Communications Lead, Workplace Services

Summary

We have an exciting opportunity to join the corporate Marketing and Communications team at the Government Property Agency (GPA) as a dedicated Communications Lead for the Workplace Services directorate. This directorate is responsible for the government’s office portfolio, encompassing hard and soft facilities management (FM), health and safety, assurance, digital portfolio, Client Relationship management and workplace experience.

As the subject matter expert for Workplace Services within the central communications team, you will bridge the gap between corporate strategy and directorate-specific delivery. You will be the primary point of contact for the directorate, managing day-to-day BAU communications, including building incidents, service updates, and reactive issues, as well as Workplace Services team engagement comms. While the overarching strategy is set centrally, you will be responsible for creating and delivering the tactical communication plans to achieve it. This role requires a proactive self-starter who can switch between tasks quickly and effectively in a heavily reactive environment.

This is a new role in the team which offers you an exciting opportunity to shape the communications and engagement for the Directorate.

Key Responsibilities

Business partnering: Act as a primary communications point of contact for the Workplace Services directorate, working closely with Marketing and Communications colleagues to handle requests effectively. Be a subject matter expert for the directorate within the corporate Marketing and Communications team.

Supply chain engagement: Establish a communication framework to ensure the performance partners and supply chain remain aligned with GPA messaging standards.

Reactive and incident comms: Play a key role in managing incident communications by liaising with relevant stakeholders in the Directorate to draft reactive and incident communications, supported by the Head of Media or Head of Marketing and Digital where relevant, while also supporting post-incident and recovery activity. Design a process to ensure effective handling of incident communications, and create templates for initial announcements and periodic updates to impacted stakeholders.

Plan delivery: Develop and execute comprehensive, objective-led communication plans that are underpinned by the Workplace Services Communications Strategy.

Brand guardian: As part of the corporate Marketing and Communications team, you will be responsible for ensuring our brand is effectively applied to all marketing and communications activity within the Directorate.

Content creation: Produce compelling, high-quality content for various channels, including service updates, planned work notices, blogs, and newsletters.

Stakeholder management: Build and maintain relationships with diverse internal and external stakeholders, including the supply chain, civil servants and cross-government specialists.

Standardisation and quality control: Establish and manage a standardised process for all directorate-facing communications, ensuring 100% compliance with mandatory approval workflows and templates.

Event management: Plan and manage directorate-specific events, such as supplier engagement days and client briefings, from concept to delivery. Support the corporate communications team to deliver GPA-wide events, playing a key role in programme development and event delivery.

Person specification

You have extensive experience in a communications role, specifically within Facilities Management (FM), Property, or a large-scale infrastructure environment.
You have a proven track record of working in reactive or incident communications roles where you were responsible for managing messaging during service outages or building incidents.
You are comfortable working in a matrix structure, reporting to a central functional lead while being embedded as a subject matter expert within a technical delivery team.
You have experience acting as a trusted advisor to senior leaders (G7 to SCS level) and technical specialists, demonstrating the ability to translate complex service issues into clear, simple messaging.
You are a solutions-focused individual capable of working autonomously with minimal supervision.
You take pride in ensuring that every communication-related activity is accurate, brand-compliant, and timely.
You are naturally service-focused, always viewing communications through the lens of the client and customer experience to support driving behaviour change and enhancing trust.
You can effectively build relationships across a diverse supply chain and internal teams to create a strong network.

Experience & Technical Skills

Essential criteria

Industry expertise: Proven communications experience within Facilities Management (FM), Property, or a large-scale infrastructure environment is essential to understand the Directorate’s operating environment.
Reactive communications: Demonstrated expertise in managing reactive communications and incident protocols under pressure.
Content creation: Highly developed content creation and editing skills, including storytelling.
Integrated communications planning: Experience in developing and delivering multi-channel communication plans for diverse audiences, meeting brand requirements.
Stakeholder engagement: Ability to act as a trusted advisor to senior leaders, simplifying complex technical issues into clear, actionable messaging.
Agility: A proven ability to work at pace and prioritise competing demands effectively.

Desirable criteria

Design: A good level of design skills within Adobe creative products.
Content planning: Experience managing a content grid of multiple channels and audiences to ensure consistent activity.
Government Communication Service: Experience working within a government communications role, delivering to government standards and requirements.
Accessibility: A good understanding of accessible communications to deliver inclusive products.

Qualifications and Accreditations

Essential criteria

Proficiency in the Government Communication Service (GCS) core competencies at SEO level.
A recognised qualification, or relevant level of experience, in a communications or marketing discipline, such as MCIM or Chart.PR MCIPR, or have the ability to work towards it.
Must hold or be willing to undergo SC-level security clearance.

Desirable criteria

Membership of a professional communications-related body, such as CIPR or Chartered Institute of Marketing
Membership of IWFM at MIWFM level or above.

You will need to meet the minimum UK residency period as determined by the level of security vetting being undertaken for the role, which for CTC is 3-years UK residency, SC is 5-years UK residency, and DV is 10-years UK residency.

If you have any questions about this residency requirement, please speak to the recruitment team prior to submitting your application.