About us
Community Energy England is the voice for community energy, founded in 2014 by practitioners within the community energy sector to represent the sector and help put people at the heart of energy transformation.
Our vision: a thriving community energy sector integrated into and truly powering a fair, zero carbon energy system.
Our mission: to create the conditions for community energy to thrive and scale.
We deliver our mission by being a collaborative and value- driven membership association committed to growing the scale and impact of the community energy sector.
We have a growing network of over 320 members, including community energy enterprises and other supportive organisations from the private and public sectors, and we work with a wide range of other associations and networks.
We are a small, dynamic and collaborative team. Working for us means you’ll be making a direct contribution to tackling climate change, increasing community resilience, and making the future energy system fairer.
You can find out more about us and what we do on our website.
About the role
Over the next 5 years, we expect the community energy sector to undertake a period of significant growth, working alongside GB Energy to support the delivery of the Government’s Local Power Plan and Clean Power Mission. Our members have accumulated years of learning and experience in delivering a wide range of community energy projects, and this role will be crucial in unlocking this potential, creating opportunities to share learning, organise training, and raise awareness of community energy among key strategic partners.
With the aim of supporting our members to share knowledge and build their capacity, this role will assist in the delivery of several existing funded projects, including the Energy Learning Network and Community Energy Go, as well as supporting our core role of being the representative voice for the sector, furthering the work of our members through our themed working groups, events and conferences.
Tasks you may expect to undertake include:
- Working with delivery partners to increase the quality of community energy projects, increase the confidence and qualifications of people working in the sector, and ensure CEE work packages are delivered to contract.
- Advising and signposting community energy practitioners to appropriate resources and organisations for support, increasing the quality of projects and funding applications.
- Creating online training resources, case studies, and media stories.
- Organising online and in person training events and conferences.
- Working with CEE members to identify professional skills and training needs.
As a member of the CEE team, you will be given the opportunity to continue developing your skills and contribution to the organisation and the sector. Community energy has broad and exciting impacts and this role will provide varied experience and national reach.
Principal roles and responsibilities
Sector skills and knowledge sharing
Working with the CEE team, project leads, and member organisations, you will be developing new ways for CEE to identify and catalogue skilled practitioners in our membership, and share sector knowledge. This will include disseminating learning and innovation from funded projects that CEE is supporting to roll out across the country. This will involve:
- Coordinating and convening CEE’s member working groups.
- Creating learning resources for our new website.
- Organising and presenting at online and virtual events.
- Designing dissemination materials and engagement tools for the projects that CEE is supporting.
Evidence gathering and analysis
Ensuring that we have robust retrospective and live data on community energy activity, barriers, opportunities and future plans is a priority area of work for CEE. Your role will include:
- Collecting data and evidence about viable business models to help scale and roll out projects around the country.
- Collaborating on how to best capture the social impact of community projects.
- Helping the team to gather data to support the growth of community energy, such as through our annual State of the Sector research.
External relations
Managing and building relationships with other organisations is a core role for all of the CEE team. Your role will include:
- Exploring emerging business models and funding opportunities to help the sector professionalise and grow.
- Liaising with project leads and member organisations to avoid duplication and ensure complementary activity.
- Engaging and cultivating relationships with key stakeholders such as community energy organisations, local authorities/politicians, developers, the regional Net Zero Hubs, potential funders and investors.
General and team working
As a small team, there are a number of cross functional tasks that all contribute to, including:
- Project oversight: Reviewing external project outputs and ensuring that we are meeting existing funding objectives and reporting requirements.
- Report writing: Contributing to the production of funding reports and board papers.
- Maximising communications impact: Contributing to newsletters, social media, CEE briefings, blogs, and other resources and grant outputs as required.
- Informing policy: Working with CEE policy and advocacy colleagues and members to guide advocacy for better policy and regulation to support community heat, energy efficiency and retrofit.
- Strategic input: Contributing to organisational strategy, opportunities and challenges as a valued team member.
- Undertaking other duties appropriate to the post.
About you
You will thrive in this role if you:
- are a good communicator and convenor.
- have an understanding of community energy enterprises, renewable energy and/or energy advice services and the challenges around scaling community energy delivery.
- are able to think strategically in order to help develop joined-up, whole-system working with partners across the local energy sector.
- are interested in community social enterprise and have experience of community engagement.
- are proactive and able to devise your own work plan in consultation with partners, project manage, work to deadlines, prioritise effectively and adapt, with the ability to work independently and communicate well when you need help or issues arise.
- can devise and deliver marketing and engagement strategies, materials and tools, including events.
- are able to use Microsoft Word/Excel and/or Google Docs and be comfortable getting the hang of new apps/software easily.
- are productive in remote working environments but also like to engage with people in person.
Why CEE?
Working at CEE is purposeful, collaborative and impactful. We value diverse perspectives and believe that ideas and solutions are best achieved through collaboration among community organisations and with other sectors.
We value communication and helping colleagues by sharing knowledge and ideas. We are a friendly team of eight spread across England, so we’ll trust you to manage your own time. That means you can work around childcare and other responsibilities if a standard 9-5 work day doesn’t work for you. We have weekly virtual team meetings on Tuesdays, which all team members attend.
We’re a small organisation so being willing to pitch in and adapt when things get busy is really important. We recognise that a diverse workforce is an asset and it’s important to us that every member of our team feels able to bring their whole self to work. We’ll listen to what you tell us about your circumstances and provide the support you need to do your job well and feel confident at work.
Salary and conditions
- Salary: £33,275 per year (pro rata if part time).
- Location: Working from home, with the need for occasional travel to other parts of England, based on project delivery locations, events and team meetings.
- Hours: Up to 35 hours per week. We are open to part time, job share, compressed hours and other flexible working requests. Occasional weekend/evening travel and working may be required, for which you’ll get time off in lieu. We provide advance notice when this is required.
- Contract period: Permanent.
- Start date: ASAP.
- Reporting to: John Taylor, Head of Capacity Building and Strategic Development.
- Applicants must have the right to work in the UK.
Perks and benefits
- Flexible working: all our team work flexibly, to balance work and home life. We invite a conversation about the work pattern that will enable you to perform your best.
- Annual leave: 25 days paid holiday a year plus bank holidays (pro rata if part-time), with an additional day after 2 and 5 years
- Pension: 7% contribution
- Wellbeing support: Employee Assistance programme with Free 24 Hour Confidential Helpline
- Climate Perks (extra annual leave for staff who choose low-carbon holiday travel)
- Cycle to Work
- Enhanced family leave, after 1 year
- E-learning modules on resilience, productivity and more through Bright HR
- Deals and discounts through Bright Exchange
Application process
If you need specific support to fully engage in the recruitment process, or would like an informal conversation about the role or organisation before applying, please email Lisa West, l.west@communityenergyengland.org.
To apply:
- Please complete the application form at https://tinyurl.com/CEEprojectofficer. You will be required to answer 4 questions related to the job responsibilities, which will be used for shortlisting.
- Email your CV (of no more than 2 sides of A4) to l.west@communityenergyengland.org. Please include ‘Capacity Building Officer application’ in the subject line and ensure your name is in the CV file name.
Your application will not be considered without completing both steps (which can be done in any order).
The closing date for applications will be 9am, Tuesday 9 September 2025. We may close this vacancy early if we receive a high number of applications. Therefore, if you are interested in this role, please submit your application as early as possible. Late submissions will not be considered. All applications will be acknowledged, but only shortlisted candidates will be given feedback. Interview dates likely 17th and 19th September.
More details on the recruitment process can be found in the application form at https://tinyurl.com/CEEprojectofficer