Senior Media Manager

Are you ready to help us make the news? Do you want to use your instincts for what makes a good media story to make a difference for those living in poverty?

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is looking for a Senior Media Manager to run our busy day to day news operation, juggling competing stories, finessing and applying key messages, turning complex material into influential evidence and giving advice to senior staff about their media appearances. You'll spot opportunities to get our message heard, push new facts into the public domain, and hold the authorities in all 4 nations to account for their impact on poverty.

About the job

Working to the Head of Media, you will be a crucial linchpin of our small but extremely capable team, which also consists of 2 media managers, a junior media officer, and a social media manager. You'll also be the person that makes sure the press office brings in intel from the news and is ready to both react in the moment and plan ahead in ways that will maximise the impact of our work.

The team works across traditional media, building relationships with journalists and selling in stories, as well as on social media, and we're looking for someone who understands how to use both for influencing purposes. We're acutely aware of the changing media landscape and the need to put together a team which can interact positively with the media in the here and now, responding to trends and algorithms, and also look at new ways of reaching our audiences.

The team is split between offices in London and York and find that being primarily office-based supports collaboration with each other and other teams, and this role in particular sits at the centre of day-to-day activities so we would welcome candidates who enjoy working as a team and maximising impact on busy news days.

About JRF

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) is dedicated to ending poverty in the UK by developing innovative policy solutions, supporting communities to identify and address their needs, and campaigning for systemic change. Through research, advocacy, and partnerships, JRF seeks to accelerate the transition to a fairer, more equitable society where everyone has the opportunity to thrive, with a focus on improving the lives of those most affected by poverty.

To do this we want to offer innovative policy ideas which will make a difference for those families struggling to get by; support communities to decide what would make their lives better and campaign for change; fund those experimenting with ideas that could lead to a future free from poverty.

We are committed to being an anti-racist organisation and operate an anonymised recruitment process so that bias is eliminated from the shortlisting process.

We welcome applicants from diverse backgrounds who share that commitment, can bring plurality of thought and who if appointed, will use their professional sphere of influence to help us advance these principles in our work. As a disability confident employer let us know you require adjustments in the application and interview process. If you have any additional needs and need reasonable adjustments to be made to the interview process, please let us know.

We encourage you to read our EVP which can be found in the supporting documents.

How to apply

If you share our passion and this role sounds like you, then we're looking forward to hearing from you.

Please submit your CV and supporting information via our website.

The closing date and time for applications is 23:59 on Thursday 4th September 2025.

Interviews will take place week commencing 15th September 2025.