Communications
Strategic Communications Planning Manager
Communications
Strategic Communications Planning Manager
Strategic Communications Planning Manager
- Annually:£41,503 - £46,114 per annum plus allowances
- Region:London and South East
- Location:London - Weston House
- Department:Brand & Marketing
- Vacancy Type:Fixed Term
- Working hours per week:35
- Duration of Fixed Term:12 months
- Closing Date:30 June 2026
Strategic Communications and Marketing Planning Manager Job Advert
The NSPCC's mission is simple but powerful: to end cruelty to children in the UK. To do that, we must communicate with clarity, emotional resonance and impact, inspiring people to support our work, champion change, and take action to protect children.
Our Communications and Marketing directorate is award‑winning, creative, strategic and deeply committed. And now, we're looking for a Strategic Communications and Marketing Planning Manager to help us deliver our planning approach.
This is a rare opportunity to sit at the heart of how the NSPCC prioritises, plans and delivers its communications and marketing activity, ensuring that everything we do is audience‑led, insight and creatively driven and aligned to the organisation's most important aims.
Could you be our next Strategic Communications and Marketing Planning Manager?
We're looking for an experienced strategic planner who relishes bringing people together, shaping processes, and enabling teams to deliver impactful, joined‑up communications.
You'll work across the organisation to facilitate our annual planning cycle, support strategic decision‑making, and help ensure our communications and marketing is directed where it can make the biggest difference to children and young people.
What you'll do
As Strategic Communications and Marketing Planning Manager, you will lead how we plan, prioritise and deliver communications and marketing across the organisation.
Drive strategic planning
You will own our annual planning cycle—bringing together priorities, insight and creativity into a clear, actionable plan.
- Lead the development of a focused annual communications and marketing plan aligned to organisational goals
- Facilitate planning workshops that bring teams together, challenge thinking and build alignment
- Maintain a clear, forward-looking marketing calendar so teams know what matters, when—reducing bottlenecks and improving delivery
Connect teams and priorities
You will ensure our work is joined up, understood and driving shared goals.
- Build strong relationships across the organisation, especially with Engagement and Fundraising
- Put in place simple, effective planning processes that keep priorities visible and teams aligned
Turn strategy into impact
You will help ensure our marketing and communications deliver real results.
- Shape the directorate business plan, strengthening how we connect with supporters and the public
- Turn complex data into clear insight, helping senior leaders make better decisions and continuously improve
Enable better decisions
You will bring clarity to investment, performance and trade-offs.
- Work closely with finance and agency partners to understand budgets, plans and performance
- Support media and brand investment decisions to maximise impact
- Provide concise, decision-ready updates to governance groups—making priorities and choices clear
Lead and develop others
You will support high performance within your team.
- Provide clear direction, coaching and support
- Set objectives and help team members grow and develop
- Create a collaborative environment where people take initiative and improve how we work
About you
You are a strategic planner who brings clarity to complexity and helps organisations focus on what matters most.
You likely bring:
- Strong experience in strategic marketing and communications planning within a complex organisation
- A track record of aligning multiple teams around a shared plan
- The ability to simplify complexity and communicate clearly with senior stakeholders
- Confidence working across budgets, investment decisions and performance data
- Strong organisational skills—you prioritise well and deliver at pace
- Experience managing or developing others
- A genuine commitment to our mission: ending cruelty to children
A few questions to help you decide
- Do you enjoy turning complexity into a clear, actionable plan?
- Are you confident challenging teams and bringing people together around priorities?
- Can you balance long-term strategy with day-to-day delivery?
If so, this could be the role for you.
Why join us?
At the NSPCC, you'll join a passionate, supportive and driven team who care deeply about the work we do, and about each other. Your expertise will help us keep children safe. You'll find opportunities to grow, stretch your strategic skills, collaborate across disciplines, and influence communications that reach millions.
In keeping with our values and our policies, if any individuals who are regrettably at risk of redundancy apply for a role and meet the minimum essential criteria they will be given priority consideration. We hope that you understand our position on this and that this will not discourage from applying. We cannot predict who, internally, will apply for a role, or whether they will meet the minimum essential criteria. Where no at-risk candidates meet the minimum essential criteria, all applications will be considered as normal.
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Safer Recruitment
As an organisation, we are committed to creating and fostering a culture that promotes safeguarding and the welfare of all children and adults at risk. Our safer recruitment practices support this by ensuring that there is a consistent and thorough process of obtaining, collating, analysing and evaluating information from and about candidates to ensure that all persons appointed are suitable to work with our children and adults.
Trauma Informed
At the NSPCC we are on a journey to becoming a trauma-informed organisation for the children, young people and families that we work with, as well as our staff and volunteers. To be trauma-informed is one of the guiding principles that shape and guide our 2021-2031 Strategy. This means understanding the nature of adversity, trauma, and resilience so that we can work towards reducing and preventing further harm and promoting recovery and healing. Coming to work at the NSPCC will provide the opportunity for you to join us in our commitment to becoming a trauma-informed organisation.
