Senior Creative Manager

Senior Creative Brand Manager Full Time / 37.50 Hours per week / Hybrid with some travel to our HO in Northampton and office in London Salary £DOE Closing Date: 18th May 2026 - All Internal candidates need to attach a CV with their application to be considered. Purpose of Role: The Senior Creative Manager drives the creative heartbeat of the Internal Agency. As the creative authority and brand guardian, you are responsible for defining, evolving and championing our creative vision, ensuring all work is emotionally resonant, strategically aligned and unmistakably on brand. You will lead the development and delivery of bold creative concepts, storytelling frameworks and integrated campaigns across all channels, from external brand campaigns to internal communications and instructional outputs as briefed by internal stakeholders. You are accountable for creative excellence, brand integrity and creative leadership, inspiring outstanding work through both direction and hands on contribution. As a people leader, you will lead and develop a talented in house creative team, setting the creative bar, nurturing growth and fostering a culture of curiosity, ambition and craft. You will partner closely with audience owners, marketing and agency teams to translate briefs into powerful creative ideas that deliver against business goals—and create the frameworks, guidance and templates that allow great creative to scale confidently across recruitment, B2E marketing, social and internal communications. Working in close partnership with the Creative Services Manager, you will focus on what the work should be and why, while being supported operationally to ensure work is delivered smoothly, consistently and at scale. What We Can Offer You Our benefits include but are not limited to. Flexible working and holiday entitlements Discounted childcare in one of our nurseries Fantastic range of discounts on high street retailers, grocery stores, cinema tickets, holidays and more Wide range of wellbeing resources, supporting our teams for the ups and downs of daily life Why Bright Horizons? We’ve been voted Great Place to Work for the last 17 consecutive years, as well as being awarded the newly created Great Place for Wellbeing and Great Place for Women 2022. Our support functions enable our nurseries to deliver the best possible care and education to over 10,000 children across the UK. Through this support, our nurseries can deliver excellence – with 98% of our 300+ portfolio being rated Good or Outstanding by Ofsted. We’re on a mission to change the future for children, families, and the people we work with, and are committed to progressive working values like flexibility, work-life balance, and wellbeing. Key Accountabilities: Creative Direction & Brand Leadership Set and champion the creative vision for the Internal Agency, ensuring consistency and quality across all creative and multimedia marketing output. Act as the creative authority on concept, storytelling, visual direction and tone of voice. Shape, evolve and uphold brand standards across design, photography, video and messaging. Ensure all creative work is emotionally intelligent, purposeful and aligned with brand values and responsibilities. Maintain a high bar for craft, originality and effectiveness across all work. Act as a brand advocate across Bright Horizons, evangelising the value of strong, consistent brand expression and raising understanding of brand standards and creative principles across the organisation. Concept Development & Creative Excellence Lead the development of integrated creative concepts, campaigns and storytelling frameworks. Translate briefs into clear creative direction that enables confident, high quality execution. Push creative boundaries thoughtfully, championing experimentation with new formats, technologies and storytelling approaches. Contribute hands on to high value creative work, including concepting, campaign development and key creative moments. Scale, Frameworks & Empowerment Develop creative frameworks, principles and guardrails that support consistent brand expression at scale. Create and evolve guidance, playbooks and templated approaches to enable high quality output across recruitment, B2E marketing, social and internal communications. Empower teams and stakeholders to apply the brand confidently, reducing reliance on central oversight while maintaining quality. Define where flexibility is encouraged, where consistency is essential and when escalation or approval is required. Maintain brand integrity through enablement and clarity, not control. People Leadership & Creative Culture Lead, motivate and develop the in house creative team, setting clear expectations and a strong creative bar. Coach and mentor creatives to support growth in craft, confidence and capability. Foster a culture of curiosity, collaboration, responsibility and creative ambition. Facilitate creative workshops, critiques and ideation sessions to generate ideas and elevate output. Accountability for Production and future focus Set expectations and priorities for effective intake, briefing, proofing and production coordination. Hold accountability for the performance and reliability of delivery infrastructure supporting creative output. Ensure creative systems and asset governance are fit for purpose and support brand consistency and timelines. Lead the exploration and adoption of creative technologies (including AI) to improve speed, efficiency and creative output, ensuring tools and systems actively enhance creative delivery rather than constrain it. Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement Partner with marketing, brand, communications, recruitment and other stakeholders to align creative work with strategic goals. Build strong, trusted relationships across the organisation, translating creative thinking into language stakeholders can understand and support. Work with external agencies and partners where appropriate to deliver ambitious creative work. Budget Ownership & Creative Prioritisation Own creative budget strategy and prioritisation. Make informed trade offs between creative ambition, scope, timing and investment. Work with Creative Services to ensure delivery remains within agreed parameters without compromising creative intent. Essential Experience: Significant experience in a senior creative role, either in house, agency or a hybrid environment, with a strong portfolio of brand building work. Proven experience leading and developing creative teams. Strong capability in concept development, storytelling and integrated creative across multiple channels. Deep understanding of brand strategy, audience insight and cultural context. High level creative judgement across design, video and multimedia. Experience developing scalable creative frameworks, guidance and templated approaches. Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence and align across complex organisations. Mastery of relevant creative tools and workflows, including Adobe Creative Cloud. Experience working with external agencies and partners. Personal Attributes: Demonstrates consistent behaviours aligned with our HEART principles, acting with Honesty, Excellence, Accountability and Respect in all interactions, decisions and ways of working. Visionary and bold storyteller and hands‑on creative lead Brand guardian with a high bar for craft and quality Emotionally intelligent, collaborative and calm under ambiguity Able to balance creative ambition with strategic needs and real‑world constraints Confident empowering others through clarity, frameworks and guidance Curious, resilient and adaptable in a fast‑paced environment Clear and persuasive communicator Agile and adaptable in a fast‑paced environment Bright Horizons is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. This post is subject to safer recruitment practice and pre-employment checks, including an enhanced DBS check, which will be undertaken before any appointment is confirmed. We are an inclusive employer and welcome people from all backgrounds to apply. We will consider reasonable adjustments required by applicants. If you share our passion, values, and have most of the skills listed, we encourage you to apply – as you may be just what we are looking for! We look forward to receiving your application! If you experience any problems, please email europe.recruitment@brighthorizons.com and we will be happy to help. At Bright Horizons, our culture is built on our commitment to Keeping Everyone Safe and providing world-class care and education, delivered by a world-class workforce. We believe our people’s potential is endless and with this in mind, we aspire to create an environment where our colleagues can thrive and accomplish the things they thought impossible. Bright Horizons has been recognised as a Great Place to Work by our employees and the Great Place to Work Institute for the last 13 years. We care passionately about what we do, and our HEART values and principles help us support one another in the work that we do each day. These are quite literally at the HEART of our organisation’s ethos and culture as it helps us to provide a working environment that supports professionalism, growth and diversity. We are passionate about our people’s ongoing learning and development. Our learning and leading with HEART framework supports each Bright Horizons colleague on the first steps of their leadership journey, whether that includes our 'World-Class Welcome' induction or our extensive ongoing training programme. Either way we want you to feel valued and invested in! Celebrating in the accomplishments of our people is an essential part of our culture. We believe in the power of “thank you” and throughout the year, in ways big and small, formal and informal, we show our appreciation for employees at all levels. We have many ways to acknowledge and celebrate our people, including our very popular “employee appreciation month”. This is a chance for everyone to share their gratitude to one another, across the whole company. Whether it is a “thank you” placed on our website, a chocolate pizza, team lunch or an ice cream van visit, it is our way of showing each other we care and appreciate everything we do. Each year, we have our annual 'Awards of Excellence' events; whether you are an award winner or cheering on a fellow team member, these formal award occasions are opportunities to come together and celebrate one another. By creating this account you acknowledge that Bright Horizons will collect, store and process any of your personal data provided in respect of your application and employment in accordance with our Employee Privacy Notice. https://www.brighthorizons.co.uk/statutory-information/privacy-notice-employees.