Head of Content - Social Media Team

The Home Office works to build a safe, fair and prosperous UK. We achieve this through our work on counter-terrorism, policing, crime, drugs policy, immigration and passports.

The Corporate Services Group works closely with the Home Office’s policy and operational commands to enable us together to deliver the department’s priorities. The group is comprised of different teams and professional functions, including Commercial, Communications, Finance, People, Portfolio and Project Delivery, Private Office, Security, Estates and Information.

The Communications Directorate delivers some of the UK's highest-profile public communications, reaching millions of people every week through social, digital, media and campaign activity.

We're looking for an exceptional creative leader to shape the Home Office and Home Secretary's social media presence and lead one of government's most ambitious in-house creative teams. You'll oversee a talented team of videographers, photographers, designers and animators, setting the creative vision for content that informs and engages audiences at national scale about Home Office priorities.

This is a rare opportunity to combine the pace and creativity of a modern social-first operation with the reach and impact of one of the UK's largest government departments. You'll drive audience growth, lead innovative content strategies, and create work that shapes national conversations and is seen by millions across the country.

As Head of Content, you will lead a team of creatives to deliver best-in-class social media content, maintaining the highest editorial and production standards while continually pushing creative boundaries.

Sitting on the digital senior leadership team and reporting to the Head of Digital, you will translate strategy into effective creative output that drives audience growth, engagement, behaviour change and earns public trust. This is a hands-on leadership role where you'll set the creative vision, shape ideas from concept to delivery, direct production and build the systems needed to deliver consistently high-performing content at scale.

You'll lead content across Home Office channels with an audience of more than 2.3 million followers, driving growth on priority platforms including YouTube, Instagram and Tik-Tok. From major announcements and reactive news moments to innovative social-first storytelling, you'll ensure content is audience-focused, platform-native and impactful.

Working closely with Ministers, Special Advisers and senior officials, you'll help shape how one of the UK's most important departments engages with the public. This is a rare opportunity to combine the pace and creativity of a leading social media brand with the reach, visibility and purpose of public service, influencing national conversations every day.

Key Responsibilities

• Leadership: Lead and develop a multi-disciplinary creative team, including direct line management, ensuring consistently high standards and continuous improvement. Build a high-performance culture, supporting team development, creativity and resilience in a fast-paced environment. Establish clear prioritisation and delivery timelines.
• Creative Strategy & Production Pipeline: Develop and deliver a scalable creative content strategy aligned to departmental priorities. Establish and lead a structured content pipeline balancing reactive, planned and episodic content.
• Social Media Optimisation: Ensure all content is tailored for different social media platforms maintaining brand consistency and optimising for engagement and recognising how audiences differ platform to platform.
• Ministerial Content: Own and deliver a high-quality, consistent Home Secretary content pipeline. Ensure content is authoritative, engaging and optimised for each platform. Maintain production quality and storytelling that reflects the profile of senior Ministers.
• Content Production: Provide strong creative direction across all outputs, including scripting, storyboarding and sign-off. Lead complex or high-profile productions, including high-quality filming and editing where required. Ensure all output meets high editorial, accessibility and compliance standards.
• Rapid Response: Lead the team in delivering high-quality content at pace in response to breaking news and priority moments. Ensure readiness to support high-profile announcements and reactive communications.
• Strategic Partnerships: Build a network of trusted relationships across the department, operational commands, arm's-length bodies and external partners. Secure stakeholder buy-in, identifying opportunities early, and ensuring the digital team has consistent access to the people, operations and stories that bring Home Office priorities to life.
• Data & Insight: Embed a data-driven culture, using performance to inform content decisions. Continuously optimise formats, storytelling and distribution based on insight.

Working Pattern

Due to the business requirements of this role, it is only available on a full-time basis.

You will be expected to work flexibly when required, including supporting out-of-hours activity such as reactive news moments, Ministerial visits, filming opportunities and major announcements. This may involve occasional overnight travel and extended working days.

Travel

Regular UK-wide travel will be required, which may sometimes include overnight stays, and also occasional overseas travel. Any associated costs will be reimbursed in line with Home Office policy.

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths and Experience.

This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, drives up performance and improves diversity and inclusivity.

We will endeavour to conduct the selection process in line with the dates indicated below, but cannot guarantee that these will not, where necessary, be revised.

1. Application – by 18th September 2026

As part of the application process, you will be asked to complete:

• CV
• Personal Statement (maximum 500 words).

Your CV should consist of your career history and skills/experience, including any key achievements in each role. Your CV will be scored against the experience required for the role as noted within the essential criteria.

The Personal Statement should be aligned to and demonstrate how you meet the skills and experience set out in the essential criteria, detailed in the job description.

For guidance and information on how to construct your application (CV, Personal Statement and Behaviours), you are encouraged to visit Civil Service Careers website.

2. Sift – 22nd September 2026

The sift will be held on the Personal Statement and CV, as listed in the advert.

Should a high volume of applications be received, an initial sift will be conducted on the CV. Candidates who pass the initial sift will then be progressed to a full sift that will consist of all the remaining elements submitted (Personal Statement). Candidates who fail to meet the minimum pass score for the initial sift will not have their remaining submitted elements scored and will only receive a sift score for that assessed at the initial sift.

3. Interview – from 13th October 2026

If you are successful at sift stage, you will be invited to an interview that will be Behaviours Leadership and Communicating and Influencing, and Strength based questions.

In addition, candidates will be asked to prepare a 10-minute presentation that will be delivered at interview. The presentation question/scenario will be provided to you with your interview invitation (should you be successful at sift). Slides will be accepted.

The presentation will be assessed against 'Behaviours' on the 'Success Profiles' and will be specifically assessed against the Behaviour Seeing the Big Picture.

The interview will take place in person, at 2 Marsham Street (2MS), London.

Please note: travel expenses will not be reimbursed.

For guidance and information on what to expect and how to prepare for an interview, you are encouraged to visit Civil Service Careers.

Problems during the application process

If you experience problems accessing this advert, or you think you’ve made a mistake on an initial application, please contact hocandidates.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk, including the vacancy reference, at least two working days before the vacancy closes. Further information can be found on our website.

Do not create or attempt to submit another application, online test or use a different Civil Service Jobs account to proceed as this would be in violation of the candidate declaration.

Reserve List

A reserve list may be held for a period of up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made. There is no guarantee that being held on a reserve list will lead to a job offer. Further information can be found on our website.

Breaking Tied Scores

The behaviours and strengths have been ranked in order of importance to enable us to differentiate between candidates with tied interview scores.

Standards

All Civil Servants are expected to comply with the Civil Service Code, and its core values of integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality.

Additional Security Checks

As well as successfully obtaining UK Security Vetting clearance, candidates will be subject to a range of additional checks. The range of checks carried out will depend on whether you are a current Home Office employee, existing civil servant or an external new entrant as well as the role requirements. Further details are included in the Notes to Candidates.

Further information

In order to process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring Service on your behalf. However, we recognise in exceptional circumstances some candidates will want to send their completed forms direct.

If you will be doing this, please advise Government Recruitment Service of your intention by emailing Pre-EmploymentChecks.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk stating the job reference number in the subject heading.

Reasonable Adjustments

If a person with disabilities is at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes.

If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should:

• Contact Government Recruitment Service via HOrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs
• Complete the “Assistance Required” section in the “Additional Requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you're deaf, a language service professional

If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the ‘Contact point for applicants’ section.

Feedback

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.