Senior Stakeholder Engagement Manager


Company:	Government Recruitment Service
Salary:	£44,052 to £52,010 a year
Hours:	Full-time
Location:	Bristol
Job type:	Permanent
Posting date:	13 Oct 2026
Closing date:	26 Oct 2026

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Summary

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is the UK government department responsible for safeguarding our natural environment, supporting our world-leading food and farming industry, and sustaining a thriving rural economy. Our broad remit means we play a major role in people's day-to-day life, from the food we eat, and the air we breathe, to the water we drink.

Water is vital for life - clean, freshwater for drinking and sanitation, providing for farms and industry, creating and sustaining the ecosystems on which all life depends. Yet water is a finite natural resource, facing increasing pressures from climate change and population growth. Never before has political, media and public attention been focused on water as it is now. This brings a great opportunity, and we have been given a mandate to make some once in a generation changes.

This role sits in the Water Stakeholder Engagement Team, which is a central stakeholder engagement function in support of Water Sector Reform. The team is responsible for overseeing how the directorate plans, coordinates and uses engagement across the water sector, ensuring activity is aligned, strategic, timely and focused on informing robust policy development. You will help deliver a coherent engagement approach across water reform, working closely with policy teams, senior officials, Private Office, communications colleagues and external stakeholders.

Key responsibilities

Stakeholder engagement strategy and planning

Ensure engagement is aligned to ministerial priorities, programme milestones, policy needs and delivery risks. Identify opportunities to join up activity across teams and reduce duplication or inconsistent messaging.

Stakeholder insight and reporting

Capture, analyse and deploy stakeholder insight to support policy development and senior decision-making. Maintain a strong understanding of stakeholder interests and opportunities across the water sector. Gather valuable insight and intelligence to inform robust decision making and develop how we report this.

Engagement delivery

Develop and deliver innovative engagement plans across a variety of channels to support Water Reform, ensuring that engagement is targeted, appropriate and productive

Relationship management

Build effective relationships across the Floods and Water Directorate, wider Defra, other government departments, arm’s length bodies and external stakeholders.

Create and maintain internal networks with policy, delivery, communications and programme teams to deliver engagement objectives.

The successful candidates will:

Lead on the segmentation, mapping and handling strategies for key stakeholder groups and individuals, including key influencers and opinion formers.
Manage accounts for a number of our key stakeholders to form a positive and trusted working relationship with that organisation.
Manage events, consultations, workshops, meetings and other activities, ensuring the format, audience and content is appropriate to achieve the desired outcomes.
Lead on the management of a stakeholder group for the Programme, analysing current engagement and sentiment, developing a prioritised approach to working with key individuals, build relationships and credibility and ensure plans are aligned with other delivery.
Act as a trusted point of contact for teams seeking advice on stakeholder engagement planning and delivery.
Develop stakeholder engagement tools and best practice across the Programme

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