Social Value Lead

Overview

At Roke, we’re committed to delivering meaningful, lasting Social Value across every part of our business. We’re now looking for an experienced Social Value Lead to drive our strategy, governance, and delivery — ensuring Social Value is embedded into how we operate, bid, deliver, and partner with government and industry.

This is an exciting, high‑impact role for someone passionate about social, environmental and economic outcomes, with the leadership capability to influence at every level.

As our Social Value Lead, you’ll:

• Own and continuously evolve the Social Value Strategy, ensuring alignment with the Government Social Value Model, Chemring ESG Strategy, and Roke’s People, Environment, Places and Ecosystem priorities
• Chair and coordinate the Social Value ecosystem within our ESG meets EVP Committee, bringing together ERGs, Charities, STEM/outreach teams, Sustainability and JOSCAR Zero activity.
• Lead regular planning cycles to set missions, outcomes and priorities.

Drive Workstream Delivery

• Provide leadership, direction and support to the four Social Value Chairs (Economic Growth, Sustainable Future, Community & Wellbeing, Fair Opportunities for All).
• Track delivery against plans, risks, metrics and outcomes, ensuring clarity and alignment across all work streams.

Manage Budgets & Investments

• Oversee Social Value budgets, including workforce volunteering hours, ERG allocations, recurring programme commitments (e.g., Thrive, JOSCAR Zero) and charity partnerships.
• Evaluate new proposals, build business cases and recommend investment based on impact and alignment.

Lead Social Value in Bids

• Partner with bidding teams to develop compelling, compliant Social Value solutions from early engagement through to submission.
• Produce high‑quality content including MAC‑aligned commitments, delivery approaches, KPIs, and proxy valuations.
• Maintain best‑practice examples, evidence and case‑study libraries, and upskill internal teams on Social Value expectations.

Own Measurement, Data & Reporting

• Act as business owner for the Thrive platform, defining metrics, KPIs, baselines and reporting cycles.
• Produce dashboards and performance reports for Roke Operating Board, Executive Committee and customers.
• Ensure high-quality, auditable data and consistent reporting across all activity.

Build Engagement & Culture

• Champion Social Value across the organisation, building understanding and ownership.
• Represent Roke at customer, supplier and industry forums.
• Support ERGs, volunteering, wellbeing and community partnerships.
• Maintain accessible Social Value content across SharePoint and our communication channels.

Continuously Improve

• Stay ahead of evolving government policy, procurement requirements and customer priorities.
• Lead maturity assessments, lessons learned, and improvement initiatives to keep Roke competitive and compliant.

• delivering or coordinating Social Value within a government‑facing organisation.
• Strong understanding of the Government Social Value Model and related reporting expectations.
• Experience leading cross‑functional groups (e.g., ERGs, ESG, CSR, sustainability).
• Strong organisational and budget management skills.
• Proven ability to develop Social Value content for complex bids.
• Confident influencing at all levels, including senior stakeholders.
• Experience using Social Value measurement platforms (Thrive or similar)
• Background in ESG, procurement, HR/People, supply chain, bidding or programme delivery.
• Understanding of proxy valuation and outcome measurement.
• Familiarity with Defence & Security frameworks and Social Value expectations.

• You’ll be inclusive, collaborative and purpose‑driven.
• You’ll bring strong communication, great stakeholder management and the ability to turn complexity into clarity.
• And above all, you’ll be passionate about driving positive, measurable impact across people, communities and the environment.

• Higher Social Value maturity and consistent governance across Roke.
• High‑quality bid responses and stronger customer outcomes.
• Robust measurement and transparent reporting via Thrive.
• Strong engagement from Social Value Chairs, ERGs and delivery teams.
• Recognised Social Value leadership with measurable impact across our People, Environment, Places and Ecosystem priorities.

We have a competitive salary and access to a number of additional flexible benefits, which will cover Health and Wellbeing, Savings and Protection & Life, Leisure and Entertainment.

Due to the nature of this position, we require you to be eligible to achieve SC clearance. As a result, you should be a British Citizen and have resided in the UK for the last 5 years.