Regional Organiser – South East region

Contact UNISON

Contact UNISON

Regional Organiser – South East region

If you are a highly capable, collaborative leader who’s committed to the aims of UNISON with a desire to strengthen workplace organisation and build worker power here’s a chance to help steer the UK’s largest trade union through a period of major change

The role

Our 1,200 staff work across 12 UK regions and our national centre in London. Regional offices support the work of local branches, helping to represent, recruit, organise and retain members – as well as making key contributions in areas such as campaigning, strategies for negotiation and bargaining, and actions against discrimination.

As a Regional Organiser , you’ll be playing a hands-on, day-to-day leadership role, as well as acting as an advocate of the union. Guiding, supporting and developing local branches and activists to ensure the strongest possible workplace organisation, you’ll identify activist training and development needs, provide coaching and mentoring to stewards and branch officers, and manage a small team of area/local organisers. Additionally, you will lead negotiations, represent members individually and collectively, and help branches to develop effective systems and processes for handling casework.

The person

What we’re looking for...

• An understanding of our movement, its pressures and drivers, with a passion for equality.

• A commitment to organising and building worker power.

• Ability to provide advice and guidance on the effective organisation of key branch duties (e.g. maintaining membership density, activist base enhancement, supporting employers with major restructuring, maintaining confidence in union ability to influence outcomes, oversight of case work and reducing response times).

• Good knowledge of key employment law, including developing case law and upcoming changes that may affect members.

• A strong understanding of the political landscape and how this might impact our approach.

• Ability to manage a team of staff, with a willingness to collaborate and to lead by example.

• Excellent communication and advocacy skills, with proven ability to manage high level negotiations and representation of cases in challenging situations.

• Ability to build and strengthen relationships with key stakeholders, ability to influence and engage at all levels e.g. activists, democratic bodies/committees.

• Strategic project management experience, including budget management. Ability to develop strategies and solutions to solve complex problems.

Please refer to the job description and person specification for full requirements for this role.

The South East Region aims to represent and reflect the entire public sector in the South East, we support and encourage applications from underrepresented groups, including those from Black, Asian and non-white backgrounds. This ensures our union truly reflects our members, the community, and public sector workers, reaching those who need us most. In UNISON, ‘Black’ – with a capital B – is used to indicate people with a shared history. ‘Black’ is used in a broad political and inclusive sense to describe people in the UK who have suffered from colonialism and enslavement in the past and continue to experience racism and diminished opportunities in today’s society. This includes people of African, Caribbean, Asian, Arab, and other heritage.

This is a field-based role and whilst we aim to allocate work to reduce travel time, you will need to be able to travel in and around the South East Region, including to our Woking Office where our regional centre is based as required and occasionally to London and other regions of the UK for training, meetings, or other purposes. . The South East region covers a large area including Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, Milton Keynes, Oxford, Southampton, Buckinghamshire, and beyond.

How to apply

To apply for this opportunity please download and complete the General application form, referring to the job description and person specification.

Please note that only the relevant application form will be accepted. CVs will not be accepted.

The completed application form, along with the Recruitment and Disability Monitoring Form, should be sent by email to (email protected) quoting reference: R9/15

Please save each of your documents to include your full name, followed by job title, region/dept and reference.

Completed application forms must be received by no later than 5pm 20 November 2026.

In-person interviews will be held on 10 December 2026 in Woking.

Please see a map of our regions .

About UNISON

UNISON is the UK’s leading public services trade union, with over 1.3 million members working in the public sector, private, voluntary and community sectors and in the energy services. We employ approximately 1,200 staff, with around 370 at our national centre in Euston in central London and the remainder in our 12 regions across the UK, including Northern Ireland.

UNISON is a dynamic, progressive union, committed to equality. We encourage men and women of all ages, Black and minority ethnic groups, disabled people, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people to work with us.

Documents