Location: Birmingham
Working Pattern: Full time, hybrid working (3 days in, 2 from home)
Ideal start date: May 2025
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 & weekly drinks in the office.
- Regular team socials and early finish Fridays.
- 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 insurance.
Get to know us
Grayling is the UK’s best-connected communications agency. With nine offices across the UK and 20 offices around the world, we create advantage for our clients through insight-led campaigns that deliver tangible results.
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 - and not just in one category, but two! Life at Grayling will offer you a whole host of benefits including 4pm Friday finishes, hybrid working, enhanced family policies and regular training workshops– not to mention the opportunity to work across award winning global campaigns!
We are proudly part of Accordience, an international public relations, public affairs, financial and corporate communications group – made up of Grayling, CDR Consultancy, Red and Cirkle. Together, we have c.1,000 employees and operations in 30 countries.
We believe diversity is strength. 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 give fair consideration to all applicants regardless of age, gender identity, ethnicity, religion or belief, sexual orientation, family or parental status, neurodiversity and disability status.
We are a Disability Confident Committed employer and will be very happy to provide any reasonable adjustments during our application and interview process. For any advice or assistance please contact lucy.southall@grayling.com
What We Do
We are Grayling, the world's local communications agency.
With 32 offices around the world, plus an extensive affiliate network, we get closer to the insights, influencers, cultures and communities to create advantage for our clients
