Senior journalist – BBC (Scotland)

Extend: EX2324

Job Reference: 17818

Band: D

Salary: £39,800 – £47,126 depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.

Contract type: Permanent role

Location: Office Base is Lerwick, Shetland

We’re happy to discuss flexible working. Please indicate your choice under the flexible working question in the application. There is no obligation to raise this at the application stage but if you wish to do so, you are welcome to. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.

• Excellent career progression – the BBC offers great opportunities for employees to seek new challenges and work in different areas of the organisation.
• Unrivalled training and development opportunities – our in-house Academy hosts a wide range of internal and external courses and certification.
• Benefits – We offer a negotiable salary package, a flexible 35-hour working week for work-life balance and 25 days annual leave with the option to buy an extra 5 days, a defined pension scheme and discounted dental, health care, gym and much more.

This role is advertised as part of our BBC Extend programme for disabled people. To apply for this role you should identify as deaf, disabled or neurodivergent and must meet either: the definition of disability in the Equality Act (2010), or the definition of disability in the Disability Discrimination Act (1995) if applying in Northern Ireland. You’re broadly defined as disabled under both acts if you have a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term negative or adverse effect on your ability to do normal daily activities. This definition includes both apparent and non-apparent conditions and impairments, and medical conditions such as Cancer, HIV or Multiple Sclerosis.

We are committed to making the process of applying for this role as accessible as possible. If you need to discuss adjustments or access requirements for the application process, or have any questions about our Extend programme, please contact the BBC Extend team via the shared mailbox.

The BBC are fully committed to providing workplace adjustments to help eliminate barriers in the workplace that disabled people face. To do this, we have our own dedicated BBC Access and Disability Service that provides assessments and support throughout employment with us. If you are successful in applying for this role and require workplace adjustments, we will work with you to get your adjustments in place.

If you’d like more information on BBC Extend, please visit the BBC Extend webpage.

Radio Shetland is at the heart of one of Scotland’s most distinctive communities. We’re looking for the right person to help lead our small team of highly talented and dedicated journalists. The role also involves working with freelance contributors who make feature and music programmes for the station. News stories abound from traditional sources like fishing and agriculture; along with Oil, Gas, to an emerging space industry and a growing  renewable energy sector. These stories need to be told daily to our audience across Shetland and, when required, to audiences across Scotland and the rest of the UK. You will regularly present and produce our daily news and current affairs programme, Good Evening Shetland. As a multi-media journalist you will also be responsible for originating and producing stories across Radio, TV, Digital and Online. A key role of the job is the ability to shoot, script and edit material across a range of BBC output and generating original ideas.

As the senior journalist working to the assistant editor, you’ll be one of the public faces and voices of the BBC in Shetland. One day you could be covering a debate on the closure of a rural school and the next day you could be reporting live for BBC News at Six on power cuts and weather disruption across the islands. You will need to get on with people; have huge reserves of resilience; and be prepared to roll your sleeves up and get stuck into whatever needs to be done.

You will also:

• Need to do all this while continuing to develop and maintain high professional standards of journalism and ensure Radio Shetland’s programmes are of the highest quality possible.
• Help to continue the development of programme content across social media and digital platforms.
• Help lead the small team of highly dedicated journalists in Radio Shetland, nurturing and developing their talents as journalists and broadcasters.
• Deputise for the Assistant Editor as required and liaise with the main newsgathering operation in Glasgow on a regular basis.

• You will have exceptional knowledge and understanding of the issues affecting everyday life in Shetland.
• You will have at least three years working in full time journalism with a proven track record of producing original news stories.
• You will also have at least three years experience of broadcasting live radio news and other related content.

For more information about the role please contact Assistant Editor, John Johnston by email on John.Johnston@bbc.co.uk

Please note that you will only be asked to submit a CV by way of application for this vacancy, and this CV will be the sole basis on which we initially review your application. We would therefore encourage you to approach your CV as an application, and to tailor it to highlight the skills and experience which we’ve talked about in this advert. We’d love to know not only about your most relevant experience and responsibilities in previous roles, but also any achievements, transferable skills, or areas of personal or professional interest that highlight why you’d be a great candidate for this role.

The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC for different reasons and they will be given priority consideration ahead of other applicants. Priority consideration means for those employees seeking redeployment their application will be considered alongside anyone else at risk of redundancy, prior to any individuals being considered who are not at risk.

We don’t focus simply on what we do – we also care how we do it. Our values and the way we behave are important to us. Please make sure you’ve read about our values and behaviours here.

Diversity matters at the BBC. We have a working environment where we value and respect every individual’s unique contribution, enabling all of our employees to thrive and achieve their full potential.

We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to be part of the BBC – whether that’s to contribute to our programming or our wide range of non-production roles. The more diverse our workforce, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity.

We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. We will consider flexible working requests for all roles, unless operational requirements prevent otherwise.

To find out more about Diversity and Inclusion at the BBC, please click here.