Job Description

About Us


West Sussex County Council is looking for a Senior Communications Officer to help take our communications to the next level. We are looking for an experienced and highly skilled communications professional to join the county council's Communications & Engagement Team to help promote our services to our residents, communities and businesses.


About The Job

Salary:

19,931 to 21,419 per annum

Working Pattern:

Part time, 18.5 hours per week

Contract Type:

Permanent

Location:

County Hall, Chichester and working from home (Hybrid opportunities)

Interview Date:

w/c 3rd November



As a Senior Communications Officer, you will be responsible for establishing and delivering a wide range of communication activities that primarily support our Place Services Directorate.



You will help shape and deliver campaigns and engagement activities across a range of channels, focusing on local and national media, digital, and social media. You will be a creative and innovative communications professional who thrives in a high-pressured environment with the backing of a supportive and developing team.



The role will include responding to media enquiries, building rapport with journalists and identifying when a topic may become of interest to the media.



To ensure effectiveness of all projects, you will ensure that all communications activity is planned, monitored and evaluated.


The job will involve extensive relationship building across the organisation and with a variety of internal and external teams, partners and stakeholders.


What are we looking for?


We are looking for someone who can hit the ground running, with a hands-on and can-do attitude to your work.



Offering a mix of office and remote working, you will need to be able to manage your own workload, juggling competing priorities and organising your work to meet deadlines.



You will be comfortable making decisions and exercising initiative. You will be able to apply focus when conducting research, preparing plans, delivering activities and analysing feedback, and will use your creative skills to develop campaigns that are in line with the council's brand values and reputation.


Working for Us


As well as adding real value to our service users and our communities, as an employer we recognise our employees are central in being able to achieve this. To recognise this we want to help support your development and provide an great place to work ensuring you can fulfil your full potential, have access to a range of benefits including:


an excellent

local government pension scheme

generous holiday entitlement (plus opportunity to buy additional leave) a range of flexible working options, depending on your job role maternity, paternity, dependency and adoption leave volunteering opportunities training and development opportunities, including coaching and mentoring a range of discounts giving our staff access to hundreds of offers; groceries, travel, cinema tickets, days out, leisure activities, high street retailers and the opportunity to save over 1,000 a year through our West Sussex Choices benefits platform (see our

Staff discounts page

if you are a business looking to offer a discount) health and wellbeing benefits including access to our Employee Assistance Programme, Mental Health First Aiders and Voluntary Health Cash Plans

For a full list of the benefits offered to you as a West Sussex County Council employee you can find them on our

Rewards and Benefits

page.


Further Information


The reference number for this role is

CRS00984

.



For an informal conversation or for further information regarding the role, please contact Chloe Laverty (Recruitment Specialist) at

chloe.laverty@westsussex.gov.uk

.

For issues or queries regarding your application please contact

hrrecruitment@westsussex.gov.uk

.

To apply, upload your CV and complete the application explaining the skills and experience you can bring to the role ensuring that any gaps in employment are covered in your CV. Please ensure you have saved the job description attached to the main advert on our website as, once the job has closed, you may not have the opportunity to download again.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. This post is subject to 3 years referencing and a health check.

West Sussex County Council is an equal opportunities employer committed to promoting an environment that is inclusive and free from all forms of unlawful or unfair discrimination and values the diversity of its people. We actively welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and take every possible step to ensure that no individual will be disadvantaged.



For information regarding your eligibility to apply for this role under our Disability or Veteran's Guaranteed Interview Scheme (if you meet all the essential criteria), this can be found on our

application help

page.


Note for Recruitment Agencies: We prefer to hire people directly, but we do have a supplier list for when we need a helping hand. We'll be in touch directly if we need you!



LOCATION

Chichester area

CONTRACT TYPE

Permanent

JOB TYPE

HR and Learning & Development

CLOSING DATE

21 October 2025