Stakeholder Engagement Lead

81377 - Stakeholder Engagement Lead

This Stakeholder Engagement Lead will report to the Stakeholder Engagement & Strategy Manager and will work within the Customer Services and VICE directorate based in our London office. You will be a permanent employee.

You will attract a salary of £50,000.00 and a bonus of 7.5%. This role can also offer blended working after probationary period (6 months) - 3 days in the office and 2 remote

Close Date: 19/09/2025.

We also provide the following additional benefits

• 25 Days Annual Leave plus bank holidays.
• Reservist Leave – Additional 18 days full pay and 22 unpaid
• Personal Pension Plan – Personal contribution rates of 4% or 5% (UK Power Networks will make a corresponding contribution of 8% or 10%)
• Tenancy Loan Deposit Scheme, Season Ticket Loan
• Tax efficient benefits: Cycle to Work, Home & Tech, and Green Car Leasing Schemes
• Occupational Health support
• Switched On – scheme providing discount on hundreds of retailers' products
• Discounted gym membership
• Employee Assistance Programme

The UK's leading electricity distribution network is looking for a stakeholder engagement lead to help us grow our engagement and research programme to influence important decisions. You'll work with experienced colleagues from across the business, including our Innovation, Consumer Vulnerability and Environment teams, to plan, evaluate and report on engagement activities that shape our actions now and in the future.

Job Purpose:

This is a time of unprecedented change for the electricity industry as we move from the old world of large, carbon intensive coal and gas-fired power plants to a much more complex, interconnected world of renewable energy, battery storage and electric vehicles. Energy is one of the most important issues in the country right now, and you will receive an incredible insight into the work that goes in to ensuring a safe, reliable, affordable and green energy supply at in a workplace voted one of the UK's best big companies to work for.

If you are the type of person who wants to challenge the status quo and help shape the future direction of a key facilitator of Net Zero, then this is the role for you. We pride ourselves on being the best performing UK network operator, and we put customers and stakeholders at the heart of our decisions. Our stakeholder engagement programme reflects our passion for providing the best possible experience to our customers and staying at the forefront of emerging issues.

Working as part of a close-knit team, you'll collaborate with senior managers and teams across the business and provide expert guidance to shape, facilitate, evaluate and report on engagement that helps teams deliver industry-leading performance. You'll take the lead on shaping purposeful, inclusive engagement strategies and delivery plans, monitoring their delivery and tracking how the insights and actions deliver benefits for customers and the business. You'll identify opportunities for proactive and strategic engagement based on our priorities, and surface insights for discussion by teams and senior management. You'll improve the team's processes to reflect best practice and meet the business's evolving needs.

The Stakeholder Engagement Lead will also manage the delivery of our annual Ongoing Engagement Report and Annual Vulnerability Report. This will involve working with the relevant teams to explain publicly how our engagement and research programme and our consumer vulnerability programme have influenced actions and led to measurable benefits for customers, the network and wider society.

Principal responsibilities

Engagement and research programme development

• Engagement planning: Manage the engagement planning process, collaborating with teams across the business to identify areas for engagement and research and developing purposeful, inclusive and impactful engagement delivery plans, advising on appropriate methods
• Programme management: Ensure the engagement and research programme plan is up-to-date, regularly reviewing topic plans, analysis of the strategic context and stakeholder mapping, and coordinating with teams to drive delivery progress
• Insights review: Lead regular insight reviews of topics across the engagement programme, capturing new insights from engagement and research, how these are informing decisions and tracking the impact delivered
• Panel management: Manage online community panels, collaborating with other teams and external providers to produce content
• Strategic analysis: Perform strategic analysis to identify new issues for engagement and research, proactively reviewing external research and insight sources
• Best practice: Enhance understanding of best practice in engagement and research across the business, including guidance, materials, training and advice
• Continuous improvement: Identify and deliver continuous improvement to the stakeholder engagement team's processes to remain at the forefront of best practice.

External engagement reporting

• Report programme management: Manage the delivery of the annual Ongoing Engagement Report and Annual Vulnerability Report, working with the relevant teams to explain publicly how our engagement and research programme has influenced actions and led to measurable benefits for customers, the network and wider society
• Strategy development: Develop the strategy and key messages for the annual reports, identifying enhancements year-on-year and incorporating best practice from the energy sector and beyond
• Report development: Manage the storyboarding, drafting, design, review and approval of the reports, commissioning and managing external support to deliver to time and budget and in line with regulatory requirements
• Content coordination: Coordinate with teams across the business to identify important initiatives and impacts for inclusion in the reports, sourcing quantitative and qualitative benefits with supporting evidence
• Report publication: Manage the publication of the reports, coordinating with the Communications and Media team to develop communication plans for publication
• Alignment across multiple reports: Collaborate with owners of key external reports across the business to ensure engagement-related content is consistent across reports
• Engagement website: Manage the engagement and research webpages, ensuring content is accurate, relevant, and regularly updated. Liaise with the web team to implement updates and maintain a user-friendly online presence.

Internal engagement reporting

• Programme reporting: Improve regular internal reporting on the scope, progress and impact of the engagement and research programme, sourcing quality, timely updates from teams across the business
• Analysis: Critically assess reporting information provided by teams and recommend key updates, insights and issues for escalation.

Person specification

You will bring knowledge and enthusiasm for stakeholder engagement, programme management and facilitation skills, an eagerness to learn about new topics, and a desire to make positive change. A detailed knowledge of the electricity industry isn't required, but the ability to quickly grasp complex or unfamiliar subjects is.

Qualifications

• Experience in engagement, communications, PR or marketing, with solid understanding of best practice in stakeholder engagement
• Programme and project management qualification (e.g. PRINCE2) or equivalent experience, with proven ability to deliver to time, cost and quality
• Experience developing and delivering engagement strategies and delivery plans across a wide range of topics, involving a range of stakeholders and engagement methods
• Experience working with multiple stakeholders including senior managers to deliver shared objectives
• Experience aligning engagement activities to strategic goals
• Analytical skills, with ability to identify actionable trends, themes and insights from a range of engagement feedback
• Experience of evaluating the progress and impact of engagement activities
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to quickly grasp complex issues and distil key points
• Experience of developing and delivering external-facing reports
• Commitment to continuous improvement.

Health & Safety Responsibilities

Managers and supervisors carry both legal and company responsibilities for ensuring the health and safety of their employees, those under their control and those who might be affected by the work undertaken, i.e. public, visitors and employees of other organisations. This includes briefing individuals working for them and ensuring there is the necessary understanding, competence and application of requirements to work safely and without harming the environment.

Employees will ensure they understand the health and safety risks involved in their work activities and their responsibility to apply the controls needed to manage those risks to acceptable levels. Similarly where work activities can have an adverse impact upon the environment, and where there are legal requirements, employees will understand those impacts and the controls they must ensure are applied.

If in doubt ask!

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, colour, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression, or veteran status. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.

If you have any queries in connection to this vacancy or your application, please contact us at careers@ukpowernetworks.co.uk quoting the vacancy reference number and a member of the team will get in touch with you as soon as possible.