Rhion Jones wrote this note to set up the first session of The Stakeholder Engagement Room: Live, held on Monday 5 October 2026. The recording is now free to watch, with no registration needed.
We are being provocative, but stakeholder theory is still evolving, and the way we interface with our ‘stakeholders’, as individuals and as organisations, is changing rapidly.
A career in its own right
Tens of thousands of people have the word ‘stakeholder’ in their job titles. They are found in the private, public and voluntary sectors. There are several thousand vacancies for such roles in the UK at any one time. It’s a career choice with definite prospects!
Stakeholder work without the job title
It does not stop there. There are hundreds of thousands of other management jobs which do not mention ‘stakeholder’ in the job title, but which are intensely involved with contacting and interfacing with stakeholders on a regular basis.
Indeed, many top-level director roles are predominantly focused on managing stakeholder relationships.
Specialist discipline or core management skill
So, is this now a specialist job, requiring particular skills and training? Or has it become a more generic skill which most responsible managers need to possess?
Why engagement and management are not the same thing
At The Stakeholder Engagement Day 2026 in Manchester, I explored some of the trends, and the distinction between stakeholder engagement and stakeholder management.
It’s not a theoretical nicety. It matters because it affects the training, processes and systems that are needed.
Watch the session from 5 October
The session gave anyone interested in the practical side of stakeholder management a chance to think these issues through and hear how other participants approach the discipline. Rhion set out a working definition, and the discussion moved on to stakeholder mapping, the role of project managers, how AI is changing engagement and the recent changes to planning consultation.
Stakeholder management is everyone’s job
Recorded on Monday 5 October 2026, 41 minutes
Free to watch, with Rhion Jones, the Consultation Guru, chaired by Vicky Adamson
Watch the recording, or see all six sessions in the series. The next session, Managing difficult stakeholder relationships, is on Monday 2 November 2026 at 1pm, and you can save your seat here.
If you’d like more from Rhion, his Ask the Guru films and articles are free to watch and read.
FAQ
Stakeholder engagement is the two-way work of involving people and organisations in decisions that affect them: consulting, listening and responding. Stakeholder management is the wider discipline around it: identifying who your stakeholders are, prioritising them, recording every interaction and keeping those relationships in good order over time. Engagement is something you do; management is how you organise and sustain it.
It can be. Many organisations employ stakeholder managers and engagement specialists, particularly in infrastructure, utilities, government and the NHS. Far more people carry stakeholder responsibilities without the job title, though: project managers, planners, communications leads and directors. Whether that makes it a specialist discipline or a core management skill is the question Rhion Jones put to the first session of The Stakeholder Engagement Room: Live.
Yes. The first session, Stakeholder management is everyone’s job, took place on Monday 5 October 2026 and the recording is free to watch, with no registration needed. The next session, Managing difficult stakeholder relationships, is on Monday 2 November 2026, 1pm to 1.50pm, online.
A free monthly webinar series from Tractivity, with six sessions between October 2026 and March 2027, each 50 minutes long at 1pm. Each session stands on its own, so you can join at any point. Attend four of the six and you’ll receive a certificate of participation, which is a record of your time rather than a CPD accreditation.
