3,565 Jobs

Job summary

Corporate Affairs leads UKEF’s external affairs, strategic communications and corporate stakeholder relationships, supporting delivery of UKEF’s Business Plan and protecting and enhancing UKEF’s reputation.

This Grade 7 role is a senior position within Corporate Affairs, responsible for leading, owning, and providing effective and timely delivery and engagement with priority external stakeholders, particularly bank partners. The post holder will own and operate UKEF’s Strategic Relationship Management framework and engagement for these stakeholders, ensuring that engagement is coherent, insight driven, measurable, and aligned to organisational objectives, and that senior leaders and Ministers are well supported in high impact external engagement.

The Corporate Affairs Lead provides strategic grip and leadership across some of UKEF’s most significant external relationships. Operating across organisational boundaries, the role works closely with senior colleagues across UKEF and with partners across government to ensure that engagement with priority stakeholders is purposeful, coordinated and delivers clear value.

The post holder will shape, deliver, and continuously refine UKEF’s approach to strategic and partner engagement, act as a coordination point on stakeholder risks and issues and ensure that key relationships contribute to tangible outcomes for exporters, SMEs and UK growth.

This role requires strong judgement, political and commercial awareness, the ability to manage multiple priorities and deliver a broad portfolio of engagement initiatives, and the confidence to influence and advise at senior levels in complex and fast‑moving environments.

Job description

Strategic Relationship Ownership

• Set the strategic approach and provide senior ownership for UKEF’s engagement with priority stakeholders, particularly UK banks – aligning colleagues and partners on impactful strategy and delivery plan.
• Design, implement and continuously improve a robust Strategic Relationship Management model, setting clear expectations for ownership, engagement standards and accountability.
• Personally lead relationships with systemically important and high priority stakeholders, while providing assurance over relationships and activity led elsewhere in the organisation.
• Directly design and deliver a portfolio of engagement activity which delivers against UKEF and stakeholder priorities (including events, roundtables, visits, content creation, advocacy activities).

Senior Engagement, Advice and Assurance

• Provide authoritative advice to the CEO and senior leaders on stakeholder sentiment, emerging risks and strategic opportunities.
• Lead the planning, coordination and assurance of senior‑level and Ministerial engagements, ensuring purpose, consistency and alignment with UKEF’s objectives.
• Act as an escalation point for stakeholder issues.

Organisational Coordination and Influence

• Influence internal stakeholders to align activity, messaging and behaviour with agreed engagement strategies and relationship priorities.
• Set clear frameworks and expectations for how UKEF engages externally.
• Represent Corporate Affairs in senior cross‑government forums, supporting joined‑up handling of shared stakeholder relationships. Demonstrate proactive leadership in the Government Communications Service External Affairs profession.
• Utilise AI and digital tools, where relevant, to improve team capability.

Insight, Outcomes and Continuous Improvement

• Set expectations for the systematic capture and analysis of stakeholder insight to inform decision‑making and future strategy.
• Provide regular strategic assessments to senior leadership on trends, risks and opportunities in the stakeholder landscape, as well as direct outputs and outcomes from External Affairs led activity.
• Ensure KPIs and regular reporting that align with the wider Divisional scorecard for raising awareness, building reputation, and generating leads.
• Sponsor time‑bound pilots or improvements to test new engagement models and inform future prioritisation and resourcing.

This list is not exhaustive, and the post holder will be expected to respond flexibly to emerging priorities.

Person specification

Essential

Qualifications

• Undergraduate degree or equivalent demonstrable work experience (A,I)
• Evidence of continuing professional development (A,I)

Knowledge

• Knowledge of best practice in developing strategic relationships / partnerships with key strategic partners, and building a centre of excellence relationship management (A,I,P)
• Working understanding of the role of communications in delivering on government and/or business priorities (A,I)
• Understanding of gathering and using audience data and insight to inform campaigns, raise awareness and generate leads, with the ability to scope and report on KPI's (A,I)

Skills/Ability

• Excellent judgement, including the ability to provide clear, confident advice on cross-cutting issues (A,I)
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills, including briefing senior leaders concisely and effectively (A,I)
• Ability to produce a range of compelling content for use with third parties and their audiences, to increase advocacy and influence (A,I)
• Robust strategic thinking skills, including horizon scanning and translating external insight into organisational action (A,I)
• Ability to lead and deliver a broad spectrum of engagement initiatives, including roundtables, events, visits, meetings and more (A,I)
• Ability to set clear KPIs and metrics, utilise insight and data to inform decisions, and lead regular reporting for the senior leadership team, ExCo, Board and ministers (A,I)

Experience

• Significant senior‑level experience in strategic stakeholder or relationship management, external affairs or a closely related field, with a proven ability to influence at executive or Ministerial level (A,I,P)
• Demonstrable experience of setting strategy and exercising leadership across complex, cross‑organisational activity, and work across departments to align on opportunities (A,I)

Qualifications

oUndergraduate degree or equivalent demonstrable work experience (A,I)
oEvidence of continuing professional development (A,I)

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Making Effective Decisions
• Managing a Quality Service
• Communicating and Influencing

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Presentation - on a topic agreed by UKEF and will be provided to the relevant candidates.
• Technical Questions

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £61,250, UK Export Finance contributes £17,744 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

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

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

We are assessing candidates using Success Profiles (see Appendix 1) and across the whole process we will assess your Experience, Technical and Behavioursas highlighted below.

The application must be completed by 23.55 on the day of the closing date for it to be accepted.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

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 for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Please ensure that you read through the Candidate Information Pack attached to this advert, before applying.

All applications will be sifted against our essential criteria outlined in the personal specification.

• Qualification

• Statement of suitability - you should fully articulate in 750 words how you meet the essential criteria outlined in the person specification within the Information Pack.

For the initial sift your application will be evaluated against:

1. Experience - CV / Application and Statement of Suitability

In the event of a high volume of applications, an initial sift will be completed against the following essential criteria:

• Working understanding of the role of communications in delivering on government and/or business priorities (A,I)
• Significant senior‑level experience in strategic stakeholder or relationship management, external affairs or a closely related field, with a proven ability to influence at executive or Ministerial level (A,I,P)
• Ability to lead and deliver a broad spectrum of engagement initiatives, including roundtables, events, visits, meetings and more (A,I)

If you are successful following the sift stage, you will be invited to an initial interview, to be held onsite at 1 Horse Guards Road or via MS Teams; this will include the following assessment:

1. Behaviours/ Experience - a formal panel interview where you will be interviewed across all four behaviours highlighted in Appendix 1.
2. Technical - you will be assessed across your technical expertise and acumen, in relation to the essential criteria
   1. Presentation - on a topic agreed by UKEF and will be provided to the relevant candidates.

If you are successful at the initial interview, you will be invited to a second interview, to be held onsite at 1 Horse Guards Road or via MS Teams; this will include the following assessment:

1. Technical - you will be assessed across your technical expertise and acumen, in relation to the essential criteria
   1. Technical Questions

Details of interview panel members will be e-mailed to all successful candidates who are invited for interview.

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).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

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).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.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

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.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 : UKEF Resourcing Team
• Email : Recruitment2@ukexportfinance.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : Recruitment2@ukexportfinance.gov.uk

Further information

Should you have a complaint or wish to raise any concerns regarding the recruitment process, please e-mail your complaint to the Head of Pay and Resourcing (UKEF) at Recruitment2@ukexportfinance.gov.uk and include “Complaint” in the subject heading. Should you remain dissatisfied following UKEF’s investigation then you can refer your complaint to the Commission - http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/making-complaint.

Attachments

Candidate Information Pack Opens in new window (pdf, 4332kB)