PR Senior Account Director (12 month maternity cover contract)

Location:                     Birmingham

Working Pattern:         Full time, hybrid working (3 days in, 2 from home)

Ideal start date:           May 2025

About Grayling UK

Our people are in equal parts exceptional professionals and wonderful human beings. We live by being brave, curious, and collaborative, which helps us deliver award-winning work for our clients.

We’ve created a culture that champions personal growth and development, empowering everyone to be creative, innovative and enjoy their work. Your growth is our priority because when you thrive, so do we. We’re serious about our work but never about ourselves, so if you’re looking for your next move and are passionate about corporate comms, you’ve come to the right place!

Role overview

Are you a strategic communicator with a passion for corporate public relations, media relations, and public affairs? Grayling UK is looking for a Senior Account Director to join our small but mighty Birmingham team on a 12-month fixed-term contract.

This is a client-facing leadership role, ideal for someone with a proven track record of advising senior executives, politicians, or key decision-makers. You'll need excellent political insight, strong media relations expertise, and the ability to navigate complex corporate communications challenges.

Working across professional and financial services, education, travel, energy, infrastructure, and development, you’ll be responsible for delivering high-impact campaigns, providing strategic counsel, and ensuring outstanding client service. Your ability to combine political nous and exceptional PR skills will be key to driving success for our clients.

The day to day

• Take the lead in ensuring that all projects are being delivered on time and to a high standard by your team
• Lead on the development and activation of strategies / plans
• Draft scopes of work and monitoring service levels
• Lead the development of cost budgets with minimal input from senior colleagues
• Support and direct the team on media sell-ins / stakeholder engagement activations
• Take the lead on more in-depth pieces of writing, including detailed plans, scope development, policy documents and commentary
• Develop and mentor team members
• Build and maintain an external network of contacts through networking and proactively identify opportunities to connect with relevant organisations
• Take a leadership role in delivering new business, leading new business initiatives and driving pipeline growth by proactively identifying and delivering opportunities for growth

What will give you edge

• Proven generalist corporate comms specialist, with an excellent understanding of both traditional and digital public relations
• The ability to demonstrate a strong knowledge of commercials, including servicing levels, budgeting, resource planning and financial WIPs
• An excellent understanding of both politics and policy development processes
• A strong list of contacts to utilise in the delivery of media pitches and insights gathering
• Strong skills in conducting written and verbal engagement and the ability to advise junior team members
• Confident briefing and working with wider internal teams and the ability to lead others on this day-to-day
• Showcasing confidence and authority in your subject area when presenting / speaking in a variety of instances
• Excellent upwards management skills

Our promises to you 

• Flexible working arrangements, including hybrid working, flexi time and 4pm finishes on a Friday
• 25 days’ holiday, increasing by one day every year up to 30 days
• Additional day of leave on your birthday
• Gifted time off over Christmas
• Flexible benefits platform where you are in complete control of what you receive. It could be anything from dental to gym membership, wellbeing initiatives, training, discount deals or simply a contribution to everyday bills and subscriptions (think Netflix, Amazon, Spotify etc!)
• Enhanced family-friendly policies
• Free subscription to Calm app
• Free breakfasts and fruit
• An abundance of development opportunities, through our learning and development programme (with courses ranging from commercial acumen, effective line management, preparing for a crisis, PowerPoint design excellence and much more)
• New business and employee referral bonuses
• Interest-free season ticket loan & Railcard reimbursement
• Cycle to work scheme
• Employee Assistance Programme offering a 24/7 confidential advice line.
• Life assurance

Get to know us

Grayling is the UK’s best-connected communications agency, working across Consumer, Corporate, and Public Affairs. With nine UK offices and 20+ worldwide, we help brands make an impact through smart thinking, cultural insights, and creative ideas.

We’ve been on a huge journey the last year and have just been shortlisted for PRWeek UK’s brand-new People and Places Awards 2025.

Our commitment at Grayling is to combine our employees’ unique backgrounds, perspectives and experiences to build a more diverse and inclusive organisation that represents all of us and the businesses we work with.  We encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and will consider all applicants regardless of age, gender identity, ethnicity, religion or belief, sexual orientation, family or parental status, neurodiversity and disability status. If you need any adjustments during the application process, we’re here to help - just let us know.