Bus Franchising Engagement Officer

Job Title: Bus Franchising Engagement Officer
Starting Salary: £38,220 progressing to £41,771 per annum (pro rata for part time)
Hours: 37
Location: Countywide
Contract Type: Fixed Term - 2 years
Directorate: Growth & Environment

About the team

As a Bus Franchising Engagement Officer, you will play a crucial role in supporting the exploration and development of bus franchising within the Integrated Passenger Transport Unit. Working at the heart of a dynamic and forward‑thinking team, you will assist the Team Leader in informing, involving, and engaging key stakeholders and the public throughout the franchising process. You will help coordinate and deliver a range of engagement activities designed to ensure residents, businesses, bus operators, and community groups understand the proposals and can contribute meaningfully to shaping future service models.

Collaborating closely with internal colleagues, local partners, and a wide range of external stakeholders, you will take ownership of communication tasks, engagement activities, consultations, and the gathering and analysis of feedback. Your work will directly influence how franchising options are understood, assessed, and refined. By ensuring that engagement is clear, inclusive, and accessible, you will play an essential part in driving forward the ambitions of the franchising programme and helping to create a bus network that better meets the needs of passengers and supports wider goals around accessibility, reliability, and integration across the transport network.

About the role

Engagement planning: design and schedule engagement activity for the Bus Franchising Pilot; use data and feedback to refine plans.

Use data such as passenger trends and service performance and feedback to shape engagement activities and improve outcomes.

Stakeholder coordination: share information and gather views from bus operators, district/borough councils, community transport providers and groups.

Project support: coordinate engagement tasks to agreed timelines; maintain trackers; prepare short reports and updates for senior officers and funding bodies.

Community communications: develop materials, run outreach to reach digitally excluded and hard to reach audiences; promote bus use through local campaigns.

Information handling: review responses and identify themes, risks and opportunities; escalate issues as needed in line with procedures.

About you

The ideal candidate will need to be degree qualified in relevant subject plus number of years' experience in a similar role OR significant vocational experience, demonstrating development through involvement in a series of progressively demanding relevant roles.

Along with the following essential criteria:

• Project management skills, including the ability to work on multiple projects simultaneously and deliver to agreed timescales.
• A detailed understanding of public transport and bus franchising.
• Effective organisational skills, with the ability to prioritise work to meet tight deadlines.
• Experience of working with a range of stakeholders.
• Ability to undertake research and analysis using best practice, providing appropriate solutions and recommendations.
• Clear, decisive, and persuasive communication skills, both written and verbal, including the ability to present information to a variety of audiences.
• High‑quality written reporting and verbal communication skills, with accurate English spelling and grammar.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and a strong ability to work collaboratively within a team.
• Self‑motivation and the ability to proactively manage your own workload.

Please ensure your covering letter clearly addresses all of the essential criteria for the role. If any relevant experience or evidence is not fully explained or visible in your CV, please use your covering letter to provide additional detail to demonstrate how you meet the required criteria.

We welcome applications from candidates who currently reside in the UK with established proof of right to work documentation. We are not able to offer sponsorship at this time for this role.

This job role is within the Community Services, level COM10 job profile. Please locate this via:

Job profiles - Community services

To hear more about this opportunity please contact alice.missler@hertfordshire.gov.uk for an informal discussion about the role.

Interview Date:10th March 2026

Benefits of working for us

This is an exciting opportunity for someone who wants to take on meaningful challenges and play a fundamental role in shaping the future of bus services. As a Bus Franchising Engagement Officer, you will sit at the centre of a complex, high‑profile programme where no two days are the same. You’ll be navigating diverse viewpoints, designing engagement activity, and helping communities understand and influence one of the most significant changes to local transport in decades.

The role offers excellent scope for professional growth, whether you aspire to develop in project delivery, consultation and engagement, transport strategy, or wider public sector leadership. You will build strong skills in stakeholder management, communications, evidence gathering, and partnership working—experience that will support your progress into more senior roles within the organisation and the broader transport sector.

Most importantly, this is a job where your work genuinely matters. The insight and feedback you gather will shape decision‑making and have a direct impact on the future of the bus network, helping to deliver a system that is more reliable, accessible, and responsive to the needs of local people.

How to apply

As part of your application, please upload your most recent CV. Ensure your CV is up to date with your employment history (including any employment gaps), and including any training/qualifications. We encourage you to include examples of where you have demonstrated the requirements/criteria in the advert / job profile to allow the panel to fully recognise your skills and abilities. You will have the opportunity to include a short covering paragraph within your application to give us a little more information about your skills, knowledge, and experiences.

Secondment
This position is open to secondments. If you work for HCC or any other Local Authority and would like to be considered as a Secondment contract, please ensure you complete the Secondment Form as part of your application. If you do not, your application will be considered as a Fixed Term Contract only.

Additional information

Disability Confident
We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer and guarantee an interview to anyone disclosing a disability whose application meets the minimum criteria for the post.

English Fluency
The ability to converse at ease with members of the public and provide advice in accurate spoken English is essential for the post (for those whose language is a signed language the provision of a sign language interpreter who speaks English to the necessary standard of fluency will be required). Further information about the legal requirement can be found here.