Media Officer
London, 35 hours, Fixed-term contract until 31/12/2024
Salary range per annum: £36,705 - £41,466 (plus inner London weighting where applicable)
There is more to the RCN than you might think. We’re a trade union with a membership of over half a million nurses, midwives, nursing support workers and students. We support their practice, represent them, lobby on their behalf, and develop them. We exist to make a positive difference – to the working lives of our members and ultimately to standards in patient care. Our employees are drawn from many walks of life – we are nurses, marketers and communicators, administrators, IT professionals, policy and finance experts, lawyers… together we are so much more. We couldn’t do what we do without our people.
We're accredited with Investors in People Silver Standard. Our people are our greatest asset, and we want people who can contribute to our purpose in line with our values. Internal: No introduction paragraph required.
As a Media Officer, you’ll use your experience of, and skills in, press office work to help deliver excellent media coverage for the College, its members, and the nursing profession. You’ll also be responsible for some of the administrative systems in the Media team.
It's a job full of possibilities, as you could get involved in anything from writing press releases and comments to devising communications plans and circulating media coverage.
To join us, you’ll need sound press office experience with a good knowledge of the UK print and broadcast media. Proven writing skills are a must, as well as the ability to deal sensitively and confidently with senior figures and other departments in the organisation. You’ll need to be highly efficient and well-organised in order to oversee some of the Media team’s admin systems.
A key part of what you do will be suggesting innovative ways of getting media coverage for the College and its members, working across the Communications Directorate and the wider organisation. We'll look to you to come up with proactive ways of publicising the RCN’s work, as well as carrying out some support tasks such as logging media comments and interviews and overseeing the College’s media monitoring. It's a great way to build your knowledge of our work and develop your potential.
To succeed at the Royal College of Nursing all you need to do is think bigger, better and brighter. And with an attitude like that, anything’s possible.
What we offer you
We expect you to look after our members. And we expect you to be rewarded for it. We offer an impressive range of benefits, a broad range of learning development opportunities and an award-winning health and wellbeing programme. We offer annual leave up to 32 days plus bank holidays and three additional days for the Christmas break plus generous maternity, adoption, paternity, and shared parental leave packages.
*We offer a competitive pay structure with annual pay progression until you reach the top of the salary scale. We normally offer new employees the first point of the salary range, although you may be able to negotiate a higher starting salary depending on your skills, experience and current salary.
What we deliver for our members is wide and varied so when it comes to how we work one size doesn’t fit all. We also know that to empower our people to do their best work, they must be able to balance the demands of work and home. We are a diverse organisation and understand everyone has different needs and many of our employees enjoy flexible working enabling them to deliver results whilst having a good work life balance. Departments and directorates have their own hybrid ways of working which put the needs of the service they deliver – whether that’s to members or to colleagues - at their heart, in alignment with our hybrid working core principles. At the RCN it’s unlikely you will work from home for all of your working time. Equally no one is expected to work solely in the office unless your role requires it. You can find out more by having a discussion with the recruiting manager.
Our selection process
Please submit a CV and answer the supporting questions demonstrating how you meet the criteria for this role. You may not be shortlisted if you don’t. Please ensure your CV is in a simple format with minimised tables and sections. Any identifying information in your application will automatically be anonymised for shortlisting purposes.
We want your experience applying for a job with us to be the best it can be. We may hold our interviews and assessments in person or by video call If you foresee any problems, please let us know.
As a proud member of the Disability Confident employer scheme we actively encourage applications from people with disabilities.
Contact details
For more information or for an informal discussion about the role please contact Claire Nelson, Senior Media Officer on 07825 924 681.
For more information about the recruitment and selection process please contact recruit@rcn.org.uk
Opening date: 28/02/2024
Closing date: 24/03/2024
If we receive many applications after a week of advertising, this vacancy may close earlier.
Assessment & interview date: 09/04/2024
There will be a first stage assessment before the final-stage assessment and interview. Applicants who are successful at the first stage will then progress to the final stage assessment and interview on 09/04/2024
Proud member of the Disability Confident employer scheme
Disability Confident
About Disability Confident
A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer. It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people. For more details please go to
Disability Confident.
