Public Relation Assistant

A PR assistant helps manage how an organisation or client is talked about in the media and online. Day to day this means drafting press releases and pitches, building lists of journalists and influencers to contact, monitoring coverage, and doing the research and admin that keeps campaigns moving. Most work either in an agency (serving several client accounts at once) or in-house in a company, charity, university, hospital trust or government body's communications team.

Approximate graduate salary

Broadly, entry-level PR and communications assistant roles in the UK tend to start somewhere around £22,000-£28,000, with London posts usually at the upper end or a little above and roles outside major cities, in small agencies and in parts of the charity sector often lower. This is an approximation only and varies considerably by employer, sector and location; agency pay can rise quickly with bonuses once you handle your own accounts.

What you'd actually do

Media monitoring - checking news sites, broadcast, trade press and social media for mentions of your client or organisation, and pulling the results into a coverage report or daily summary for colleagues and clients
Drafting written material: press releases, short pitch emails to journalists, social media posts, award entries, website copy and internal briefing notes, usually reviewed by a manager before it goes out
Building and updating media lists - working out which journalists, podcasters, bloggers or trade publications cover a particular topic, and keeping contact details current
'Selling in' stories - emailing or calling journalists to pitch a story or offer a spokesperson, and following up when they don't reply (which is most of the time)
Handling incoming press enquiries: taking the call or email, checking the deadline, finding out who internally can answer, and getting a response or quote approved in time
Practical campaign and event support - assembling press packs, arranging interviews and photo calls, booking travel, briefing spokespeople, taking notes in client or team meetings and writing up actions
Research tasks: background on a journalist before a pitch, competitor coverage, fact-checking claims in a release, or gathering material for a new business pitch (in agencies)

How graduates get in

Direct application to an entry-level agency job - the most common route. Roles are advertised as PR assistant, account executive, junior account executive, or communications assistant, and agencies recruit throughout the year rather than to one annual deadline.
Internships and placements at PR or integrated communications agencies. This is close to standard practice - many entry-level hires have done at least one placement, a summer internship or a sandwich-year placement, and some agencies fill junior jobs from their own intern pool.
In-house communications assistant roles in charities, universities, NHS trusts, housing associations, local authorities and membership bodies. These are often advertised on the organisation's own site or on public/charity sector job boards rather than through graduate schemes.
Structured graduate schemes exist but are less common than in law or finance. The Civil Service Fast Stream has a communications route, and some large consumer businesses, broadcasters and big agency groups run named graduate programmes - these are competitive and have fixed deadlines.
Sideways entry from adjacent work - student journalism, a student newspaper or radio station, running social media for a society, a small business or a band, marketing assistant roles, or freelance copywriting. Demonstrable output matters more than the job title you did it under.
Apprenticeship routes (public relations and communications assistant apprenticeships) exist and are used by some employers, though they are aimed more at school leavers than graduates. Postgraduate PR courses are available and can help, but are not expected - most employers do not require one.

What employers ask for

A degree in almost any subject. English, journalism, communications, PR, marketing, politics and history are common, but employers hire from across the board - what they check is whether you can write clean, accurate prose fast. Some specialist agencies (healthcare, technology, financial or energy PR) genuinely prefer a relevant degree because you need to understand the subject matter.
Degree classification requirements vary a lot. Many agencies and in-house teams have no formal cut-off and judge on your written application and a writing test; some larger graduate schemes ask for a 2:1. Public sector roles often score against a person specification rather than grades.
Evidence you can write for a real audience: a portfolio, published student journalism, a blog, social media accounts you have run, or copy produced during a placement. This is usually the single most important thing you can bring.
Some relevant experience - a placement, internship, volunteering as a press or social media officer for a society or charity, or a part-time marketing role. Fully unrelated CVs do get hired, but experience helps a lot at the shortlisting stage.
Professional qualifications are optional and normally taken after you start, not before. The CIPR (Chartered Institute of Public Relations) and PRCA (now part of the PRCA/CIPR professional landscape of industry bodies) offer qualifications and CPD, and CIPR offers a route to Chartered PR Practitioner status later in a career.
For some in-house and public sector roles: a driving licence, willingness to be on an out-of-hours press rota, or basic security clearance (common in government and defence-adjacent work).

Skills that matter

Fast, accurate writing in different registers

You may need a formal quote for a national newspaper, a chatty Instagram caption and a plain-English internal note all in the same afternoon, and typos in a press release go out to hundreds of journalists.

News sense - judging what is actually a story

Most of the job is deciding whether something a client wants to announce will interest a journalist, and being able to explain to a colleague why 'we have a new website' is not news.

Persistence without being annoying

Pitching means most people ignore you, so you need to follow up, vary the angle and know when to stop, without burning a contact you will need again next month.

Organisation across competing deadlines

Agency assistants often support several clients at once and journalists' deadlines are non-negotiable, so tracking who is waiting for what is a core part of the job rather than an afterthought.

Reading and summarising quickly

Coverage reports, competitor research and briefing notes all require you to absorb a lot of material and reduce it to the few lines a busy client or director will actually read.

Basic digital and data literacy

You will use media databases and monitoring tools, pull social and web analytics into reports, and increasingly work with search and influencer platforms - none of it is technical, but comfort with spreadsheets and dashboards is expected.

Composure under pressure

When something goes wrong publicly, the press office switches to reactive mode with very short deadlines and you need to take accurate messages and chase approvals calmly.

Where it leads

Assistant / junior account executive: closely supervised, heavy on monitoring, research, drafting and coordination. Typically a year or so before the next step, though this varies by employer and how quickly you take on client contact.
Account executive, then senior account executive (agency) or communications officer (in-house): you own day-to-day contact with a client or an internal department, run smaller campaigns end to end, and start supervising an assistant's work.
Account manager / senior communications officer or press officer: responsible for delivering campaigns and budgets, managing junior staff, advising clients or senior internal stakeholders, and handling more sensitive or reactive media work.
Account director or communications/PR manager: setting strategy, leading pitches for new business in agencies, managing a team, and being the person a chief executive calls before speaking to the press. Reaching this level commonly takes several years but timelines vary widely.
Later options branch out: head of communications or director of comms in-house, agency partner or founder, or specialisation into public affairs (lobbying and political engagement), crisis and issues management, internal communications, investor relations, or content and social. Some people move sideways into journalism, marketing, brand or freelance consultancy - movement in both directions between PR and journalism is normal.

What people get wrong

“It is a glamorous social job - parties, launches and celebrities.”

Consumer and entertainment PR is a small slice of the industry. Far more of it is business-to-business, technology, healthcare, financial, public sector and charity work, and the daily reality is drafting, chasing, monitoring and reporting at a desk.

“PR is mainly about talking - if you're outgoing and good with people, you'll be fine.”

It is mainly about writing. Employers commonly set a written test at interview (draft a release, spot the story in a brief, write a tweet and a headline) and being confident in a room does not compensate for sloppy copy.

“You need a PR, communications or journalism degree.”

Most PR people do not have one. A specialist degree can help in technical sectors, but a portfolio of writing and some placement experience usually counts for more than the subject on your certificate.

“The job is spin - making bad things sound good.”

Much of it is unglamorous factual work: getting accurate information out quickly, correcting errors in coverage, and telling clients or internal colleagues when an idea will not survive scrutiny. Regulated sectors like healthcare and financial services also impose strict rules on what you can claim.

“Coverage in a national newspaper is the goal every time.”

For many clients the valuable result is a piece in a trade magazine their buyers read, a good search result, or a partnership with a niche creator - and increasingly you are measured on outcomes and reporting rather than a thick clippings folder.

Where this varies

The biggest split is agency versus in-house. In an agency you juggle several clients, timesheets and billable hours are normal, the pace is faster and you get broad experience quickly; pay progression can be quicker but so is turnover. In-house you work on one organisation, get deeper knowledge and often more predictable hours, but a smaller team means less structured training. Sector matters too: consumer and lifestyle PR is pitch- and creativity-heavy; technology, healthcare and financial PR reward subject knowledge and involve compliance checks; public sector and NHS press offices are more reactive, with formal approval chains, freedom-of-information requests and out-of-hours rotas; charity comms often blends PR with fundraising and campaigning. Geography matters as well - London has by far the most roles, but there are established agency clusters in Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff and Belfast, and devolved-nation roles often involve their own political and media landscape. Job titles are inconsistent: assistant, junior account executive, account executive, communications assistant and press officer can all describe similar entry-level work, so read the duties rather than the title.

General guidance about the role across the UK market, not about any specific employer. Entry routes and requirements vary — always check the individual job advert.