Independent Football Regulator – Deputy Director, Communications and External Affairs

Job summary

The Independent Football Regulator

The Independent Football Regulator (IFR) has been established to protect and promote the sustainability of English football, for the benefit of fans and the local communities football clubs serve.

The IFR will help improve financial sustainability of clubs, ensure resilience across the leagues, and safeguard the heritage of English football. It will operate a licensing regime; set corporate governance standards and monitor, protect, and promote financial resilience. It will also enforce compliance with requirements on financial regulation, club ownership and directors, fan engagement, and heritage protection.

The IFR will also have powers to prohibit clubs from joining competitions that are not fair or meritocratic, or that threaten the heritage or sustainability of English football.

Job description

About the role

This role is core to the IFR’s regulatory strategy. In collaboration with the Director of Strategic Communications, you will be responsible for all communications activity, including media management, across the IFR.

It will give you exposure to the central workings of the football industry, significant influence over the IFR’s regulatory strategy, and shared responsibility for designing and delivering comprehensive communications and media strategies that support the IFR in achieving its objectives.

This role requires a deep understanding of football governance, financial regulation and effective communication to ensure the IFR successfully meets its statutory duties and clearly articulates its mission and actions to all stakeholders.

You will also have the ability to combine deep strategic instinct with sharp industry/political awareness. You will need to read situations quickly and accurately while maintaining a coherent long-term strategy with a team that spans across Press, Stakeholder Engagement, Internal and Digital Communications.

While the IFR is a Non-Departmental Public Body there will be regular interaction with Ministers, Special Advisers, senior officials, and cross-Government partners. You will have experience of operating at pace and under pressure, and you will bring the credibility and judgement to be a trusted adviser at the most senior levels

You will also sit as a key member of the Executive Committee alongside the Director of Strategic Communications, sharing collective responsibility for the delivery of the communications strategy.

Person specification

Essential Requirements

• Proven senior experience setting and delivering communications strategy in a complex, high-profile environment, balancing long-term direction with rapid response to clubs, leagues, fans, and media.
• Demonstrated track record of providing trusted, timely, and robust evidence based counsel to senior officials combined with a strong ability to build and sustain relationships across complex stakeholder landscapes to align, amplify, and accelerate delivery.
• Demonstrated experience in protecting and enhancing organisational reputation during periods of challenge with the ability to identify and mitigate reputational risks before they escalate.
• Proven ability to operate as an effective, collaborative member of a senior leadership team, taking collective responsibility for shared outcomes and contributing to directorate-wide strategy beyond your own portfolio.
• Demonstrated experience leading high-performing teams that can adapt rapidly to emerging priorities while maintaining strategic coherence, nurturing talent, and fostering a culture of continuous learning.
• Experience leading internal communications through significant organisational change, balancing transparency and strategic clarity.

Desirable Skills

• Ability to collaborate with teams across Policy, Economics, Supervision and Legal, understanding their perspectives and aims while balancing how this should be communicated to, and understood by, fans, clubs, legal stakeholders and others.

Benefits

Terms and Conditions of Employment

If successful you will join a Non Departmental Public Body and will be employed as a Public Servant.

If you are an existing Civil Servant or a DCMS employee you will no longer have access to Civil Service benefits including the Civil Service pension.

The terms and conditions of employment include:

• • Pension 12% An employee contribution of 5%, with an employer contribution of 7%.
  • Flexible Benefit 8% Employees can choose to invest 8% of their base salary into their pension, or take as cash (post tax)
  • Reward we will have a performance based reward programme.
  • 31.5 days annual leave
  • Flexible and hybrid working, 40% in office attendance
  • Occupational sick pay
  • 9 months paid Maternity Leave + generous paternity and adoption leave.
  • A bespoke L&D programme to help you achieve your personal CPD, including paid membership fees
  • Cycle-to-work scheme and much more!

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

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. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

How to Apply

To apply for this vacancy, you will need to submit the following documents which will assessed against experience.

➔A CV setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure you provide employment history that relates to the essential and desirable criteria, and that any gaps in employment history within the last 2 years are explained. The CV should not exceed more than 2 x A4 pages.

➔A Statement of Suitability (max 750 words) explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role in reference to the essential requirements highlighted. You may also choose to reference the desirable skills listed however these will not be considered in the assessment of your application except in circumstances where there are a high number and calibre of candidates.

For the shortlist, we will select applicants demonstrating the best fit for the role by considering the evidence provided in your application.

In the event of a large number of applicants, an initial sift will be conducted on the statement of suitability.Those who are successful in the initial sift will then be scored on all elements of the application.

For support in writing your application and interviewing, please refer to the ‘Application and Interview Guidance’ document attached to the job advert.

The Interview

The interview process will assess experience through a presentation which will be provided prior to interview. It will also assess your suitability for the role through competency-based questions.

As part of your interview, you will be asked to deliver a short oral presentation. Full details of this, including the topic, length of time, and whether or not you will need to use visual aids, will be sent to you prior to your interview.

Your interview will take place via Teams

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

Please note this Post is NOT regulated by the Civil Service Commission.The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Joe Alford
• Email : careers@footballregulator.org.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : careers@footballregulator.org.uk

Attachments

Deputy Director, Communications and External Affairs ​ Opens in new window (pdf, 954kB)