Digital Team: Account Director / Senior Account Director / Associate Director

We're looking for a digital communications expert to join our growing consultancy. 

This is both a senior client-facing role and a hands-on one. You will help write the strategy and, in most cases, deliver it yourself. Expect a lot of day-to-day ‘doing’: content calendars, design briefs, copywriting, reporting, analytics. If you want a role where you direct a team and review their output, this is not it. If you want to stay close to the work and still have the strategic conversation with the client, it very much is. 

You will work across a portfolio of clients, though one of our flagship accounts will take up a significant share of your time. It sits in the environment, energy, and infrastructure space, so an interest in those sectors would be an advantage. 

You will also contribute to the growth of Blakeney through new business, organic growth, and developing our digital proposition. 

About Blakeney’s Creative Services team 

We are a tight, high-performing group of five – soon to be six – that has grown fast and looks after each other. We are all quite different: different backgrounds, different skill sets, creative in different ways. What we share is that we like the work and we like each other. It gets busy, but people pitch in rather than get tense, and no one takes a bad day out on the person next to them. 

We are also a young team in an old-ish discipline. That means that part of what we do is make the case for digital and creative work inside traditional public affairs and corporate communications programmes. Both are more effective (and interesting) when they use digital channels well – alongside sophisticated, elegant design - and think creatively about how to reach people. Not everyone sees it that way (yet), so you will likely need to make the argument more than once, and you will need the thick skin to keep making it without losing patience or enthusiasm. 

Key responsibilities 

Clients 

• Act as a senior strategic adviser to clients and build trusted relationships with senior stakeholders.
• Understand clients' wider business objectives and turn them into measurable digital strategies.
• Spot where digital can strengthen reputation, engagement, and business outcomes, and make the case persuasively.
• Present recommendations and creative ideas to clients and senior stakeholders.
• Lead the digital communications programme across one of our flagship accounts.
• Manage difficult moments calmly and arrive with solutions.

Digital strategy and innovation 

• Develop insight-led digital and social strategies that connect with target audiences and deliver against client objectives.
• Stay ahead of changes in social platforms, digital behaviours, AI, and other emerging technologies.
• Bring fresh thinking to client programmes.
• Use data, audience insight, and performance analysis to continually optimise activity.

Creative and content 

• Lead the development of digital-first campaign ideas and content.
• Produce work that is distinctive and strategically sound, and challenge teams to do the same.
• Oversee and, where needed, build social content strategies and editorial calendars.
• Work collaboratively with our Design, Public Affairs, Comms, Media and account teams.

New business 

• Play an active role in new business pitches and proposals.
• Identify opportunities to grow existing client accounts.
• Develop digital propositions and scopes of work.
• Contribute to forecasting, budgeting, and commercial management.

What we’re looking for 

Essential 

• Significant experience working in digital communications, social media, content, production, or integrated PR, ideally within an agency or consultancy environment.
• Breadth across digital. We need a generalist who can move between strategy, content, paid, analytics, and community, rather than a specialist in one area.
• Strong analytical skills. You should be comfortable working with data, interpreting performance, and using what you find to change what we do.
• Exceptional organisation. You'll run your own deadlines and programmes and nobody should need to chase you.
• Initiative. You see what needs doing and do it.
• Excellent client management and presentation skills, including with senior and executive-level clients.
• Experience managing budgets and external suppliers.
• Experience managing and developing people.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Knowledge of AI and emerging digital technologies and their implications for communications.

Desirable 

• Strong LinkedIn experience. It is central to a lot of our work, and someone who knows the platform properly, including how to build senior profiles and get content to travel there, will be at a real advantage.
• Production experience.
• An interest in environment, energy or infrastructure.
• Experience contributing to new business pitches.

The ideal candidate 

You are equally comfortable in the boardroom and in the detail, and you do not see the second as beneath you. You are curious about culture, technology, and audiences, and you know the difference between having something to say and having something to post. 

You are an advocate for digital and creative work. You can hold your position in a room where the prevailing view is that a press release will do the job. You don't take disagreement personally, and you don't let it put you off either. You come back with the evidence, the idea, or both. 

You are confident enough to challenge clients and colleagues constructively and collaborative enough to bring people with you. You can connect digital thinking to broader communications and public affairs goals. 

You are also good company. This is a collaborative environment, and we are looking for people who are generous with their time, quick to help a colleague out, and easy to have in a room. Experience and talent are important, but so is being someone others want to work with. 

And you're flexible. Our weeks rarely go entirely to plan, and the people who enjoy that tend to enjoy it here. 

To apply for this role, please visit our careers platform: Careers and look for this role: https://theblakeneygroup.careers.hibob.com/jobs/255022d6-28f4-4b06-ba28-41568b9fcbb7