Your next opportunity

We want to shape a better tomorrow. We are calm and considered but move quickly. We thrive on delivering complex consultation and engagement solutions for government and companies shaping the future. We stick together, we support each other, and we work hard. No two days are the same.

We’d love to meet you to find out more about what you want to achieve with your next opportunity.

What we do at Counter Context

Stakeholder Management

Effective engagement with key stakeholders and the local community helps to build trust, understanding and support. Our thoughtful engagement plans help our clients to better understand the stakeholders and how to engage effectively with them.

Corporate Communications

We develop beautiful brands that have impact. From start-ups and evolving projects, to creating identities for global organisations, our team has a strong track record in delivering all aspects of design, including websites, brochures, animations and campaigns.

Communications and Consultations

We specialise in helping our clients conduct a sincere exchange of views through consultation that helps shape planning applications and infrastructure proposals. Read more

We bring our in-depth knowledge of the planning process to design robust, rigorous and inclusive public consultations that will support any project. From stakeholder engagement and key messaging, to feedback analysis and reporting, we are involved in every step of consultation management.

What our clients say about us

Clean Air Zone

“The insight and strategic advice provided by Counter Context has proved important in delivering this complex and fluid project. Their advice on engaging stakeholders has proved invaluable in developing a structure and strategic approach to our engagement.”
Tom Finnegan-Smith, Head of Strategic Transport, Sustainability and Infrastructure, Sheffield City Council
Heart of the City

“Heart of the City is one of the UK’s biggest urban regeneration projects, with a public profile to match. Counter Context’s management of the consultation and engagement process over a number of years has been crucial to building and maintaining the support of both the public and elected members.”
Nalin Seneviratne, Head of City Centre Development, Sheffield City Council.
See full case study here
Housing Delivery

“Through the knowledge and experience of the team at Counter Context, we now have a structure, process and the tools for consultation which will help us to deliver the schemes that are needed to meet our ambitious housing delivery targets. We are now able to set up a variety of consultations confident that they meet Members’ requirements, are accessible to the people we need to consult and can be delivered in an efficient way.”
Keith Andrews, Housing Development Manager, Thurrock Council.
Manchester City Centre Transport Strategy

“Counter Context designed and implemented a series of workshops in short timescales to engage across businesses, bus operators, cycling and environmental groups and community organisations. Their methods proved effective, delivering useful feedback to inform our plans while attendees were positive about the experience.”
Mel Cook, Comms Team, Manchester City Council.
See full case study here

These are exciting times for us, our client base is growing along with the size of the team.

14 members of staff in 2018

40 members of staff today

Life at Counter Context

Harriet Knowles, Director, Place and Regeneration team

I’ve enjoyed ten years of incredible collaborations. Collaborations with colleagues, when we’ve burnt the midnight oil to meet a bid deadline, or completed a week-long consultation event marathon. I’ve been so fortunate to work alongside people who bring energy and dedication, day in and day out.

I’ve also enjoyed incredible collaborations with visionary clients and with exceptionally talented teams of architects, landscape designers, planners and engineers. It's a privilege to help communicate plans for a beautiful new building, the regeneration of a city district or a new source of clean, renewable energy.

I’m proud of the agency we’ve built and the work we’ve done. I’m excited as we welcome talented new people into our growing team and continue to support clients and projects seeking to deliver positive change and address big challenges. Why would I want to move on from that?!

Tom Mothersole, Associate Director, Energy Infrastructure

I joined the Counter Context team as an Account Executive in 2016, after graduating with a degree in Economics and Politics and a year’s experience on placement with the Civil Service.

Throughout my time with Counter Context I have been given opportunities to learn by working closely with great colleagues to deliver for interesting clients on exciting projects. I was promoted to Account Manager after a year of cutting my teeth on a range of property regeneration and renewable energy projects, taking on more responsibilities and new challenges. Shortly after this, I was seconded to the HS2 Phase 2b Engagement Team, where I spent the best part of three years embedded in a project team designing and delivering strategies for engaging communities and stakeholders on Europe’s largest infrastructure project.

In 2020, I returned to the main Counter Context team as a Senior Account Manager in our Energy & Utilities division. In this role I continue to test myself on a range of nationally significant schemes and working to support and grow our great team.

Angela Sands, Digital Designer, Operations and Design team

In March 2020, I transitioned from operations assistant to design assistant. During the latter months of working as the operations assistant, I was involved with the building and amends on consultation websites, which I had previous experience with, so I felt comfortable doing this.

Once I was working full time in the design team, the print design aspect was more of a challenge but made much easier by both Paul and Mudasser, who were helpful and have continued to explain techniques and concepts of graphic design.

I’ve enjoyed the creative aspect of the role. I’ve learned and improved many new skills; design, accessibility and website design, this has all contributed to feeling more integrated into the team.