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Senior Creative Services Manager 

London, United Kingdom

Department:  Operations   

Location: London  

Contact type:  12 Month FTC 

Full Time/Part time:  Full Time   

Reporting into:  Chief Production Officer 

 

About Ogilvy 

Ogilvy UK has been creating iconic ideas that deliver impact at scale for clients ever since David Ogilvy founded the company in 1948. Ogilvy UK specialises in bringing together brand advertising, customer experience marketing, PR, influence and consulting, all fuelled by Behavioural Science. Our world-class award-winning creative campaigns deliver solutions for clients including Sainsbury’s, Argos, , Mondelēz International, Unilever, TK Maxx and Pernod Ricard.  

 In 2023, Ogilvy UK celebrated their 75th anniversary and was the most awarded agency in Europe. Ogilvy is home to the largest influencer marketing practice globally, and hosts the world’s biggest festival of behavioural science and creativity, Nudgestock – now in its 12th year. 

About the Role 

We are seeking a strategically minded and highly organised Senior Creative Services Manager to join our Resource team. You will work in close partnership with Executive Creative Directors, Producers, Studio Management, Finance Directors, and senior stakeholders to ensure we deliver exceptional work through the effective deployment of our creative talent. 

You’ll run a resource management team, shape workflow operations, oversee freelance spend, and contribute to long-term planning that supports both the creative output and commercial success

What You’ll Do 

Strategic Resource Management

  • Serve as senior manager for all creative and design resourcing across the agency, overseeing planning, workflow, and allocation across internal and freelance talent.
  • Collaborate directly with ECDs, Project Directors, and Managing Partners to ensure the creative team is shaped and staffed to meet evolving business demands.
  • Maintain a live, high-level view of capacity, project demand, skill sets, and utilisation across departments to inform planning and decision-making.
  • Attend weekly workflow headline meetings with the CEO and Managing Partners, surfacing priority resource issues and providing strategic solutions.

Team & Stakeholder Management 

  • Line manage and develop a team of two Senior Resource Managers, supporting their growth and ensuring alignment across all planning activities.
  • Act as the lynchpin between all department Resource Managers, balancing holidays, absences, and high-volume workflow needs.
  • Run weekly ECD resourcing calls to review team allocations, discuss capacity, and proactively manage creative talent sharing across accounts.
  • Navigate complex and sensitive stakeholder relationships with confidence, professionalism, and political acumen.
  • Be the decision-maker and escalation point for creative and design resource conflicts across the business.

Collaboration & Communication 

  • Join and represent the London office in EMEA-wide resource sharing forums, promoting cross-market collaboration and opportunity sharing.
  • Partner with Studio Managers to define time requirements, resource needs, and accurate project scoping.
  • Run weekly finance and freelance status calls with Finance Directors, tracking spend and aligning forecasts with commercial targets.
  • Serve as the go-to contact for ad hoc resourcing needs from the broader WPP network and internal leadership.

Freelance & Budget Oversight 

  • Own and manage the creative and design freelance budget, continuously assessing needs and identifying opportunities to optimise spend.
  • Partner with Talent and Recruitment to build and maintain a strong network of freelance talent across disciplines.
  • Contribute to long-term workforce planning, including identifying capability gaps and recruitment priorities.

Tools & Process Management 

  • Use Wrike and other workflow tools to track allocations, timesheets, utilisation, and workflow accuracy.
  • Champion process improvements to increase visibility, efficiency, and clarity in resource planning.
  • Balance billable and non-billable work, ensuring optimal productivity while safeguarding team wellbeing

What You'll Need 

  • Proven experience in a senior-level creative services, resourcing, or project operations role within a creative or integrated agency environment.
  • A strong understanding of creative workflows, agency operations, and cross-functional team collaboration.
  • Outstanding stakeholder management skills with the ability to influence, negotiate, and resolve conflicts at a senior level.
  • Experience running and developing resourcing teams, with a collaborative and motivational leadership style.
  • Commercially savvy with experience managing and optimising freelance budgets.
  • Familiarity with resourcing platforms (Wrike, Float, YunoJuno, Resource Guru, etc.), and strong proficiency in Excel or similar tools.
  • Able to think strategically and act tactically; balancing immediate needs with long-term planning.
  • Excellent communication, organisation, and problem-solving skills in high-pressure environments.
  • A strong appreciation for creative excellence and a talent for aligning the right people to the right briefs. 

Benefits 

  • 25 days annual leave + 1 Volunteer Day 
  • Bupa Healthcare
  • Enhanced Maternity, Adoption and Shared Parental Leave
  • We have a Flexible Working Model with core working hours: 10am – 4pm
  • A 1.5:1 Matching Pension Structure
  • Wellbeing and Health: Up to £25.00 per month towards physical or online exercise class membership, Unmind membership, LifeWorks tool and annual eye tests and development budgets and Wellbeing incentives and activities throughout the year 
  • Season Ticket Loan and Cycle to Work Scheme
  • Life Assurance

Our ambition is to attract the very best diverse talent to Ogilvy, and to be the employer of choice in the UK. We want everyone to feel welcome when they join us, and once they’re here, for them to want to stay with us, grow their career, and to feel they belong with us.

We are an equal opportunity employer and we’re committed to creating an inclusive, welcoming environment for everyone who wants to work at Ogilvy. For us, diversity, equity and inclusion is integrated into everything that we do. We believe that for creativity to flourish, everything about how we work must have diversity at its core. Your race, colour, ethnic, religion, gender, gender identity, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, have no bearing on our hiring decisions, but we encourage everyone to feel free to express their true selves in an environment we are consistently striving to make as inclusive as possible.

We aim to facilitate an accessible and positive application experience for all candidates. If you require any adjustments from us to support you through the process or expect to require any adjustments to working conditions to be able to best perform in the role, please let us know. We are happy to consider all reasonable adjustments.

If you live with a disability and you would like to take advantage of our offer of a guaranteed interview under the Disability Confident Scheme, please ensure you fill out our voluntary Equal Opportunities Questionnaire when applying.

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