About the role

This is an exciting opportunity for someone from a public affairs background who is interested in politics and wants to be at the heart of devolution and ‘Levelling Up’ the North of England; to work with northern leaders to deliver transformational change for the region.

You’ll help TfN by providing external engagement and public affairs support to the Head of Communications and Engagement and the wider team. You’ll lead on organising TfN’s annual conference, representing the organisation at meeting in Whitehall and Westminster and at the annual political party conferences, and working with northern MPs by helping to manage the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Transport Across the North. You will also be expected to help deliver our ‘TfN Talks’ series of online seminars, and our corporate podcast.

In addition, you’ll draft and research responses and reports and build relationships with sector bodies and stakeholders. You’ll play a central role in our approach to influencing, including how we strategically manage stakeholder relations. Furthermore, you will be expected to support our Board members, who make up the leaders of the North of England, with an engagement service around our board and committee meetings.

What we’re looking for

You will probably have an interest in UK politics and politics in the North of England, and a passion for infrastructure or transport policy. You will also have excellent written and oral communication skills for drafting briefings, reports, letters and other documents for internal and external use, and for internal and external events. Have experience in organising and managing events on behalf of TfN. Somone who is capable of balancing short and long term priorities effectively and systematically. The successful candidate will have an understanding of the current transport related policies environments, or experience of working in the political, infrastructure or transport sectors. Have the ability to quickly understand and explain the links between Government policy changes and day to day operations and ideally have experience of undertaking political engagement or influencing work along with experience of using stakeholder management systems.

In return, as well as a competitive salary, our other benefits are:

• 27 days holiday per annum plus bank holidays
• Access to the local government pension scheme
• Access to various salary sacrifice benefits, including Travel Pass purchase scheme. 
• Access to TfN’s Flexi-Time Scheme, allowing accrual of up to 18 additional days leave per year

If you believe you have the skills and experience, we’re looking for please apply online, ensuring that in your application you provide evidence in the form of specific examples of how you meet the essential criteria in the role profile. 

At TfN, we welcome and encourage applications from everyone regardless of age, disability, gender, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation. We are particularly keen to encourage applications from women, members of ethnic minority groups and people with disabilities who are currently under-represented.

As part of our commitment to diversity and inclusion, all applications will be considered on their merit.

As an organisation we always strive to do the right thing and understand that in order to make a difference in our society and workplace, we must be committed to respecting equality and diversity, showing kindness, tackling discrimination and promoting inclusion and have signed the CIHT Diversity and Inclusion Charter Statement to further endorse our commitment. We are also an accredited Living Wage Employer, this means that every member of staff working for Transport for the North, earns a real Living Wage and are recognised as a Disability Confident employer (stage 2) acting as a Disability Confident champion within our local and business communities and business networks.