Head of Account Management - External Relations - 53890 - Grade 8 in Birmingham

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £47,389 to £56,535 with potential progression once in post to £63,606

Grade: 8

Full Time, Permanent

Closing date: 4th February 2026

Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham.

People are at the heart of what we are and do. The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university. We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.

We are committed to helping the people who work here to develop through our Birmingham Professional programme which provides all professional services staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high quality subsidised day nurseries.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.

Role Summary

The post holder plays a key role in delivering Creative Media financial targets through exceptional client service. Taking responsibility for client relationships across Design, Media, Digital and Print. An experienced senior account management professional with proven client servicing skills and an understanding of all areas of strategic marketing including design, print, digital and media channels to deliver bespoke and integrated campaigns.

Working directly to the Director of Creative Media on a day to day basis, this post will deputise for the Director of Creative Media in issues relating to the running of Creative Media.

The role is client facing and will liaise regularly with the college marketing managers and other senior managers from professional services and academics to improve strategic planning, ensuring effective briefing into the Creative Media team, supporting these clients on best practice and managing their expectations on project delivery.

The role will be accountable for delivering Creative Media's 3 key objectives:

• Delivering professional quality visual communications
• Providing first-class customer service
• Developing a business for growth and profitability

Main Duties

The Head of Account Management is responsible for developing a positive relationship between CM and its clients across the University from Colleges to Professional Services through:

• Improving strategic planning, ensuring effective client briefing into Creative Media and supporting clients through to effective delivery and managing expectations on project delivery.
• Line management and leadership of the Account Management team, deputising for the Director of Creative Media when required. Developing people skills by coaching and mentoring.
• Stewardship of the University's identity, ensuring brand guidelines and standards are met across the organization and highlighting to the Director of Creative Media where appropriate.
• A key member of the CM management team, ensuring close liaison and effective working across the internal CM departments and client teams across ER, colleges and professional services.
• Having a clear understanding of a client's requirements and the ability to translate these into a strategic brief benchmarked against the University strategy and brand.
• Develop a trusted advisor relationship with key stakeholders. Providing expert marketing advice to CM clients on the most appropriate method of delivery to achieve the project brief.
• Lead the management of the portfolio of projects that are high profile, complex, high value projects often with a high reputational and/or strategic impact. This would include responsibility for high quality creative briefs that are engaging and deliver to the overall objective.
• Ownership of weekly status reports for Director of Creative Media and clients ensuring accuracy and input from other stakeholders where necessary and timely circulation.
• Manage CM financial delivery by ensuring all jobs are delivered and billed on time. Input into key project budgets, including forecasting, target setting and business planning.
• Liaising between clients and the cross-functional internal CM teams and third-party suppliers, ensuring that the project, dealing with all aspects of the campaign, is successfully delivered in the most suitable format, is fit for purpose, meets the brief, budget and delivery deadline.
• Manage the wider account management team to successfully and efficiently deliver all project types by developing appropriate systems and tools. This will include developing and implementing client/team briefing sheets, timely schedules for clients and using project management software, WIP Systems.
• Manage, develop and expand client relationships and an understanding of client needs across all areas of CM. Ownership for client engagement register, shared monthly with Director of Creative Media and management team. Identify and support the Director of Creative Media on new opportunities for business development with existing and potential clients.
• Lead CM pitch proposals to budget and agreed timings as required.
• Ownership for promoting the offering of CM to all University potential clients, via a communications plan. This should be updated and circulated monthly with input from CM teams and clients. This will include delivering high-level presentations to senior management, chairing project group meetings through to face-to-face client meetings.
• Responsible for Client feedback including the Customer Service Group. This involves preparation and delivery of an agenda which addresses client queries and feedback.
• Developing and maintaining a robust customer feedback solution (client satisfaction survey) ensuring that all projects that do not meet a determined level of success are investigated and brought to a satisfactory solution for all parties. Leading on developing action plans to improve satisfaction and address client feedback. Providing feedback and solutions on improving the CM service offering based on this knowledge. Wash up sessions to be held for all key projects including Open Days, Prospectus and others.
• Promote and deliver the CM service to external clients as well as internal clients, building the business to become an exemplar agency service in the surrounding region.
• Develop the Creative Media Digital service that addresses the digital challenges that the University is faced with. Working with External Relations, College and Professional Services teams own the promotion of this service.
• Lead the Creative Media team to embrace digital change. This role will be seen as a key source of digital marketing and innovation knowledge and expertise.
• Install a people development programme that ensures that the Creative Media team deliver exemplar digital results and are seen as a centre of digital excellence.
• Actively manages equality, diversity and inclusion through monitoring and evaluation and actively challenging unacceptable behaviour.
• Supports the University's sustainability agenda through resource efficient working.
• Any other duties commensurate with the grade.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• Educated to Degree level in Marketing, Advertising, Media Studies, Business Management or a Design/Creative discipline or similar (or equivalent qualifications), plus significant relevant practical experience – where no equivalent qualification is held substantial practical relevant experience and expertise in a series of progressively more demanding roles will be required.
• Substantial previous experience in an account management role.
• Excellent client facing skills – interpersonal, communication and presentation.
• Strong communication and presentation skills with the demonstrated ability to communicate, present and influence credibly.
• Confident, tactful with a persuasive manner and the ability to successfully negotiate and positively challenge.
• Good business sense and commercial awareness with the ability to monitor project budgets and the skills/confidence to feed into the wider CM business remit.
• Digitally literate with a clear understanding of technology.
• Proven credibility in the digital marketing space.
• Proven digital experience outside of the HE sector.
• Proven strategic marketing/client relations/account management expertise or other relevant experience.
• Substantial experience in managing people and teams with the ability to lead and motivate a team in a fast-paced environment to deliver deadlines.
• Well-developed managerial and organisational skills, eg, developing, planning, scheduling, prioritising and the ability to work accurately to an agreed deadline.
• Proven experience in project management and delivery including experience in leading large projects from start to finish.
• Proven ability to manage multiple projects whilst maintain strict attention to detail.
• Solid experience of leading and managing strategic marketing campaigns.
• Proven account management or relevant experience.
• Experience in successfully delivering client-focused solutions based on customer needs.
• Experience of working with commercial brands.
• Sound level of knowledge of collecting, handling and analysing research data.
• Flexible approach to working hours as working outside of normal working hours will be required at times.
• Evidence of literacy and numeracy, with the ability to write clearly for a variety of audiences, and to produce and analyse source material, information and data.
• Authoritative knowledge of the work practices, processes and procedures relevant to the role, including broader sector/commercial awareness.
• Experience of championing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in own work area.

Informal enquiries to Lee Flanaghan, email: l.r.flanaghan@bham.ac.uk

We believe there is no such thing as a 'typical' member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy.