Leave Cover-Temporary Senior Policy and Advocacy Advisor or NL

Location:

UK, NL Position Status:
Full-time, Fixed-term

Duration: 9-12 months

Start: late October 2026

Salary: starting salary for UK: £53,360 and for NL is 63,040 - commensurate on professional experience

Risk Level: Level 3 Level 2 Level 1

Level 3:
Frequent contact with participants, direct contact with children, access to sensitive data, and/or high level of accountability.

Level 2:
Some contact with participants; unplanned, non-direct contact with children.

Level 1:
Likely to have no contact with participants or sensitive data.

Mercy Corps is a leading global humanitarian and development organization working with communities on the front lines of conflict and climate change. We partner locally and globally to help people cope in the midst of crisis, adapt to a changing world, and thrive into the future. In 2025, we reached more than 36 million people with urgent aid and long-term solutions. We know our teams do their best work when they are diverse and every team member feels that they belong.

We welcome diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be stronger and have long term impact.

The Global Policy and Advocacy (GPA) Team seeks change in the policies and practices of key global institutions and policy makers in support of Mercy Corps’ mission to build secure, productive and just communities.

The Senior Policy and Advocacy Advisor is part of the Mercy Corps Europe Headquarters, located in the United Kingdom. They will work as part of the Policy and Advocacy Team, based in London but connecting extensively with colleagues in Washington DC, Edinburgh, Brussels, and multiple country offices.

A fundamental part of the role is to represent Mercy Corps with policymakers and influence key policies relating to humanitarian crises, including:

• Tracking key policy processes and identifying and building relationships with decision-makers and those with influence over them - with a particular focus on UK government and EU Institutions.
• Meeting bilaterally with key policymakers, parliamentarians and influencers to provide expert briefings on our key issues and deliver advocacy messages.
• Identifying and attending priority contact groups and forums to deliver policy change.
• Developing and updating talking points and briefings on key humanitarian crises.
• Representing Mercy Corps as a spokesperson when appropriate and supporting other colleagues in representing the organisation. This includes leading on briefing the Senior Director ahead of high-level meetings and the CEO ahead of IASC Principals meetings.
• Working closely with country offices and colleagues in other departments to influence European policymakers on issues and funding affecting priority contexts and our country programmes.

The Senior Policy and Advocacy Advisor will work with the Senior Director of Policy and Advocacy in Europe, and other relevant technical colleagues to develop long-term strategies for influencing key policy areas. This will include:

• Identifying and developing opportunities for Mercy Corps to effect long-term influence and thought leadership on humanitarian crises.
• Leading or supporting strategic engagement at priority events (e.g. SOMs, European Humanitarian Forum, key Humanitarian Conferences etc), as well as producing or promoting research and analysis to deliver long-term influence and position Mercy Corps as expert and thought-leaders on priority humanitarian issues.
• Working with media, fundraising, IDE, Emergency Response and programmes colleagues to maximise the impact of policy and advocacy work. Supporting strategic engagement and profile raising in Brussels.
• Producing or commissioning reports, briefs and other materials, and hosting events to disseminate our research, analysis and recommendations to a wide and influential target audience, including through the media.

The Senior Advisor will be an expert in understanding and shaping policy processes and decisions in the European context, particularly as they relate to Humanitarian issues. More broadly, they will play a role as an internal and external expert on humanitarian issues – in order to shape policy messages and strategies and produce briefs, articles and other materials for both private advocacy and media work.

This will include working closely with key Mercy Corps programmes and country-level experts, and continuing to monitor external research, think pieces etc.

None

Reports Directly To:
Senior Director, Policy and Advocacy

Works Directly With:
Global Policy and Advocacy Team

Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants, community partners, other stakeholders, and to international standards guiding international relief and development work. We are…