Account Director - Planning

Medialab is the UK’s leading independent media agency, and one of the fastest growing in the industry. We’re a media agency that’s made differently: purpose-led, data-driven, founder-run and proudly independent. Our entrepreneurial spirit means success is recognised and rewarded. There are no limits to what you can achieve here, which our employees agree with, evidenced by being a Campaign Best Place to Work for six consecutive years and one of The Sunday Times Best Places to Work 2025. As well as this, we’re Campaign’s Independent Agency of the Year 2024 and Media Week’s Independent Agency of the Year 2025. We are IPA Effectiveness accredited, an IPA People-First agency, and All In Champions, with industry-leading work recognised by double-gold at the 2024 IPA Effectiveness Awards for our work with Laithwaites and a 2025 Effie for our work with Alzheimer’s Society. Our independence means we can focus 100% on doing the right thing to secure success for our clients and our brilliant people. We work with a wide variety of clients including Hovis, IG, Sharps Bedrooms, SunLife, Standard Life, Ancestry, Laithwaites Wine, Save the Children, Guide Dogs, Alzheimer’s Society, RNLI and Clearscore.

OUR VALUES

• Commit to Doing the Right Thing (Act with integrity and accountability)
• Help People Flourish (Invest in people)
• Dig Deeper to Understand Better (Data driven curiosity)

OUR COMMITMENT TO YOU

Working at Medialab comes with lots of perks including all the usual things you would expect, such as a competitive salary package, pension, season ticket loans, cycle to work scheme, weekly social events and big summer / end of year parties. On top of that, we offer extra benefits, which make life at Medialab even more rewarding:

• Time to Unwind – 22 days holiday (+ Christmas holiday closure), a day off for your birthday, holiday buying scheme, flexi-hours and both a cultural bank holiday and work abroad scheme.
• Hybrid Working – Balance between home and office. We welcome requests for flexible working arrangements from the commencement of employment.
• Career Growth – A meritocratic approach to progression with quarterly reviews, CPD Platinum accredited training, mentoring and leadership support.
• Health & Wellbeing – Private medical insurance, health cash plan, gym discounts, wellbeing apps Mental Health First Aiders and free professional counselling.
• Supporting Families – Enhanced parental leave pay, flexible working and life assurance.
• Giving Back – Paid charity days and sustainability initiatives.
• Perks & Rewards – Retail discounts, long-service trips and an unforgettable team culture.

YOUR NEXT CHALLENGE

We’re looking for a Planning Account Director to bring strategic thinking and multi-channel expertise to one of our client planning teams. You’ll work closely with senior leads while taking ownership of planning delivery across a defined set of clients, helping ensure work is consistently sharp, effective and well thought through. You’ll be a key day-to-day planning lead and trusted partner to specialist Account Directors, Managers and Execs, working across a varied mix of clients – from fast-paced commercial brands to purpose-led charities. We’re looking for someone with solid cross-channel knowledge, a strong planning instinct, and a collaborative, supportive leadership style.

HOW YOU WILL MAKE AN IMPACT

• Lead strategic client relationships, acting as senior day-to-day contact across priority accounts.
• Shape commercial and strategic client opportunities by proactively identifying growth areas, influencing briefs, and ensuring alignment with client ambition and business goals.
• Optimise agency impact by supporting Business Directors in value articulation, renewals, and commercial planning.
• Identify and deliver key agency opportunities: Whether these are commercial opportunities or efficiency opportunities they have a clear focus on supporting agency growth.
• Support commercial delivery, working with BD’s + Ops/Finance on forecasting, margin tracking, and pipeline visibility.
• Lead cross-channel campaign planning and delivery, ensuring cohesion, performance alignment to KPIs, and consistent reporting.
• Shape the media response to briefs by setting the strategic direction, supporting innovation and optimisation-led approaches, and overseeing planning timelines.
• Coach teams in digital and offline media strategy, embedding audience-first, insight-led planning approaches and encouraging cross-channel thinking.
• Shape a forward-looking planning culture, encouraging teams to stay ahead of market developments.
• Support channel leads and planners to feed into client-facing trend decks and strategic updates, with a focus on delivering best-in-class thinking.
• Promote automation and efficiency, advocating for smart use of AI tools and scalable planning practices that raise standards in documentation, collaboration and productivity.

WHAT YOU BRING TO THE TEAM

• Proven experience in media and communications planning, ideally across a variety of categories and business objectives, with the ability to balance brand-building and performance-driven thinking.
• Strong cross-channel planning expertise, with a clear understanding of how digital and offline channels work together to deliver full-funnel impact.
• Demonstrated experience in leading and supporting teams, with a collaborative and inclusive leadership style that prioritises development, constructive feedback, and coaching at the right moments.
• Confidence using planning tools and effectiveness frameworks (such as Touchpoints, media principles, and measurement approaches), and the ability to apply them practically in day-to-day planning.
• A track record of delivering clear, strategic thinking, able to simplify complex challenges, interrogate briefs effectively, and translate insight into sharp, actionable recommendations.