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.

As Website and Apps Manager, you will be responsible for developing and overseeing our core national websites, primarily the Church of England and Archbishops of Canterbury and York, as well managing our national Apps.

You will work closely with colleagues across the national office in Westminster, Lambeth Palace and Bishopthorpe Palace to deliver the core priorities of the digital team to: grow people’s Christian faith, bring people to the Christian faith and share the common good work of the Church.

You will oversee agencies and the development roadmaps, as the Church of England moves to build on the foundation of its website platform. You will also work as the central contact and advisor for Diocesan colleagues working on web and data projects, and oversee the Church of England, Archbishop of Canterbury and Archbishop of York’s website budget.

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.

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

For an informal conversation please contactamaris.cole@churchofengland.org

Interviews are expected to be held on the 8th June 2022.

Please note that our search partner Joe Santry (Business Manager) from Christian Jobs will be assisting us with the recruitment to this role.

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.

The Role

• Coordinating the relationship between departments in Church House and Archbishops’ offices. Understanding their requirements and turning those into a coherent ongoing strategy.
• Managing the agency responsible for the websites. This includes large development work, bug fixes, support and maintenance.
• Oversee and implement training and best practice advice on how web editors can get the most from the websites.
• Responsible for best practice implementation of GDPR and data legislation across the Church’s digital channels and social media campaigns.
• Responding to web editor and website visitor enquiries, ensuring the platform meets lawful requirements.
• Developing the strategic view of how the Church makes the most of content on its websites and how it sits with core campaigns at key moments in the Christian year, such as Christmas, Lent and Easter.
• Leading focus groups, surveys, external feedback and internal website stakeholder relationships across Church House.
• Providing ongoing good governance across Church House ensuring that the website priorities sit within the wider Digital team’s objectives and strategy of: evangelism, discipleship and the common good.
• Developing a long-term roadmap to develop the websites, alongside our existing system and apps.
• Support for the General Synod app for iOS and Android, particularly during the General Synod.
• Support for other apps produced with our app partner and Church House Publishing.
• Supporting the NCIs with content curation to maintain a consistent visual experience across the Church of England website.
• Overseeing a migration plan for the additional national websites that currently exist, most of which will be moved into the main Church of England website.
• Harnessing the power of SEO, heatmapping, analytics and search to drive maximum, relevant traffic to the websites.
• Keeping up to date with current web trends and developments and ensure we remain timely and current in our use of digital and social media.
• Network proactively with external organisations, forums and stakeholders.

FINANCIAL AND BUDGETARY MANAGEMENT:

• Responsible for the Church’s website budget. This includes hosting, agency support, security, technical and development costs.

STAFF MANAGEMENT AND SUPERVISION:

• Currently no line management responsibilities.

The Requirements

Essential

Skills/Aptitudes

• Proven ability to train teams and individuals on how to get the most from content management systems and digital solutions.
• Excellent stakeholder management.
• Extensive experience of taking people with you to achieve organisational goals.
• Build consensus and positive relationships within and across departments.
• Strategic consultant mindset:
  • Project management
  • Attention to detail and process
  • Problem solving
  • Ability to manage multiple workstreams within a larger project.

Knowledge/Experience

• Experience of running national website/s.
• Experience of managing external digital agencies to deliver on time and in budget.
• A successful record in delivering and running large, complex digital projects.
• Experience of positive search engine optimisation techniques, Google Analytics and heatmapping technologies.
• Confidence in running and analysing focus groups and surveys to understand what our audiences want from the websites.
• An awareness and understanding of the Christian faith.

Circumstances:

• Able to travel within England and attend meetings away from London.

Desirable

Skills/Attributes:

• Experience of running Drupal 9 websites.
• Knowledge of HTML and CSS.
• Experience of Salesforce CRM.
• An interest in bringing more people to faith in Jesus Christ and deepening people’s faith.

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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