Senior Account Manager - Education in Leeds

Hippo is looking for a proactive and commercially strong Senior Account Manager to help shape and grow our Education client partnerships, including work within one of our largest and most high-impact accounts, the Department for Education, with an annual run‑rate of c.£20m across multiple call‑off contracts. This role will manage part of that portfolio. Reporting to the Client Director, Education, you’ll play a key role in delivering the commercial strategy for the sector.

You’ll combine sales ownership (leading smaller bids and expansions, and supporting major pursuits) with day‑to‑day commercial excellence across existing work: SOW management (including a 6‑day SLA process), resourcing forecasting, contract hygiene, and monthly reporting that reflects commercial performance, Social Value progress and value‑add activity. You’ll work closely with Delivery, Technical, Legal, Client Ops, Resourcing and the Social Value team to keep momentum across live work and proactively set up “the next thing.” Alongside the commercial responsibilities, you’ll also help shape meaningful Social Value initiatives (apprenticeships, T‑Level support, community engagement) and value‑add activities that deepen client relationships and make a visible impact.

Role Responsibilities

• Commercial Delivery & Account Management: Own day‑to‑day commercial performance for your accounts: forecasting, margin awareness, renewals/extensions, and commercial issue resolution. Build trusted, long‑term relationships with senior client stakeholders. Lead the coordination and return of Statements of Work, including those under a 6‑day SLA. Gather inputs from Delivery, Technical, Legal and Resourcing and consolidate them into clear, accurate and commercially sound responses. Maintain accurate account and pipeline information, ensuring reporting and CRM/commercial records are always current.
• Sales & Growth Ownership: Own and deliver a portion of the Education sector sales target (set by the Client Director), converting opportunities into sales orders. Identify expansion opportunities within existing accounts and drive them from early shaping through to contract/SOW. Over time, develop strong understanding of Education sector priorities, policy context and client needs to support meaningful conversations and account planning. Contribute to bid responses and commercial shaping for a defined value range of opportunities (and support larger strategic pursuits led by the Client Director).
• Resourcing & Onboarding: Forecast capability demand across call‑off contracts and ensure the pipeline aligns with the roles and skillsets being hired or deployed. Your focus is to facilitate SOWs starting on time with a team available. Work with Resourcing, Delivery and Client Ops to coordinate onboarding, ensuring start dates, checks and approvals are completed so teams can begin as planned.
• Social Value & Value‑Add Delivery: Work with Hippo’s Social Value team to ensure all Social Value commitments made at bid stage are delivered, tracked and evidenced. Coordinate engaging value‑add events and activities that bring teams together, build capacity. Ensure value‑add initiatives are planned, progressed and clearly communicated to clients, strengthening their engagement with Hippo. Produce accurate monthly reports for clients capturing Social Value delivery, value‑add activities, KPIs and overall account performance.

Skills and experience that you need

This is a high‑priority sector at Hippo and you’ll be joining a dynamic leadership team. You’ll succeed here if you’re commercially minded, confident with clients, and enjoy bringing teams together to deliver outcomes at pace. We’re looking for someone with solid experience and high standards, who brings energy, curiosity and the ability to think ahead, balancing today’s commercial delivery with shaping tomorrow’s opportunities.

Skills and Experience Required

• Essential: Commercial or client‑facing experience in a professional services or public sector environment. Strong relationship‑building skills with senior stakeholders. Experience managing SOWs, contracts, renewals or similar processes. High attention to detail across documentation, commercial modelling and reporting. Ability to take ownership and work proactively within deadlines. Strong financial planning, budgeting or forecasting skills. Excellent communication skills: written, verbal and interpersonal. Comfort working with multiple priorities and stakeholders. Strong problem‑solving ability and willingness to collaborate.
• Desirable: Experience in public sector digital transformation environments (e.g., UCD, engineering, data, identity or cyber). Education sector knowledge.

Other Requirements: Willing to travel nationwide to client sites and Hippo offices.

What makes us great: As well as a competitive salary which we’re transparent about from the outset, you can also expect a range of benefits: contributory pension scheme (Hippo 6% with employee contributions of 2%), 25 days holiday plus UK public holidays, Perkbox access for a wide range of discounts, critical illness cover, life assurance and death in service cover, volunteer days, cycle‑to‑work scheme for the avid cyclists, salary sacrifice electric vehicles scheme, season ticket loans, financial and general wellbeing sessions, flexible benefits scheme with options of private health cover, private dental cover, additional company pension contributions, additional holidays (up to an extra 2 days), wellbeing contribution, charity contributions, tree planting.

Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at Hippo: At Hippo, we’re dedicated to creating a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace that works for everyone. We understand that having a diverse team unlocks our capacity for innovation, creativity and problem solving. Only by building a community of diverse perspectives, cultures and socio‑economic backgrounds can we create an environment where all can contribute and thrive. We actively encourage applications from underrepresented groups including women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+, neurodivergent and people with disabilities. We are committed to providing an inclusive and accessible recruitment process that reflects our workplace culture.

Hippo locations: We are headquartered in Leeds and have offices across the UK in Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, London and Bristol. We’re on the lookout for top talent nationwide but you need to be located within reasonable travelling distance from one of our offices which will be your contracted office location. Given the dynamic nature of a consulting business, you may be required to work on‑site at a Hippo office or at an in‑/out of town client location for a number of days per week (client dependent) and therefore candidates will need to be open/flexible to travel. Plus, we offer a generous relocation support package of up to £8k (please ask for terms and conditions) to help make your move a smooth one.

Hi, we’re Hippo. At Hippo, we design with empathy and build for impact. We do this by combining data‑informed evidence, human‑centred design and software engineering. We’re a digital services partner who is genuinely invested in helping our clients thrive as modern organisations. Our delivery methodology is truly agile, from concept to reality, supporting innovation and continuous improvement to achieve your desired outcomes. We firmly believe that technology should serve humanity, not the other way around. We take a human‑centred approach to everything we do because we understand that complex problems require a service design approach. This means understanding how users behave and ensuring our solutions work for them in the real world. Our combination of data, design, and engineering delivers bespoke digital services that make a positive and meaningful impact on organisations and society. We’re confident in our abilities, authentic in our approach, and passionate about what we do. If you’re looking for a digital services partner that can deliver real results, let us help you build for the future and make a lasting impact.