External Affairs Associate

Join us in our mission to transform the way people shop and eat, where impact, innovation, and growth drives everything we do. Our Communications & Policy team crafts compelling stories, builds meaningful relationships with stakeholders, and navigates complex regulatory landscapes to support our marketplace of consumers, riders, and restaurant partners.

We’re looking for a UKI Rider Relations Associate (L2) to join our London team. This is a hybrid role. In this role, you’ll help us represent the face of Deliveroo in interactions with external stakeholders, manage the impact of our rider fleet on local communities, and support our key trade union relationship with GMB.

Get to know our Operations team — what drives us, how we work, and what you can expect. https://careers.deliveroo.co.uk/operations/

What You’ll Be Doing

You’ll be joining the Rider Operations team. We are the foundation of our business, working to create an unparalleled experience for thousands of riders across the UK and Ireland while managing fleet interactions with local councils, traffic authorities, emergency services, and community stakeholders.

Here’s what your day-to-day might look like:

• Trade Union Collaboration: Support Deliveroo’s relationship with the GMB Trade Union, administering quarterly JPC meetings and triaging GMB rider casework referrals with the Rider Support Centre.
• External Stakeholder Engagement: Build positive relationships with local and regional stakeholders, providing timely responses to inbound enquiries and representing Deliveroo in field meetings across the UKI.
• Proactive Risk Mitigation: Work to reduce business risks related to local policies and regulations, such as council motions regarding bikes and e-bikes in city centres.
• Rider Welfare & Respect Initiatives: Champion initiatives like our Rider Respect Charter to build partner awareness on rider welfare, while executing campaigns that address community challenges such as road safety and loitering.
• Cross-Functional Policy & Strategy: Collaborate with PA, PR, Comms, and Rider Engagement teams to share positive stories, inform macro policy direction, and highlight community benefits.

What you need:

Our ideal candidate will bring strong expertise in some of these areas and curiosity to grow in others:

• Industrial & Trade Union Relations: Experience or strong understanding of union and industrial relations within a UK/EU tech company, delivery aggregator, or complex operational environment.
• Empathetic Communication Skills: Exceptional communication and listening skills, with the ability to adapt your style across diverse audiences, build rapport quickly, and bridge rider perspectives with external stakeholder needs.
• Stakeholder Management & Media Capability: Strong stakeholder engagement skills to influence senior management, manage media enquiries alongside PR teams, and stick to key messaging.
• Data-Led Analysis: Ability to gather data from various sources and deliver actionable insight to support sound business conclusions.
• Organisational & Adaptive Mindset: Self-starter attitude with strong organizational capability to plan complex multi-element meetings, work solo, and adapt to changing priorities; valid flexibility for field travel across UKI.

What’s in it for you

At Deliveroo, you’ll do work that matters, solving real-world problems in a three-sided marketplace that’s constantly evolving. We’re food lovers, problem solvers, community builders and more, brought together by a shared drive to make things better. Working here you can expect to:

🔧 Make a visible impact every day Your work directly improves experiences for customers, partners and riders.

🌱 Learn fast in an entrepreneurial environment Work close to the market with autonomy, pace and real responsibility.

🧠 Build a career, not just a role Stretch yourself, develop new skills and grow as the business evolves.

🌎 Deliver together in an inclusive culture Collaborative, values-driven teams that support how you work best.

We aim to create a fair process that lets your skills shine—our interview typically includes 3-4 stages. Find more about how we hire here.