Overview

Our aim is for everyone in the National Church Institutions (NCIs) to feel that they belong, and are valued for who they are and what they contribute. Together, our people contribute in different ways towards our common purpose, whichever NCI they work in and whatever their background.

The Church’s digital team was established in October 2016 and, over the last four years, has worked with colleagues across the Church to transform the digital presence for the better and reach and engage millions of Christians and people exploring their faith. Major areas of focus include providing resources and materials during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic; continuing development and maintaining the national websites; co-developing major Christian campaigns at Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter; overseeing a social media and website training programme with thousands of churches; and developing innovative products like the Alexa skill.

The Church has been recognised for its work in this area by winning a large number of national awards.

The Digital Team also works to support the implementation of the Church of England’s Vision and Strategy priorities, seeking to create a younger, more diverse Church. 

Post Introduction

Since the Church of England started the award-winning Digital Labs training programme, more than 13,500 people have benefitted from our tailored training for church leaders and volunteers. Digital Labs equips local churches to use social media, websites and other digital tools for evangelism and discipleship. We offer industry-standard advice made relevant through in person training, webinars, blogs, videos, and a newsletter.  

As Digital Labs Manager, you will use your experience of training adults, your passion for digital and your understanding of communications to significantly increase the reach and impact of the Digital Labs programme and ensure it helps churches to develop in line with the Church’s Vision and Strategy: to become younger and more diverse, make missionary disciples and support a ‘mixed ecology’.

You will oversee the work of the Digital Labs Officer who delivers the core Digital Labs webinars, and deliver training sessions yourself to audiences across the country, including ordinands.  

We are taking a flexible approach to work, with many colleagues opting for a hybrid approach to their working week, with a mixture of home and office-based working. Further details will be discussed at interview. We are open to flexible or part time working for this role.

For an informal conversation please contact rachel.roberts@churchofengland.org

We would like to hear from you if you have the ability, motivation and commitment to give to this opportunity and the requirements explained below.

The Church of England is for everyone, and we want to reflect the diversity of the community the Church serves across the whole country. Therefore, while of course we welcome all applications from interested and suitably experienced people, we would particularly welcome applicants from UK Minority Ethnic Backgrounds. 

We offer a unique environment with opportunities for continuous learning, generous annual leave for work life balance, season ticket loans and a range of benefits including discounted entry to attractions and what we feel is a market leading package when it comes to our pension scheme.

Role Responsibility

The Role

• Responsible for quality delivery and continuous development of the national digital skills training programme, ensuring the content remains engaging and relevant and that it equips the local church to use digital platforms for evangelism and discipleship.   
• Create, maintain and deliver training for ordinands and roll this out to ensure every ordinand progressing to curacy receives training in key digital tools for churches, including how to use A Church Near You.  
• Provide digital workshops and advice for diocesan staff with responsibility for digital communications.  
• Develop the multi-channel communications for Digital Labs, to continue to grow an engaged online community of clergy, church and lay leaders. 
• Oversee the Digital Labs webpages, blog and newsletter, supporting the Digital Labs Officer who manages these day to day.  
• Produce content for the Digital Labs blogs and guides, including creating and commissioning short training videos for people to access digital skills on-demand. 
• Work with the Senior Digital Communications Manager on the Digital Team’s wider work, in particular ensuring effective training for editors to use A Church Near You and ensuring effective resources to help churches participate in national campaigns.  
• Ensure Digital Labs is using the best platforms and best practice approaches for effective adult learning and support peers from other teams delivering their own training to use and follow these.  
• Advocate and champion the use of the resources from the Church of England YouTube channel across the NCIs. 
• Shape and lead large national events to equip church leaders with digital skills and promote the vision of The Church of England. 
• Build relationships inside and outside the NCIs, actively networking to ensure a diverse range of engaging contributors are heard and involved Digital Labs activities, from across our dioceses and the breadth of Church of England traditions and beyond. 
• Work with the Deputy Head of Communications to contribute to safeguarding training for NCIs and diocesan colleagues where this covers safeguarding in relation to social media.  

Financial and Budgetary Management 

• Responsible for the Digital Labs budget.

Staff Management and Supervision  

• You will oversee the work of the Digital Labs Officer.  
• You may be required to manage external agencies, contractors and freelancers. 

The Ideal Candidate

The Requirements

Essential 

Knowledge/Experience: 

• Proven ability and previous experience of developing and delivering programmes of learning or training.  
• A track record of developing the strategy for large projects and seeing them through to delivery and completion.   
• Experience of using social media professionally. 
• Experience of planning digital marketing campaigns.  
• A good understanding of the digital environment and digital trends.  
• An awareness and understanding of Christian evangelism. 
• Excellent project management and organisation skills. 
• Excellent clear digital copywriting skills. 
• Excellent clear verbal communication skills. 
• Excellent IT skills with Microsoft Office and other industry standard applications. 

Attributes: 

• Ability to act both strategically and tactically.  
• A passion for digital and helping churches use this. 
• Comfortable and confident helping churches promote faith in Jesus Christ in the digital public square. 
• Build consensus and positive relationships within and across teams. 
• Excellent interpersonal skills. 
• Ability to work in a small core team, and as part of a wider team during certain events. 

Desirable 

Knowledge/Experience 

• Experience of working in an adult learning environment.  

Attributes 

• Gain confidence and trust of senior internal stakeholders through professionalism.

Circumstances 

• Able to travel occasionally within England. 
• Able to deliver evening webinar sessions occasionally. 

About Us

We in the National Church Institutions support the mission and ministries of the Church all over England. We work with parishes, dioceses (regional offices), schools, other ministries and our partners at a national and international level.

Excellence, Respect, Integrity

We follow these three values in everything we do, whether we are of Christian faith, another faith or no faith. To learn more about working for National Church Institutions and our benefits, please click here

As a Disability Confident Leader, we actively look to attract, recruit and retain those of you who are disabled.

As a member of the Armed Forces Covenant, we welcome applications from those of you who have served in our Armed Forces and their families.

We are committed to being an equal opportunities employer and to ensuring that everyone, job applicants, customers and other people with whom we deal, are treated fairly and not subject to discrimination.  We will do whatever is necessary to provide genuine equality of opportunity. We continuously review our policies and processes to support our aim to create a workforce as diverse as the nation the Church of England serves.

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