Work with us

Imperial’s Centre for Societal Engagement (CSE) is seeking a freelance specialist to support the next phase of development for its web presence on imperial.ac.uk. We have completed early scoping work, including analytics review, stakeholder input, and user journey mapping. The priority user journeys have been defined internally and are the source of truth for audience needs. We are now seeking external support to turn this into a clearer, more strategic, and more user-centred web presence, including agreed finished webpages built in the development site.

Background

The current web presence has grown organically over time and does not yet provide the level of clarity, signposting, cohesion, or audience focus needed for a strategic institutional initiative.

Current issues include:

• the landing experience does not yet communicate the Centre’s role clearly enough
• important information is difficult to find or scattered across multiple pages
• navigation is not always organised around user needs
• audience routes for staff, students, partners, funders, and external visitors could be clearer
• governance, credibility, activity, partnerships, and impact are not always visible enough

A light refresh of the landing page was completed in Spring 2026. Further work is now required to improve the landing experience, audience-led navigation, signposting, and priority content pathways.

The Brief

We are looking for a freelancer to support the content and user experience development of the CSE web presence, building on the discovery and user journey work already completed by the internal project team.

The successful freelancer will help translate this work into practical changes that can be implemented within Imperial’s existing web environment and will deliver agreed finished webpages in the development site for review and approval.

Objectives

The project’s objectives are to:

• create a clear and credible Centre landing experience.
• improve audience-led navigation and signposting.
• make priority content easier to find, including resources, training, funding, opportunities, governance, and impact.
• strengthen the Centre’s credibility for partners, funders, senior stakeholders, and external visitors.
• better reflect the Centre’s strategic role within Imperial.
• deliver agreed finished webpages in the development site within the existing Imperial web environment.

Source of truth for user needs

The priority user journeys have already been developed internally and will be provided to the appointed freelancer. These journeys are the source of truth for user needs and should guide content hierarchy, signposting, page structure, and page build.

The priority audiences are:

• funders and grant assessors
• Imperial staff seeking support
• students exploring opportunities
• external partners exploring collaboration
• senior internal stakeholders assessing strategic clarity
• journalists and external visitors seeking a quick understanding of the Centre

Scope of work

The freelancer will work within Imperial’s existing web environment and CMS, building agreed pages in the development site. They will work within, and build on, the methodology already developed by the internal team.

This is likely to include:

• reviewing existing materials, including analytics summaries, stakeholder notes, and defined user journeys.
• auditing the current web presence to identify duplication, gaps, unclear pathways, and restructuring opportunities.
• applying the agreed user journeys to refine landing page structure, labels, and audience pathways.
• drafting and editing clearer copy, headings, calls to action, and signposting for agreed priority pages and components.
• building agreed finished webpages in a non-live development site within Imperial’s existing web environment.
• participating in a small number of discussions or workshops with the project team to sense- check and review outputs.
• making agreed revisions following stakeholder review.
• producing implementation notes and handover information for the internal team and Digital colleagues

Out of scope

This brief does not include:

• full redevelopment of all legacy content pages
• redesign or rebuild of external or parallel websites
• platform changes outside the existing Imperial web environment
• the separate welcome video workstream

Deliverables

The successful applicant will be expected to provide:

• a content and UX review identifying key strengths, gaps, pain points, and priority opportunities
• an agreed landing page structure and priority user pathways
• agreed content for priority pages and components
• finished webpages built in the development site for review and approval
• implementation notes and handover for the internal team and Digital colleagues
• a presentation or handover session to walk through outputs, decisions, and next steps

Ways of working

We expect the work to align with the following principles:

• start with defined user goals and journeys, not just existing pages
• improve clarity, consistency, and ease of use
• make governance, credibility, activity, partnerships, and impact easier to understand
• ensure outputs are practical, implementable, and ready for review in a development environment
• support a safe development process within a non-live environment

Internal support and governance

The internal project team will provide:

• background documentation and existing research
• access to relevant analytics summaries and stakeholder input
• introductions to key stakeholders where needed
• guidance on institutional context, governance, and approval routes
• coordination with Digital colleagues as appropriate

Day-to-day management will be through Rachel Wheeley, Senior Engagement Manager. Strategic review and sign-off: Vicky Brightman-Hahn and Professor Maggie Dallman

Key dates and timeline

Indicative timings are as follows:

• Invitation issued: Monday 5 October 2026
• Deadline for applications / quotes: end of day, Friday 30 October 2026
• Freelancer appointed: Monday 9 November 2026
• Project start: Monday 16 November 2026
• Project end: Friday 22 January 2027

Application and fee

Interested freelancers are invited to submit:

• a short covering note outlining relevant experience
• examples of similar work
• a proposed approach and indicative timetable
• a fee proposal, including day rate and estimated number of days

Responses should be sent to Rachel Wheeley rwheeley@imperial.ac.uk by end of day, Friday 30 October 2026.

The maximum budget available for this project is £7,000 inclusive of onboarding, familiarisation with the CMS, delivery, VAT and expenses.

Based on an indicative freelancer day rate of £350, this equates to approximately 14–20 days of support, depending on the agreed rate and delivery model.

Criteria

Responses will be reviewed against the following criteria:

Notes

We are open to hearing from freelancers with strengths in content design, UX, information architecture, or higher education web projects. We are particularly interested in applicants who can work strategically while also producing practical outputs, including finished development-site pages, within an existing institutional web environment.

Find out more and apply

• Enable team members in the public engagament team, as well as freelancers,external agencies and cultural partners to collectively achieve the project goals.
• Apply fit-for-purpose project management tools, communications methods and financial processes with a high attention to detail.
• Coordinate project workstreams that encompass young people’s engagement and community engagement, supporting colleagues in Imperial’s Public Engaagment team to achieve their project deliverables.
• Deliver activities that share our project learnings with our project participants, but also across the many iconic cultural organisations in South Kensington, who we partner with on our Great Exhibition Road Festival.

• Join Imperial’s professional and supportive Public and Community Engagement team and continue your career in a world-leading institution with a mission to use science for humanity.
• Participate in an ambitious and interesting new project that has the potential to influence work at Imperial and amongst our partners to improve access to industrial heritage now and into the future.
• Be part of a diverse, inclusive and collaborative work culture with various staff networks and resources to support your personal and professional wellbeing.