Senior Creative Operations Manager

£55,000-60,000 plus benefits. Reports to: Brand and Planning Lead. Contract: Permanent. Hours: Full time, 35 hours per week. Location: Stratford, London – office-based with high flexibility (1-2 days per week in office). Closing date: 7th June.

Responsibilities

• Lead the creative operations team (account management, resource management, operations and digital asset management) to set clear direction, motivate direct reports and build capability to accelerate progress towards strategic goals.
• Partner with planning teams across the organisation to lead the internal creative planning cycle in order to forecast demand and optimise pipeline management.
• Connect support and planning functions with the creative team to align ways of working to enable high quality creative delivery that meets compliance standards.
• Direct account and resource management functions to embed best practice service models in order to strengthen partnerships with commissioning teams across the organisation.
• Oversee traffic management processes and resource planning to align creative skills with demand in order to consistently deliver high impact creative work.
• Design and evolve systems, processes and tools that underpin creative operations to enable smarter commissioning, resourcing and reporting to drive innovation and accelerate delivery transformation.
• Report on creative delivery performance and capacity to senior leadership to inform strategic decision making and right‑size capability for future business needs.
• Oversee the management of the digital asset management (DAM) system, and governance of digital assets together with key partnering teams to improve accessibility and reuse – maximising organisational efficiency and value.
• Manage the creative team budget to balance ambition with financial discipline and achieve the highest standards of cost efficiency.

Qualifications

• Significant experience working within an in‑house creative team or creative agency in a senior creative operations role, with a strong track record of collaborating with diverse stakeholders and building trusted relationships to deliver high quality service.
• Strong experience using traffic and production management systems, with the ability to assess workflows, deadlines and risk, and to make confident decisions that prioritise work and allocate resources effectively.
• Proven ability to rapidly understand a wide range of creative briefs by interpreting audience needs and communication objectives, and translating these insights into clear and scalable resource requirements.
• Demonstrable experience leading teams operationally through the implementation of processes, tools and standards, with an ongoing innovation and improvement mindset focused on increasing efficiency and impact – including understanding and experience of AI, automation and scalable systems.
• Strong working knowledge of digital asset management systems, including a clear understanding of compliance requirements for usage rights and intellectual property permissions.
• Highly developed influencing and negotiation skills, with the confidence to work across teams and seniority levels to align priorities and deliver business outcomes.
• Strategic and future‑oriented thinker with experience in long‑term planning and a strong ability to translate strategy into effective operational delivery.
• Experience solving complex problems independently, making clear recommendations to leadership while empowering and supporting direct reports to develop the same capability.
• Sound experience in financial management including budget monitoring to support informed decision making.
• Demonstrable experience managing contracts and suppliers, including freelancers and software vendors.

Benefits

We provide a generous benefits package, a wide range of career and personal development opportunities, high‑quality tools, and policies and processes that support your wellbeing and enable a good work‑life balance.

Eligibility Criteria

• Internal candidates should ideally have completed their 6‑month ‘getting started’ period before applying for other roles.
• For secondments, applicants must have completed their getting‑started period, discussed their intention to apply and gained approval from their line manager, and been in their substantive (home) role for at least 6 months (if previously on secondment).
• External candidates must be eligible to work in the UK; Cancer Research UK does not offer visa sponsorship.
• We actively encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and cultures, in particular those from ethnic minority backgrounds who are under‑represented.
• Unfortunately, we are unable to recruit anyone below the age of 18 to protect young people from health & safety and safeguarding risks.