with values-aligned organisations to achieve our goals.

Skills and Experience

The ideal candidate would have the following:

Essential

• Experience working in public affairs in an agency, in-house or in Parliament.
• Excellent knowledge of the UK political landscape including the working of Westminster, Whitehall and existing relationships with MPs and advisors.
• The ability to work collaboratively in a fast-paced environment and respond flexibly to adapt strategies to fit quickly rapidly changing political landscapes.
• An action oriented, results driven, well organised approach.
• Strong writing and communication skills, with the ability to adapt messages and language to resonate with different audiences.
• A passion for young people’s health, nutrition and social justice

Approach to Work

You will be able to demonstrate the following qualities:

• A bold and open mind — you will be prepared to think differently about issues.
• A level head — you will be comfortable working both reactively and proactively.
• A sense of humour — we believe work should be fun and that we all perform at our very best when we enjoy what we do.
• Creativity — you will come at issues from new and surprising angles.
• A commitment to Bite Back’s values: Fresh, Resilient, Respectful, Energetic, Real.

To Apply

Please apply with a CV and a statement answering the following questions:

1. Give an example of a public affairs strategy you’ve built around a key moment for your organisation (report launch, event, campaign launch, polling, etc). (250 words max)
2. Give an example of how you’ve built a key relationship or relationships with policymakers which you have then used to advance the mission of your organisation. (250 words max)
3. Tell us how you would utilise the voices of our young activists to build relationships and consensus with politicians about food and nutrition policy. (250 words max)

If you have any questions about the role or the application process, do contact us on recruitment@biteback2030.com and we’ll be happy to help. We will only accept applications submitted via the CharityJob website. This is because CharityJob automatically anonymises all applications to reduce bias in the selection process.

Applications will be handled in line with our Recruitment Privacy Policy.

Timeline

• Applications close at midnight on Tuesday 14th January 2025.
• Initial (online) interviews are expected to take place week commencing 27th January 2025.
• Second interviews will happen at Fivefields, London Victoria during week commencing 3rd February.

If you are in receipt of means tested benefits and cost is a barrier to attending a London based interview, please let us know and we can help with booking your travel.

We are testing an approach of sharing one interview question in advance as part of our commitment to being more inclusive. Please let us know if you require any additional support or reasonable adjustments for the application or interview. We really want our process to feel accessible.