Design Jobs Board

About PHA

PHA is an earned-first integrated communications agency with offices in London, Manchester, Leeds, and Boston (US).

We believe communication can make the world a better place. It matters. But with constant disruption, fragmentation and growing complexity, earning attention and inspiring action is harder than ever. PHA is built to solve for this.

We nurture, grow and protect brands & reputations for a portfolio of consumer, corporate, technology, B2B, and health clients in the UK and internationally. We bring clarity to a fast, chaotic, complex world, challenging convention and delivering fresh thinking. Our agile multidisciplined teams create dynamic campaigns across earned, social, digital and paid media – engaging audiences wherever they are, always.

We lead with strategy and deliver a full suite of creative services and production capabilities, generating impact at every step of the audience journey from awareness through to conversion. Working as one to solve any client challenge, we bring the best of PHA to drive impact that multiplies. When unboxed minds meet unboxed ambition communications don’t blend in – they break out.

We’re built to make it matter.

Introduction to the role

We are seeking a Design Account Director to join us for a 12-month fixed-term contract with an ASAP start date. Please apply here or by emailing our Executive Creative Director, Mike Chivers – mikech@thephagroup.com.

Core Responsibilities

• Act as senior design lead across a portfolio of client accounts and integrated projects, building strong relationships with client teams and internal stakeholders.
• Provide clear, confident creative counsel, ensuring design thinking adds strategic value to client activity.
• Lead the development and delivery of high-quality creative outputs, including digital animations and static assets, for use across web, social, and digital channels.
• Ensure strong creative ideation across client activity, contributing design-led ideas that keep work fresh, engaging, and effective.
• Support and elevate integrated campaigns by working closely with PR, Social, and Digital teams to visualise ideas and bring concepts to life.
• Ensure brand consistency and creative excellence across client work and new business materials, including pitch documents and proposals.
• Find ways to “surprise and delight” clients by delivering added creative value beyond day-to-day delivery, strengthening long-term partnerships.
• Support the evaluation of creative effectiveness, helping teams demonstrate impact and value through appropriate metrics and outputs.

Stay Curious

• Maintain strong knowledge of design, digital, and social platforms, including formats, specifications, emerging tools, and evolving best practice.
• Keep up to date with industry trends in design, social-first content, and creative technology, applying insight to client and agency work.
• Maintain hands-on expertise across relevant design tools and software, leading by example in quality and craft.
• Contribute creative thinking to internal brainstorms and social-first ideation sessions.
• Attend role-specific training and participate in agencywide activities and initiatives to build relationships with colleagues.
• Use AI tools responsibly to support creativity, efficiency, insight, and high-quality output, applying professional judgment to ensure all work remains accurate, ethical, and aligned with client and company standards.

Stay Human

• Take on line management responsibilities for junior colleagues, working with the Executive Creative Director to lead the quarterly appraisals process, help to set objectives, and provide regular guidance and mentoring for your report(s).
• Identify opportunities to nurture junior talent within your practice/specialism and across account teams.
• Own delivery across your account portfolio, effectively managing team resource.
• Demonstrate consistent upward management skills to senior colleagues/the Executive Creative Director, share successes, regularly provide feedback on junior team members, identify and escalate performance issues, and offer effective solutions.
• Host at least one training session for junior colleagues.

Stay Ahead

• Work to agreed fee income targets for your client portfolio as set by the Executive Creative Director, with an agreed percentage responsibility of the practice/specialism fee income under your management, and agreed percentage growth expected on this amount year-on-year.
• Start to, then confidently manage and own new business development campaigns, identifying areas for expansion to increase commercial results month-to-month and using integrated working to manage inbound new business leads by bringing together the most relevant skills in the agency.
• Work on a plan that details sectors that can be targeted for growth, including research, insight, and target suggestions for joint new business campaigns with the Sales & Marketing function, and start to identify potential sector(s) for you to own within the practice/specialism.
• Source and attend networking opportunities to develop industry, partner, talent, and new business contacts.

Benefits

• Hybrid working policy, enabling you to work flexibly from home and one of our offices – minimum requirement of 12 office days per month
• Flexible start and finish times; 8am-5pm / 8:30am-5:30pm / 9am-6pm, as well as an early finish on Fridays between 3:30pm and 4:30pm
• Healthcare cashback scheme (inc. for partner/children) worth up to £2,000 annually for dental, optical, physio, chiro, osteo, and GP charges
• £30 monthly phone allowance
• Weekly Wellness Hour, annual Wellness Day, and accompanying Wellness voucher
• Annual Development Day for volunteering/charity work, and Birthday leave
• 25 days’ annual leave which increases by one day every year from your second anniversary (capped at 31 days)
• 10% new business bonus and £500 recruitment referral bonus
• £1,000 voucher for reaching 5, 10, 15, 20, etc. years’ service
• Monthly companywide awards with a chance to win £50 or £100 for outstanding work
• Enhanced parental leave options; 26 weeks’ full maternity pay, up to 26 weeks’ full adoption pay (depending on the child’s age), and 6 weeks’ full paternity pay
• Option to take a sabbatical for up to 5 months after 5 years’ service
• Employee Assistance Programme with access to six virtual or face-to-face counselling sessions as well as ad hoc mental health, financial, and legal support
• Dedicated Culture Committee responsible for arranging a number of activities and initiatives across sport, social, wellness, sustainability, charity, and EDI, as well as a monthly Culture Club
• Dedicated training team responsible for developing employees at all levels across the business through an extensive programme of external trainers, internal specialists, and industry experts, complimented by the PHA Aspire Mentoring Programme