Stakeholder Engagement Lead

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This range is provided by Ofwat. Your actual pay will be based on your skills and experience — talk with your recruiter to learn more.

We are Ofwat, the Water Services Regulation Authority, a non‑ministerial government department responsible for regulating the water sector in England and Wales. Following the Independent Water Commission’s final report, the UK government has set out a bold new direction – one that brings together expertise from across the sector to deliver better outcomes for customers and the environment.

We have an exciting opportunity for a Stakeholder Engagement Lead to join our Communications and Engagement team. The Stakeholder Engagement team leads the development and delivery of strategic stakeholder engagement activity across Ofwat. The team was established in August 2024 and is working to embed a refreshed approach to managing stakeholder relationships.

In this role, you’ll develop and implement stakeholder engagement plans for key programmes of work. You’ll manage our strategic approach to relationships with key audience groups and use stakeholder insight to provide advice to senior leaders on engagement approaches. You’ll be involved in the implementation of a relationship management process across the organisation supported by high‑quality briefing materials.

In this role you will report to the Head of Stakeholder Engagement and be expected to:

• Develop and deliver stakeholder engagement plans for key programmes of work to ensure stakeholders’ views and insight are considered as part of Ofwat’s policy making.
• Advise the Chair, Chief Executive and Senior Leadership Team on their engagement with stakeholders, including for bilateral meetings, speaking engagements and visits.
• Build effective relationships with stakeholders that support the design and delivery of strategic engagement by senior leaders.
• Support the embedding of best practice engagement and co‑production at Ofwat, enabling colleagues to deliver consistently high standards of engagement.
• Produce high‑quality written communications to support stakeholder engagement, including correspondence, briefing materials and presentations.
• Support the implementation of a relationship ownership structure across Ofwat to facilitate the development and maintenance of strong and purposeful relationships.
• Deliver a comprehensive and effective stakeholder insight management process, ensuring insight is captured and shared effectively to inform future engagement and influence Ofwat’s policy development and decision‑making.
• Monitor and track stakeholder sentiment and play a proactive role in delivery of stakeholder research and wider evaluation measures to ensure the successful delivery of engagement activity and continuous improvement of our approach.
• Provide support to the broader Communications and Engagement function, as required. This may include leading communications and engagement plans for set projects or programmes of work.

Below are some of the key essential experience, skills & knowledge required for this post:

• Lead criteria: Strong experience in designing and delivering strategic stakeholder engagement plans to support corporate priorities, including objective setting, strategy design and evaluation.
• Experience in building and maintaining strong relationships with stakeholders, both internally and externally and including senior leaders.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills and attention to detail including the ability to write clearly and in a tailored way for a range of audiences.
• The ability to work collaboratively with people across teams and levels, ensuring the effective involvement of a range of internal partners in the development and delivery of engagement plans.
• Experience in monitoring external landscape and stakeholders, analysing key developments and communicating insights internally to inform policy development and decision‑making.

• People Centric:
  Our people are at the heart of Ofwat and everything we do – we ensure all voices are heard and treat each other with respect; you’ll be given the…