Communications and Engagement Advisor
This is an exciting time to join the Department for Business and Trade (DBT). As the department for economic growth, we aim to: redraw our rules to ensure businesses thrive, markets are competitive, and consumers are protected, secure investment from UK and international businesses, advise, support, and promote UK businesses to grow and export, open up new markets for businesses by removing barriers and striking trade deals, and promote free trade, economic security and resilient supply chains.
We are seeking a Comms and Engagement Advisor to join the Free Trade Agreement Utilisation (FTAU) team. FTAU aims to help ensure UK exporters are fully equipped to take advantage of new opportunities provided by FTAs, through a combination of trade policy expertise, deep knowledge of FTA markets, working with exporters and in partnership with DBT colleagues.
Our relationships are key to achieving our objectives and we collaborate with teams across DBT as well as other government departments. We also work closely with many external stakeholders such as Business Representative Organisations and directly with exporters, to ensure we are responding to the interests and needs of UK businesses looking to grow internationally.
The successful applicant will play a vital role within the FTAU team, helping support our business engagement across the UK to understand and access our FTAs. The role will require you to develop a network of UK businesses which trade internationally, as well as relationship manage some of the FTAU team’s strategic partners.
You will be required to develop knowledge on different global markets and a range of cross-cutting trade policy areas. The FTAU team is also involved in government-to-government collaboration with partner countries, which you will be expected to support on to ensure the needs of UK businesses are represented.
The role may occasionally require some periods of overseas travel, as well as some meetings outside of normal working hours to accommodate for time differences when needed.
FTAU is a friendly team with members from a wide variety of professions. As a team and department, we are committed to being an inclusive employer and building a culturally diverse workplace. We actively encourage applications from people from the widest possible diversity of backgrounds, cultures, and experiences.The team is high-performing, ambitious and inclusive, and is the ideal place for existing or aspiring trade professionals to make a difference and develop their careers.
- Strategy: supporting the implementation of a business engagement strategy for FTAU, which ensures the team is targeting its engagement and business-facing activities in the most impactful areas.
- Communications: assist the team in designing and creating communication outputs to inform businesses of the benefits of the UK’s FTAs, working closely with the central comms teams in the UK and overseas. This will include the management of the team’s case study library.
- Stakeholder management: support the FTAU team’s engagement with businesses and Business Representative Organisations (BROs) by leading on stakeholder mapping. You will also be required to build and maintain relationships with our strategic partners.
- Coordination: providing logistical and administrative support to help deliver the external activity of the FTAU team with other external facing teams in DBT, such as international colleagues, External Affairs and Strategic Communications.
- Professional Development: commitment to continuous professional development to ensure up to date knowledge of FTAs, cross-cutting areas of trade policy, UK growth areas and international markets.