Stakeholder Manager

Description
Job description

Do you want to help shape the future of post school education and skills funding by building strong relationships and leading stakeholder engagement?

Join the Learner Experience Division within the Lifelong Learning and Skills Directorate, working on the Simplification of the Post-School Funding Project. Our mission is to simplify funding and delivery responsibilities for apprenticeships and student support across public bodies, ensuring learners can access the skills, training, and support they need to succeed. This Project is part of the Scottish Government's widespread programme of reform across the lifelong education and skills system.

The Stakeholder Manager will support the Project on all communications and engagement activities.  This includes responsibility for planning, implementing and monitoring stakeholder and employer engagement and communications, securing buy-in and support for project activities, considering stakeholders' levels of influence and particular interests, ensuring their involvement throughout the project life cycle. 

You will work closely with the Project Team, managing engagement with project stakeholders to establish strong working relationships.

Responsibilities
Responsibilities

• Manage programme and project stakeholder analysis and mapping, using appropriate tools to develop stakeholder profiles working with the wider team to understand and map the changing needs of the project against stakeholder influence and involvement.
• Development and successful delivery of stakeholder and employer engagement plans in accordance with programme and project delivery plans.
• Prepare communications to stakeholders using the most appropriate communication channel and timing of communication for stakeholders to meet the needs of a range of audiences, ensuring that communication products are concise, clear, well-structured and accurate.
• Work collaboratively with members of the programme and project teams, providing stakeholder engagement advice and expertise. 
• Provide briefings and support to senior leaders for meetings with stakeholders.
• Work with the Scottish Funding Council, Skills Development Scotland and Student Awards Agency Scotland communications and engagement teams to write timely communications to clearly articulate our work to internal and external audiences.
• Prepare and manage stakeholder workshops, round tables and forums including secretariat support for these.

Qualifications
Qualifications: Stakeholder Managers should have or be willing to work towards a relevant professional level qualification, such as APMG's Change Management, APM's PMQ or Axelos' P3O qualifications.  Please confirm in your CV or Personal Statement if you hold this qualification.   Success profile   Success profiles are specific to each job and they include the mix of skills, experience and behaviours candidates will be assessed on.   Technical / Professional Skills:

• Stakeholder engagement (Expert level) - Stakeholder engagement is the ability to systematically identify, analyse and communicate with stakeholders, using appropriate channels, to ensure all those impacted by the change are engaged, taking account of their levels of influence and particular interests.
• Requirements management (Practitioner level) -  Requirements management is the process of capturing stakeholder needs, assessing, defining and justifying those needs to arrive at an agreed schedule of requirements.

You can find out more about the skills required here: Project Delivery - Professions - Technical Capabilities and Behaviours Framework details - Objective   Experience:

• Significant experience of managing internal and external stakeholder engagement on high-profile, public-sector programmes and/or projects.
• Experience in stakeholder analysis/mapping and in developing and successfully implementing stakeholder engagement plans- with experience of developing and maintaining relevant systems, tools and products.

Behaviours:

• Communicating and influencing – Level 3
• Seeing the big picture – Level 3

You can find out more about Success Profiles here: Success profiles: candidate guide -
  How to apply   Apply online, providing a CV and Supporting Statement (of no more than 1000 words) which provides evidence of how you meet the skills, experience and behaviours listed in the Success Profile above.   Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools can be used to support your application, but all statements and examples provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, and presented as your own) applications will be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action.   Please see our candidate guidance for more information on acceptable and unacceptable uses of AI in recruitment.   If invited for further assessment, this will consist of an interview and presentation.    Assessments are scheduled for w/c 12 January 2026 however this may be subject to change.   Apply before 23:59 on 21 December 2025. This post is open to internal candidates and Common Citizenship Organisations only.   About us
The Scottish Government is the devolved government for Scotland. We have responsibility for a wide range of key policy areas including: education, health, the economy, justice, housing and transport. We offer rewarding careers and employ people across Scotland in a wide range of professions and roles. Our staff are part of the UK Civil Service, working for Ministers and senior stakeholders to deliver vital public services which improve the lives of the people of Scotland.   We offer a supportive and inclusive working environment along with a wide range of employee benefits. Find out more about what we offer. As part of the UK Civil Service, we uphold the Civil Service Nationality Rules.   Working pattern Our standard hours are 35 hours per week and we offer a range of flexible working options depending on the needs of the role. From October 2025, the Scottish Government will require staff in hybrid-compatible roles to work in-person 40% of the time, either in an office or other agreed work location. If you have specific questions about the role you are applying for, please contact us.   Security checks Successful candidates must complete the Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS), before they can be appointed. BPSS is comprised of four main pre-employment checks – Identity, Right to work, Employment History and a Criminal Record check (unspent convictions). You can find out more about BPSS on the UK Government website, or read about the different levels of security checks in our Candidate Guide.    Equality statement We are committed to equality and inclusion and we aim to recruit a diverse workforce that reflects the population of our nation.  Find out more about our commitment to diversity and how we offer and support recruitment adjustments for anyone who needs them.   Further information Find out more about our organisation, what we offer staff members and how to apply on our Careers Website.   Read our Candidate Guide for further information on our recruitment and application processes.

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