External Affairs
The roles we recruit for
What we look for
Your career prospects
Where you’d work
External Affairs is responsible for our profile in broadcast, print and online media, and across Whitehall and the City. It’s organised into two teams.
The Press Office team
Join us here and you’d work with the media on both a proactive and reactive basis, generating news stories, handling media enquiries and drafting news releases. Day to day you might be managing enquiries from journalists, agreeing our media position on various issues, briefing journalists on our policy and liaising widely across the business.
The Public Affairs team
This is the team that handles our profile with MPs and in the political arena. Liaising with departments across the business, you’d help make sure Nationwide’s views, policies, products and services are clearly communicated to parliamentarians and other influential audiences. Your typical responsibilities would include monitoring Parliamentary activities, arranging meetings and events, managing enquiries from parliamentarians, researching issues and drafting briefing papers.
Although experience in media relations or public affairs is important, it’s not crucial – provided you’re enthusiastic and creative with excellent communication skills and plenty of initiative. You must also be happy to shoulder responsibility and have a keen intellect, the ability to grasp complex issues and sound PC skills. Good interpersonal and relationship-building skills are a must. While an in-depth understanding of the competitive environment and the financial services industry would be a big plus.
There are many opportunities to progress within the team and – as you’ll enjoy a great deal of contact with other areas of the business – a potential career path across Nationwide.
Depending on your role, you’d be based in Swindon, London or Bournemouth. Some roles call for a small amount of ‘out of office hours’ work so you may need to be on call on a rota basis.