HMPPS Reframes Prison Jobs as Extraordinary in House 337 Recruitment Push
HMPPS launched 'An extraordinary job. Done by someone like you' on 28 September 2023 — a major UK public-service recruitment campaign created by House 337 for the Ministry of Justice, designed to reframe prison and probation officer roles as accessible, meaningful careers for ordinary people across the United Kingdom.
The campaign addresses a stark baseline reality. Fewer than 20% of people would consider working in the prison service at the point of launch, according to Clapboard's editorial observation drawn from the Ministry of Justice brief. Rather than relying on authority or obligation to attract candidates, the creative platform pivots to identification: the tagline invites prospective applicants to see themselves in the role by recognising their own traits and characteristics as the very qualities the prison service needs. It is a recruitment argument built on empathy rather than aspiration.
Three films anchor the campaign. A 30-second lead film, 'Someone Like You', explores the varied and rewarding day-to-day experience of a prison officer, drawing its voiceover narrative from real soundbites collected in interviews with serving officers. Two supporting 20-second films, 'Tammy' and 'Paul', shift focus to probation staff — specifically the work of helping former prisoners reintegrate into life outside and reducing the risk of reoffending. All three films also run as 15-second cutdowns. As reported by The Drum, the campaign distributes across video-on-demand, online video, digital audio, social media, display, television and mainstream media channels across the United Kingdom, giving it genuine 360-degree reach. This is House 337's first work for HMPPS, following the agency's win of a major three-year recruitment brief from the Ministry of Justice. Clapboard rates the campaign 66 out of 100.
HMPPS operates in the public-sector employer-brand category, competing not against private-sector prison operators but against the full breadth of the United Kingdom's employment market for the same candidate pool. The strategic challenge House 337 inherited was therefore not simply awareness but perception: the prison service was not on most people's list of careers worth considering, let alone pursuing.
The Ministry of Justice commissioned audience research that informed the campaign's strategic direction, and House 337 supplemented this with immersive primary research of its own — including tours of multiple prisons and probation sites and direct conversations with staff and their clients. That depth of research produces campaigns that speak with internal credibility, and 'An extraordinary job. Done by someone like you' is structured accordingly: the creative argument does not claim the role is glamorous but insists it is meaningful, and that the people already doing it are recognisably human.
The scale of the recruitment need sharpens the urgency of the strategy. According to assets published by the UK government, HMPPS recorded 462,778 applicants to recruitment campaigns across the two years to June 2023, of whom 57,847 received provisional offers and 36,570 accepted formal offers, per government published data. Monthly applications rose from approximately 6,000 to around 11,000 by March 2023, according to government figures. The planned delivery of 20,000 additional prison places in the United Kingdom was expected to require up to 5,000 additional prison officers, according to government planning documents. In this context, the campaign's brief is not incremental — it is structural. Competitors for candidate attention include public-sector employers such as the NHS and the police service, both of which carry stronger ambient brand recognition as career destinations across the UK market. House 337's insight is that HMPPS does not need to out-spend those employers; it needs to make the prison service feel personally relevant to people who had never imagined themselves inside one.
The creative execution of 'An extraordinary job. Done by someone like you' is defined by its commitment to authenticity over polish. The lead film, 'Someone Like You', was shot on location at HMP Berwyn — the largest prison in the United Kingdom — under the direction of Greg Hackett from production company Spindle. Filming inside an operational prison introduces production constraints that most commercial campaigns would avoid, but those constraints are precisely what give the film its texture: the environment, the light, the scale of the institution are not simulated.
The voiceover is constructed from real interview soundbites with serving prison officers, a choice that grounds the film's emotional register in lived experience rather than scripted optimism. The effect is to let candidates hear the job described by people who do it — a casting decision that functions as a strategic argument as much as a creative one. The two probation films, 'Tammy' and 'Paul', were directed by House 337's Rob Sanderson and shot at an operational probation office in London, applying the same philosophy of location realism to a less-visualised corner of the criminal justice system.
The creative team behind the campaign includes Executive Creative Director Leon Jaume, Creative Director Charlie Johnson, Art Director Jack Tibbs, and Copywriter Michael Arthey, with Chief Strategy Officer Matt Rhodes and Strategy Director Rachel O'Donovan shaping the strategic framework. Agency Joint Head of Film Victoria Fischer oversaw production, with Felicity Cruickshank as senior producer on the prison film and Trent Webster as junior producer on the probation films, as documented by Shots. The decision to produce three distinct films — rather than a single campaign asset — reflects both the breadth of the roles being recruited and the strategic need to give probation officer careers a visual identity of their own.
No verified post-campaign performance data specifically attributable to the 'An extraordinary job. Done by someone like you' campaign is publicly available at the time of writing. The campaign launched on 28 September 2023, and its three-year contract structure means that outcome metrics will accumulate across an extended period rather than resolving in a single reporting cycle.
The pre-campaign context, however, provides a meaningful baseline against which future performance can be measured. According to government published data, monthly applications to HMPPS had already risen from approximately 6,000 to around 11,000 by March 2023 — indicating that underlying recruitment momentum existed before the campaign broke. The creative platform's structural effectiveness rests on several sound mechanisms. By using real officer voices in the voiceover, the campaign reduces the credibility gap that recruitment advertising typically suffers. By filming at HMP Berwyn and an operational London probation office, it eliminates the visual fiction that makes institutional advertising feel remote. And by anchoring the tagline in self-identification rather than aspiration, it addresses the specific barrier the Ministry of Justice identified: that fewer than 20% of people in the United Kingdom would consider a prison service role, as reported by The Drum.
As reported by Roastbrief, the campaign's 360-degree media plan — spanning television, video-on-demand, digital audio, social and display — gives it the reach to shift a population-level perception rather than simply retarget existing job-seekers. Clapboard rates this campaign 66 out of 100, reflecting a well-grounded strategic platform and disciplined execution, with room for the long-form results to strengthen the case over the life of the three-year brief.
HMPPS launched this UK public-service recruitment campaign on 28 September 2023, created by House 337 for the Ministry of Justice. It uses three films — including the lead 'Someone Like You', shot at HMP Berwyn — to help prospective candidates identify their own suitability for prison and probation officer roles.
HMPPS faced a significant perception problem in the United Kingdom. Fewer than 20% of people would consider working in the prison service at the time of the campaign launch, according to The Drum. The planned expansion of prison capacity was also expected to require thousands of additional officers, intensifying the recruitment need.
House 337 created the campaign after winning a three-year recruitment brief from the Ministry of Justice. It was the agency's first work for HMPPS. The brief called for an employer-brand campaign to recruit prison and probation staff across the United Kingdom at scale, with a focus on shifting public perception of the roles.
The 30-second 'Someone Like You' film was shot on location at HMP Berwyn in the United Kingdom — the largest prison in the country — directed by Greg Hackett from Spindle. The two probation films, 'Tammy' and 'Paul', were shot at an operational probation office in London, directed by House 337's Rob Sanderson.
The campaign ran as a 360-degree UK media campaign. As reported by The Drum, distribution spanned television, video-on-demand, online video, digital audio, social media and display advertising. All three films also ran in 15-second cutdowns alongside their original 30-second and 20-second formats.
Clapboard rates the HMPPS 'An extraordinary job. Done by someone like you' campaign 66 out of 100. The score reflects a strategically grounded platform and disciplined location-based creative execution, with the full impact of the three-year recruitment brief still to be measured against post-campaign performance data.
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