Head of Design

Head of Design – (12-Month FTC - Maternity Cover)

Location: Leeds (Hybrid - 3 days per week onsite)
Salary: Up to £65,000
Contract: 12-month Fixed-Term Contract (Maternity Cover)

The opportunity
We are looking for an experienced Head of Design to join a growing, employee-owned digital agency on a 12-month maternity cover contract.

This is a broad creative leadership role with responsibility for the quality, direction and capability of a multidisciplinary Design team. You will oversee creative output spanning UX/UI, digital experiences, brand, campaign creative, motion and performance-led design, ensuring consistently high standards across the agency.

You will work closely with senior leadership and teams across digital, development, performance marketing and client services, providing senior creative direction across major client engagements, pitches and new business opportunities.

This is primarily a leadership, strategy and creative direction role rather than a hands-on production position. You will remain close enough to the work to provide senior critique and creative direction, while empowering the wider Design team to take ownership of delivery.

What you will be doing
As Head of Design, you will lead the Design function while helping shape creative strategy, develop the team and maintain a consistently high standard of work.

Key responsibilities include:

• Leading a multidisciplinary Design team across UX/UI, digital design, brand, campaigns and motion
• Setting and maintaining the overall creative standard across the agency
• Providing senior creative direction across high-profile and strategically important client projects
• Leading and contributing to creative strategy across websites, digital products, campaigns and performance-led creative
• Providing senior direction across UX/UI, information architecture, interaction design, design systems and visual design
• Working closely with Development to balance creative ambition with technical feasibility, accessibility, scalability and performance
• Leading, coaching and developing designers at different levels of seniority
• Managing team performance, progression, capability and development
• Overseeing departmental resourcing, utilisation, capacity and budgets
• Building trusted relationships with senior client stakeholders and acting as a senior creative partner
• Playing a key role in pitches and new business opportunities, helping shape creative concepts, narratives and proposals
• Collaborating with other department heads and senior leadership to influence wider agency strategy and capability
• Improving creative processes, ways of working and collaboration across teams
• Helping the team make effective use of emerging technology and AI to improve creative quality, capability and efficiency

 
What we are looking for

Essential experience:

• Strong experience in a senior creative, design leadership, Design Director or Head of Design position
• Digital, integrated or creative agency experience
• Experience leading multidisciplinary designers across areas such as UX/UI, digital, brand, campaigns and motion
• Strong creative direction experience, with the ability to guide and challenge work rather than needing to personally execute everything
• Experience developing creative strategy and translating business, audience and client challenges into compelling creative direction
• Strong understanding of digital experiences and how Design works alongside Development
• Experience providing senior direction across website and digital product design
• Experience managing, coaching and developing designers at different levels of seniority
• Confidence presenting creative thinking and recommendations to senior client stakeholders
• Experience contributing to or leading pitches and new business opportunities
• Strong commercial understanding of agency delivery, including scope, budgets, utilisation and resourcing
• Experience working collaboratively across multiple disciplines and departments

 
Desirable experience:

• Experience across both UX/UI and wider brand or campaign creative
• Exposure to performance-led creative and an understanding of how creative contributes to measurable marketing outcomes
• Experience helping shape or evolve agency creative services and capabilities
• Experience improving design processes, systems and ways of working
• An understanding of emerging creative technology and the effective use of AI within Design

 
About you
You’ll be an experienced creative leader who can balance creative ambition with the commercial and operational realities of agency delivery.

You’ll be comfortable moving between high-level creative strategy, people leadership, senior client conversations and the day-to-day needs of a busy Design department. You’ll know when to provide direction and challenge, but equally when to empower senior designers and specialists to take ownership.

You don’t need to be the strongest hands-on practitioner across every design discipline, but you should have the creative judgement and digital expertise to ask the right questions, recognise excellent work and help others arrive at stronger solutions.

As this is a maternity cover position, you’ll need to be comfortable stepping into an established team and leadership structure, quickly building relationships and taking ownership of the function throughout the 12-month period.