Account Director - Planning

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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, Sun Life, Standard Life, Ancestry, Laithwaites Wine, Save the Children, Guide Dogs, Alzheimer’s Society, RNLI and Clearscore.

• 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)

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.

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. Your role is to translate briefs into clear planning responses, elevate thinking within the team, and help create the conditions for great work to happen.

We’re looking for someone with solid cross-channel knowledge, a strong planning instinct, and a collaborative, supportive leadership style. Someone who can guide and develop others, ask the right questions, and help the team deliver work that genuinely drives results.

• 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 delivers key agency opportunities:
  Whether these are commercial opportunities or efficiency opportunities they have a clear focus on…