Communications Lead, Workplace Services

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.

Requirements

• 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.
• 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.

Preferred

• Desirable criteria: Design: A good level of design skills within Adobe creative products.
• Desirable criteria: Content planning: Experience managing a content grid of multiple channels and audiences to ensure consistent activity.
• Desirable criteria: Government Communication Service: Experience working within a government communications role, delivering to government standards and requirements.
• Desirable criteria: Accessibility: A good understanding of accessible communications to deliver inclusive products.
• Membership of a professional communications-related body, such as CIPR or Chartered Institute of Marketing
• Membership of IWFM at MIWFM level or above.

Benefits

• Alongside your salary of £43,936, Government Property Agency contributes £12,728 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides .
• 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%