Associate Creative Director (In-House Creative Agency)

London

Hybrid working - 3 days in the office, 2 days remote

About the role

As Principal Creative you are the creative lead for one of BT Group’s key brands – responsible for the creative vision, quality, and output across all touchpoints.

You lead a team of designers, copywriters, and digital designers, setting the standard and driving the work from brief to final execution. This role demands someone who can generate compelling ideas and inspire others to do the same. You are the final quality gatekeeper, the champion of creative bravery, and the person who builds the conditions for exceptional work.

What you’ll be doing

Strategic thinking

• Partner with strategists to Translate strategic briefs into effective creative solutions, balancing commercial impact, creative excellence, and efficient delivery.

Creative development & execution

• Own and drive the creative vision across all channels and touchpoints
• Set creative standards and quality benchmarks that push the brand forward and put the customer first
• Lead integrated campaign development from concept to final execution – personally contributing through writing, art direction, or conceptualising as needed
• Generate big ideas that work across multiple channels and can scale across the brand, overseeing execution across all formats: TV, digital video, social, print, outdoor, retail, and experiential

Brand ownership

• Act as the final guardian of creative quality, using strong brand instinct, category insight, and commercial judgement to champion impactful work that strengthens brand differentiation and equity.

Team leadership & excellence

• Lead and inspire your creative team day-to-day – setting direction, reviewing work in progress, providing constructive critique
• Mentor and develop team members – providing regular feedback, identifying growth opportunities, and championing their work internally
• Build a culture of creative excellence, collaboration, and continuous improvement where people feel safe to take creative risks

Presentation & communication

• Present creative work confidently to senior stakeholders – selling ideas with passion and rationale, and defending creative decisions when needed

Client relationship building

• Build strong, trust-based relationships with stakeholders – understand their brands, manage expectations, and work diplomatically through creative disagreements
  Work closely with Account Managers, strategists, and the Creative Director to ensure alignment across brief, insight, vision, and standards

Creative innovation

• Drive creative innovation by staying ahead of emerging trends, technologies and AI-powered tools, championing bold ideas and calculated creative risk-taking that delivers standout, category-leading work.

Essential Skills / Experience

• Considerable experience in creative roles within advertising agencies, design studios, or in-house creative teams
• Proven experience leading creative teams or in senior creative positions
• Strong portfolio demonstrating campaign ideas and execution across multiple channels
• Proven track record creating work that has delivered business results
• Experience presenting creative work to senior stakeholders and clients
• Background working on major consumer brands, ideally in telecommunications or technology
• Experience developing integrated campaigns from concept to execution
• Demonstrable experience mentoring or developing junior creative talent

Desirable Skills / Experience

• Previous in-house agency or brand-side creative experience
• Experience working on telecommunications brands or complex B2C categories
• Award-winning creative work (D&AD, Cannes, The Drum etc.)
• Background working across brand and performance creative
• Experience with digital-first campaigns and social content
• Understanding of agile creative processes and rapid content production
• Multi-channel campaign experience including TV, digital, social, and experiential

Our Package

Tailored benefits make a real difference. That’s why we offer a comprehensive range to support your growth, wellbeing, and everyday life. You can design the package to suit you and your lifestyle. Your core benefits include:

• Company car scheme (or cash alternative)
• 15% on target annual bonus
• Private healthcare for you and your family
• Access to an online private GP 24/7 for you and your immediate family
• Market-leading paid carers leave with up to 2 weeks off
• Equalized maternity, paternity, and adoption leave – 18 weeks’ full pay and 8 weeks’ half pay
• Discounted EE and BT products, including mobile and broadband
• Market leading Pension scheme – 5% from you and 10% from us
• Holiday purchase scheme

You can select additional benefits, including healthcare, dental, gym memberships and more when you’re ready.

BT Group is the UK’s leading communications group and the holding company behind some of the country’s most recognised brands – including BT, EE, Openreach and Plusnet. Our purpose is as simple as it is ambitious: we connect for good. Our customers include consumers, small, medium and large businesses, public sector organisations and other communications providers.

BT Group’s role is about setting direction, unlocking value and creating the conditions for our brands and businesses to thrive.

Having come through the most capital-intensive phase of our fibre investment, our focus now is on what comes next – simplifying how we operate, using technology and AI to work smarter, and organising ourselves to serve customers better and grow sustainably. Group teams shape strategy, policy, brand, capital allocation and transformation, helping the whole organisation perform at its best.

We have a singular culture that unites all our people: we are customer-first challengers, who are committed, clear and connected. These behaviours unite us as one team to deliver for our colleagues, our customers, our stakeholders and the country. Joining BT Group means working at the heart of a business that matters to the UK, with the opportunity to shape decisions, influence outcomes and help set the future course of one of the country’s most important companies.