Job summary
- Main area
- Communications and Engagement
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 8d
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week
- Job ref
- 151-HS-63
- Employer
- Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Frimley Park Hospital
- Town
- Frimley, Camberley
- Salary
- £96,626 - £111,084 per annum inclusive of HCAS
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 27/10/2026 23:59
- Interview date
- 09/11/2026
Employer heading
Deputy Director of Communications and Engagement
NHS AfC: Band 8d
Job overview
Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust is one of the highest-performing trusts in the NHS, serving almost one million people across Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey and South Buckinghamshire. With more than 14,000 colleagues and a £1.8 billion new Frimley Park Hospital in development through the Government's New Hospital Programme, we are entering a period of significant transformation and opportunity.
We are seeking an exceptional communications and engagement leader to join us as Deputy Director of Communications and Engagement. This is a high-profile role for an individual who thrives in complex, fast-paced and politically sensitive environments and is passionate about delivering communications that make a meaningful difference.
You will bring substantial senior leadership experience, a strong track record of leading large-scale communications and engagement programmes, and the credibility to influence and challenge at Executive and Board level. You will be a strategic thinker with excellent judgement, capable of building strong relationships and leading teams through change, whilst embedding insight, research and evaluation at the heart of communications delivery.
For further information please click on the link to view the candidate pack
Main duties of the job
Working for our organisation
Why Join Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust?
At Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust, our people are at the heart of everything we do.
As a Disability Confident Employer and recipient of the Gold Award in the Armed Forces Employer Recognition Scheme, we actively champion equality, diversity and inclusion, creating opportunities for people from all backgrounds to build rewarding careers within the NHS.
We also recognise the importance of a healthy work-life balance. By supporting flexible working arrangements wherever possible, we enable our colleagues to balance their professional and personal commitments while continuing to deliver outstanding care to our patients. Whether flexibility means adjusted hours, part-time working, hybrid arrangements or alternative working patterns, we work in partnership with our staff to meet both individual and service needs.
Join Us
Whether you're at the start of your career or looking for your next challenge, Frimley Health offers the opportunity to be part of a inclusive, forward-thinking organisation that is committed to excellence, innovation and compassionate care. Together, we can shape the future of healthcare and make a real difference to the lives of the communities we serve.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
- Supporting the development and delivery of the Trust's Communications and Engagement Strategy.
- Leading and developing a multidisciplinary communications and engagement team through senior leadership direct reports.
- Providing strategic communications leadership for major organisational transformation programmes, including the New Hospital Programme.
- Advising Executive Directors and Board members on media relations, reputation management, stakeholder engagement and crisis communications.
- Driving an insight-led, audience-focused approach to communications, embedding evaluation and evidence-based practice across the function.
- Ensuring effective engagement with patients, communities, colleagues, partners, elected representatives and other key stakeholders.
- Leading the Trust's response to high-profile, politically sensitive and complex communications challenges.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Educated to Masters or Post Graduate level or with significant professional experience
- Active and evidenced commitment to continuous professional development in communications, leadership or strategy
Desirable criteria
- Professional body membership and or accreditation
Experience
Essential criteria
- Senior leadership experience within a complex, politically sensitive organisation, operating at or alongside Executive level
- Demonstrable experience designing and leading complex, multi-channel communications and engagement programmes across a large organisation
- Demonstrated experience leading communications in crisis or significant issues management situations
- Experience delivering communications to support culture change, staff engagement or organisational development
- Experience of communications leadership within a major capital, transformation or change programme
- Experience of structured prioritisation and resource management across competing organisational demands
- Experience owning and directing a rolling programme of external research and evaluation including stakeholder perception, public attitude or communications effectiveness research from commissioning through to embedding findings in organisational planning
- Proven ability to advise and influence Executive-level leaders, with the confidence to provide challenge as well as support
- Directorate-level line management experience, including second-line accountability for a senior post that itself carries its own team, budget and governance interfaces demonstrating the range to manage across markedly different levels of seniority and complexity within a single directorate, not solely a single tier of peer-graded posts
- Evidence of delegated corporate ownership for organisation-wide communications or engagement policy, standards and governance, including assurance and corrective action
- Evidence of leading communications and external stakeholder engagement during major organisational change, controversial decisions, highly contentious public issues or sustained regulatory, political or media scrutiny
- Evidence of exercising autonomous senior judgement and committing an organisation's communications position in complex or time-critical circumstances
- Experience designing, governing and continuously developing corporate communications performance management, information and reporting systems
Desirable criteria
- NHS communications and engagement or a similar public sector background
- Experience supporting major capital investment, digital transformation, or organisational change programmes
Skills & Knowledge
Essential criteria
- Ability to translate complex organisational strategy into structured, actionable delivery plans
- Strong campaign design and governance skills, with the ability to scope, challenge and evaluate communications activity across multiple portfolios simultaneously
- Confident user of data and insight to inform decisions, set objectives and assess performance across both digital and traditional communications channels
- Strategic understanding of digital communications, including content, channels and audience behaviour, sufficient to set direction, manage performance and develop specialist teams
- Sound understanding of media relations, public affairs and stakeholder engagement in a complex, multi-audience environment
- Skilled in navigating competing priorities, organisational ambiguity and senior stakeholder relationships
- Financial management competence at directorate scale, including full budget-setting and budget-holding accountability for the directorate's cost centre, in-year expenditure monitoring and value-for-money reporting
- Expert knowledge of communications and engagement governance, including the design and assurance of corporate policy, patient communication standards and organisation-wide frameworks
- Ability to exercise independent professional judgement, take defensible decisions with incomplete information and operate within broad corporate, statutory and regulatory parameters
- Ability to lead contentious external stakeholder engagement and maintain an authoritative corporate position under sustained scrutiny
Desirable criteria
- Familiarity with NHS communications frameworks, regulatory environment or public sector accountability structures
- Understanding of and experience deploying behaviour change methodologies
Special Requirements
Essential criteria
- Ability and willingness to work flexibly across Trust sites, including Frimley Park, Wexham Park and Heatherwood
- Availability to respond outside of standard working hours during communications crises, significant incidents or major programme milestones
- Willingness to be contactable and deployable at short notice when organisational circumstances require
- Ability and willingness to exercise autonomous senior judgement and commit the organisation's communications position in time- sensitive situations, without the ability to refer upward
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Kirk Ward
- Job title
- Director of Communications and Engagement
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 07553734033
- Additional information
Emma Harbar
Personal Assistant to Corporate Affairs Team &
Kirk Ward, Director of Communications & Engagement
Mobile: 07553734033 or email [email protected]
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