Senior Public Affairs Manager

Do you want to work with a vibrant, dynamic and youth driven organisation that is committed to creating healthy futures for British children by improving the food system? Be part of the creative, agile and growing team behind Bite Back’s exceptional teenage activists. Join us as our Senior Public Affairs Manager and contribute to our […]

Do you want to work with a vibrant, dynamic and youth driven organisation that is committed to creating healthy futures for British children by improving the food system?

Be part of the creative, agile and growing team behind Bite Back’s exceptional teenage activists. Join us as our Senior Public Affairs Manager and contribute to our journey to help make the food system healthier and fairer.

Role Description

We are seeking a Senior Public Affairs Manager, to lead our national public affairs activity, influencing the government to help deliver evidence-based policies that will make a real difference to children’s health. This is an exciting opportunity to work on the forefront of an urgent and politically significant policy area while also collaborating with young people to ensure their voices and lived experiences are heard by policymakers. 

This is an exciting time to join Bite Back and take our public affairs strategy forward with the Government. We have already seen significant policy wins in the past year and have big ambitions to drive more progress in 2026. In 2024 and 2025 our youth activists gave evidence to the House of Lords, hosted parliamentary drop-in sessions and a mock inquiry, and made memorable appearances at party conference fringe sessions. This is an opportunity to build on that success and raise Bite Back’s profile even further amongst policymakers at a time when the Government is charting its new strategic approach to improving the food system as well as its 10 year plan to save the NHS. The Senior Public Affairs Manager will report to our Director of Advocacy & Strategy and be responsible for developing and implementing all our public affairs activity, ensuring alignment with our campaigns team and working closely with our partners in other organisations to bring about meaningful change. This is a great opportunity for someone looking for the chance to lead high profile public affairs activity at an organisation with growing impact.

Responsibilities

The Senior Public Affairs Manager is accountable for:

• Developing and delivering Bite Back’s public affairs and influencing strategy to galvanise action, building the profile of Bite Back, our young campaigners and securing support from political stakeholders at all levels, nationally, locally, in Westminster and Holyrood.

• Ensuring this strategy remains “live” and flexible. Adapting it to political and policy change as necessary.

• Planning a pipeline of tactical public affairs activities that take advantage of key opportunities and mechanisms to build relationships with a growing number of political advocates.

• Managing and delivering other political events throughout the year such as influencing roundtables, receptions, including at least one Parliamentary drop-in event and two Party Conference fringe sessions per year.

• Translating young people’s insights and policy context into messaging for policymakers and distil policy detail into key points for young people to engage with and campaign on.

• Providing strategic advice to the team on political developments and adapt strategies and plans accordingly.

• Act as a champion for public affairs activity internally, including upskilling and advising the wider Bite Back team and young people on political activities and processes.

• Providing line management support on public affairs to the Policy & Engagement Executive. 

• Searching for external opportunities and events where our young people may be able to present their lived experience to policymakers either through giving formal evidence or playing a speaking role.

• Working with our youth team to engage and support our youth leaders to speak with policymakers including development of briefing materials, preparing and running training sessions and attending meetings.

• Drafting letters, submissions, briefing notes and other outreach materials to engage policymakers, Government and manage dissemination and follow up.

• Conducting political stakeholder mapping, perception auditing and contact tracking to inform strategic political engagement plans and evaluation.

• Collaborating with the content and campaigns teams to translate public affairs moments and messaging into exciting, accessible content for our supporter audiences.

• Working closely with other organisations via established coalitions and more informal coordination around key issues, working collaboratively at the highest levels with values-aligned organisations to achieve our goals.

• Working with the new Senior Programmes & Policy Manager based in Scotland to conduct stakeholder mapping and build a network of supportive Scottish MPs and MSPs.