Head of Campaigns (Maternity Cover)

Title: Head of Campaigns
Salary: £60,000
Contract: Temporary
Hours: 37.5 per week (Monday to Friday)
Holiday: 25 days per year plus bank holidays
Location: Home based with regular across the UK
Probationary Period: 3 months
Reports to: Chief Executive
Benefits: An additional 3 days holiday between Christmas and New Year, Flexitime policy, 5% pension contribution

Anticipated contract duration: 9th November 2026 - February 2028

We are River Action

We are a small and agile campaigning organisation on a mission to rescue the UK’s rivers from a toxic cocktail of agricultural, sewage and industrial pollution and water shortages. We support community action, galvanise and mobilise public opinion, influence government policy, take legal actions and call out destructive industrial practices to incentivise changes that end river pollution and secure freshwater.

We are a talented team of positive disrupters and stakeholder mobilisers delivering our strategy to urgently protect and restore our rivers for the benefit of communities, rivers and wildlife.

Our rivers are our life support system and they are dying. We need urgent action to bring them back to life.

Who we are looking for

We're looking for an exceptional campaigner to lead an ambitious environmental campaigning programme for just over a year to cover maternity leave. This is an exciting opportunity for an inspiring leader who can develop bold, strategic campaigns that shift public debate, influence decision-makers and deliver tangible environmental outcomes.

You'll be an experienced campaign strategist who understands that lasting change rarely comes from a single tactic. You'll know how to bring together compelling communications, evidence and investigations, grassroots mobilisation, political engagement, legal interventions and partnerships into integrated campaigns capable of changing policy, behaviour and corporate practice.

We're looking for someone who combines strategic vision with practical delivery. Someone who is comfortable making decisions in a fast-moving environment, spotting opportunities as they emerge and adapting campaigns to maximise impact.

Experience in environmental campaigning would be highly valuable, but above all we're looking for someone with an outstanding track record of leading successful campaigns that have shifted opinion, influenced policy or held powerful institutions to account.

We’re looking for someone who brings energy, creativity and courageous leadership. Someone who is excited by building campaigns that challenge the status quo, comfortable navigating complexity and able to combine bold thinking with sound judgement. You'll know when to disrupt, when to collaborate and how to inspire others to believe that together we can restore the UK’s rivers.

If you're motivated by creating change, thrive in a dynamic environment and want to lead campaigns that make a genuine difference to one of the UK's greatest environmental challenges, we'd love to hear from you.

What you’ll be doing:

As Head of Campaigns, you will be developing and delivering bold, integrated campaigns that drive lasting change for the UK's rivers. You'll lead and inspire a talented team of campaigners, helping them to develop innovative, impactful campaigns while fostering a collaborative, ambitious and supportive culture. You'll work closely with colleagues across communications, policy, legal, fundraising and research, ensuring our work is strategically aligned and greater than the sum of its parts.

Leading River Action's Campaigns Team, you will shape the organisation's campaigning strategy, ensuring our work is innovative, evidence-led and designed to influence public opinion, hold polluters to account and secure meaningful political and systemic change. You'll create campaigns that connect compelling storytelling with community mobilisation, strategic communications, political advocacy, legal action and partnerships, ensuring every part of our work contributes towards our mission to rescue the UK’s rivers.

You'll provide strategic leadership across the full campaign lifecycle, overseeing campaign planning, delivery, budgeting, resourcing and evaluation. You'll ensure our campaigns are informed by robust evidence, guided by clear objectives and measured against meaningful outcomes, using insight and learning to continually strengthen our impact.

You will lead River Action's communications and public profile, ensuring our campaigns cut through the national conversation, inspire public action and strengthen our reputation as one of the UK's leading environmental campaigning organisations. You’ll oversee media, messaging and campaign communications that amplify our voice and build public support for change.

Internally, you'll work in close partnership with the Head of Public Affairs to ensure our public campaigns reinforce and accelerate our political influencing work, while ensuring community campaigns and grassroots action inform our national priorities. You'll also work alongside the Head of Legal to develop campaigns involving strategic litigation to achieve change within and outside of court and legal processes, using legal action as a catalyst for wider public awareness, policy change and industry accountability.

As a member of River Action's Senior Management Team, you'll help shape the strategic direction of the organisation and contribute to organisational leadership beyond your own department. You'll work alongside the CEO and fellow Heads of Department to deliver our organisational strategy, embedding collaboration, innovation and impact across all areas of our work.

You'll also play a key role in securing the resources needed to deliver our ambitions. Working with the Head of Development, you'll help develop compelling funding proposals, inspire funders with our vision and demonstrate the impact of our work through robust monitoring, evaluation and reporting. Working with the Finance and Operations Manager, you'll oversee campaign budgets, ensuring resources are managed effectively and strategically.

Main Duties

• Provide strategic leadership as a member of the Senior Management Team, supporting the CEO to deliver River Action's organisational strategy, theory of change and long-term vision.
• Lead the development and delivery of River Action's integrated campaigning strategy, ensuring our public campaigns drive measurable environmental, political and societal change.
• Develop and oversee a portfolio of ambitious national campaigns, identifying opportunities to influence public opinion, policy, regulation and industry practice through innovative and impactful campaigning.
• Lead River Action's communications, media and public engagement strategy, ensuring compelling storytelling, strong brand visibility and effective use of traditional, digital and social media to grow our influence and supporter base.
• Lead the planning and delivery of River Action’s creative interventions and actions, from polling, petitions and shareholder actions to public protests and high-profile actions.
• Serve as a senior public representative and spokesperson for River Action, building the organisation's profile and influence through media engagement, public speaking, stakeholder engagement and high-profile external events.
• Oversee River Action's digital campaigning platforms, including the strategic development of our website and digital engagement tools.
• Work closely with the Head of Public Affairs to ensure campaigns and political advocacy are fully integrated, maximising opportunities to influence government, regulators and decision-makers.
• Work closely with the Head of Public Affairs to ensure grassroots action informs national campaigns, and national campaigns empower and amplify community action.
• Work with the Head of Legal to identify, develop and deliver strategic legal interventions that strengthen campaigns, increase accountability and drive systemic change beyond the courtroom.
• Build and maintain influential relationships with campaign partners, coalitions, NGOs, academics, community organisations, funders and other key stakeholders to maximise collective impact.
• Lead campaign planning, governance and delivery, ensuring campaigns are effectively resourced, managed and evaluated against agreed objectives, budgets and monitoring, evaluation and reporting (MER) frameworks.
• Lead, inspire and develop the Campaigns Team, fostering a collaborative, creative and high-performing culture that enables colleagues to thrive and deliver exceptional work.
• Work with the CEO, Head of Development and senior colleagues to secure funding for campaign activities, contributing to funding proposals, donor engagement and impact reporting.
• Work with the Finance and Operations Manager to develop, monitor and manage campaign budgets, ensuring resources are used effectively and strategically.
• Support organisational reporting by contributing to Board papers, quarterly and annual reports, organisational planning and performance monitoring.

Other Duties & Responsibilities

• Adopt a positive approach to personal and professional development; engaging in one to one meetings and relevant training.
• Be aware of, and act on, relevant health and safety responsibilities as an employee of River Action and adhere to these wherever you are working.
• To maintain confidentiality in all areas of work at River Action.
• UK travel will be required. Training & operational activities may require overnight stays away from home, in which case standard River Action procedures apply.
• Demonstrate a strong commitment to creating an inclusive, equal and diverse workplace and a positive organisational culture.
• Work collaboratively with colleagues across River Action to collectively deliver our ethos and mission.

What you’ll bring

The position will suit a strategic, well organised, energetic, passionate and dedicated person. The ideal person will be an excellent leader, a people person, and thrive within a dynamic and fast-paced environment. The person will have a passion to protect and restore our waterways and hold those responsible for environmental destruction to account.

• Ability to think strategically to deliver campaigns that are positively disruptive and meet River Action values.
• Line management experience of highly experienced professionals, bringing out the best in your team.
• Creative attitude and skills for solving problems and raising awareness of problems and solutions.
• A head for organisation and excellent time management, bringing others along with you in planning and delivering interventions and projects at short notice and under pressure.
• Experience in public and/or political campaigning either within or outside the environmental sector.
• Experience and contacts in communications and PR.
• An understanding of the issues that are impacting our rivers, and their solutions.
• The ability to establish and maintain effective contacts and relationships with senior and influential external individuals and bodies.
• The ability to communicate effectively and appropriately with a wide range of people both verbally and in writing including the media, community groups, other NGO representatives, government, industry leaders, supporters and followers on social media.
• Exceptional IT literacy and a head for figures and budgeting.
• Ability to work independently and take initiative to solve problems.
• Ability to work flexible hours as necessary.
• A good team player with a willingness to muck in as and where required.
• Ability to think clearly even when working under pressure.
• A passion for River Action’s mission and vision.

Diversity and Inclusion

Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies show that women and people of colour are less likely to apply for jobs unless they meet every single criteria. We are committed to building a diverse, inclusive and equitable workplace. So if you like the look of this role but your past experience does not align perfectly with everything in the job description, we would still like to hear from you. You may be just the right person for this or other roles.