Head Of Communications

Head of Communications

Location: Hybrid working at our office in Wimbledon.

Salary: Competitive

Contract: Permanent

We have a fantastic opportunity for a Head of Communications to join our Strategy & Corporate Development. The Head of Communications is a senior strategic leader accountable for defining and delivering the organisation's global communications strategy across internal and external audiences.

This role translates corporate objectives and brand vision into a coherent, enterprise-wide communications approach that protects and builds reputation, drives engagement, and enables long-term brand equity growth across markets. The Head of Communications provides strategic counsel to executive leaders, owns communications prioritisation and integration at portfolio level. It replaces siloed internal/external models with a unified approach grounded in clarity, prioritisation, and performance and ensures that all communications activity operates as a single, high-performing system.

The role is leadership- and strategy-led, with accountability for direction-setting, governance, people leadership, and decision-making at scale. Critically, this role is accountable for stabilising the team, raising performance standards, addressing behavioural and capability gaps, and creating a healthy, high-performing culture that balances empathy with firmness.

Key Responsibilities:

Enterprise communications strategy

• Define and lead the global communications strategy aligned to corporate objectives and brand vision
• Translate business strategy, transformation priorities, and growth ambitions into clear communications direction
• Ensure communications is positioned as a strategic enabler of organisational performance, not a support function
• Advise senior leadership on communications implications of strategic decisions, risk, and change

Communications strategy & integration

• Define and own the global communications strategy aligned to brand ambition and business priorities
• Integrate internal and external communications into a single, coherent operating model
• Ensure one clear narrative spine across all audiences and markets
• Own principles for localisation and cultural adaptation while protecting brand consistency

People leadership & performance management

• Lead, coach, and performance-manage senior communications leaders and campaign managers
• Establish clear roles, objectives, and success measures across the function
• Build a culture of accountability, feedback, and continuous improvement
• Develop leadership capability and succession pathways

Campaign orchestration & prioritisation

• Oversee all internal and external campaigns at portfolio level
• Set priorities, sequence activity, and balance ambition with capacity
• Enable campaign managers to operate flexibly across internal and external contexts

Reputation, issues & executive communications

• Leads the development and execution of crisis and issues communications across internal and external audiences
• Manages escalation, coordination, and governance of crisis communications on behalf of the Brand & Comms Director
• Ensures crisis readiness through playbooks, training, simulations, and agency coordination

Agency, partner & operating model oversight

• Oversee PR agencies and external partners via senior team members
• Set expectations, governance, and performance measures for agency engagement
• Ensure consistent standards and outcomes across markets

Measurement, insight & governance

• Partner with the Social Media Manager, and Head of Brand to track brand equity and campaign performance
• Use insight to inform strategy, prioritisation, and optimisation
• Establish clear governance, decision rights, and escalation paths

Skills and experience required:

• Significant senior-level experience leading communications strategy in complex, multi-stakeholder organisations, with direct exposure to executive- level environments.
• Proven senior experience spanning both internal and external communications
• Demonstrated success in leading, stabilising, or transforming teams
• Strong understanding of brand equity, reputation management, and campaign performance
• Experience operating in complex, matrixed, and fast-moving organisations
• High emotional intelligence combined with decisive, grounded leadership
• Confident managing ambiguity, tension, and underperformance
• Strong grasp of analytics, insight, and evidence-based decision-making

We offer lots of great benefits! Some of which include:

• Competitive salary and annual discretionary bonus
• 25 days annual leave plus bank/public holidays, as well as an annual option to buy up to 5 additional days of annual leave
• Training opportunities as well as clearly defined career progression
• Health cash plan - employer funded cover to enable you to claim money back on essential healthcare costs, including dental, optical, physiotherapy and many more. Cover also includes unlimited access to a 24/7 virtual GP service
• Attractive company pension scheme
• Life assurance - employer funded cover of 4x basic salary
• Dedicated online benefit portal offering access to saving and lending facilities, financial wellbeing and support services:
• Salary Finance - access to savings and borrowing through payroll
• Car Leasing - access to a carbon neutral salary sacrifice car leasing scheme, with an all-inclusive monthly cost covering all charge, taxes, insurance, repairs and maintenance on a range of brand-new vehicles
• Travel Loans - interest free loans to help spread the cost of annual travel tickets
• Cycle to Work - tax efficient bike and cycling equipment worth up to £1,000
• Health & Wellbeing - discounted gym membership, online virtual workout sessions, online culinary classes
• OnHand - Giving you the opportunity to be an Eco & Social volunteer via a handy app. Volunteer individually or in groups to get involved in Youth Mentoring, Food Poverty, Homelessness & Elderly help.
• Employee Assistance Programme - specialist advice and support on issues such as finance, relationships, illness and family issues
• Free Domestic & General protection plan - one free plan each year with access to discounted rates of up to 50% on additional plans, including referrals for family and friends
• Employee discounts - with a range of discounts for 100s of online and high street retailers

Domestic & General are an equal opportunities employer which means we treat people fairly. We welcome applications from all suitably skilled persons regardless of their gender, age, race, disability, ethnic background, religion/belief, sexual orientation, gender reassignment or marital/family status.

Please note that we have a thorough referencing process, which includes criminal record checks.

At Domestic & General, we are proud of our 100-year legacy and excited about our future growth plans. We are expanding our horizons, entering new markets and territories internationally and we need your expertise to help us on the journey.