Creative Director, Now/Verify Infographics

Package Details

Band: D

Contract Type: Permanent

Location: London. This is a hybrid role and the successful candidate will balance office working with home working.

Salary: Up to £58,000 p.a. plus London Weighting, depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.

Job Application Requirements:

• CV
• Questionnaire with opportunity to detail experience

We’re happy to discuss flexible working. Please indicate your choice under the flexible working question in the application. There is no obligation to raise this at the application stage but if you wish to do so, you are welcome to. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.

• Excellent career progression – the BBC offers great opportunities for employees to seek new challenges and work in different areas of the organisation.
• Unrivalled training and development opportunities – our in-house Academy hosts a wide range of internal and external courses and certification.
• Benefits- We offer a competitive salary package, a flexible 35-hour working week for work-life balance and 26 days holiday (1 of which is a corporation day) with the option to buy an extra 5 days, a defined pension scheme and discounted dental, health care, gym and much more.

Freelancers are eligible to apply for an internal role if they are on a Worker Contract and they have worked continuously for 6 months. If they have worked for less than 6 months continuously or have a break of 3 weeks or more between engagements, they must seek Divisional HR approval to apply for an internal role prior to submitting an application.

If they are unsure which contract they are on, they can speak to their booker or the HR BP, however if it helps - both a PAYE freelance or Modus Gross contract is considered a Worker contract and covered by the Worker terms found here.

Job Introduction

The News Design team is a multi-platform, multidisciplinary team within BBC News. We are responsible for the design and visualisation of a story end to end, across all platforms from our website and app to our flagship news broadcasts and social accounts. The team brings together digital designers, broadcast designers, and developers to provide compelling visual coverage of the biggest and most significant stories.

We are a fast-moving, digital-first news organisation at the forefront of delivering visually compelling and data-driven stories to our huge global audiences. As the Creative Director - Infographics, you will play a crucial role in leading our digital infographics team, shaping the visual narrative, and delivering engaging content across multiple platforms.

This position requires a strong background in cross-platform design with hard won experience of infographic design on web and app platforms, together with storytelling in a news environment. You need excellent team leadership and change management skills, together with the ability to work tactically and strategically, engaging users, stakeholders and designers alike.

Portfolio or show-reel (and password link) needs to accompany the application

Main Responsibilities

Leadership and Team Management:

• Experience leading and managing a team of digital infographics designers, data visualisation designers, and visual storytellers.
• Proven ability to provide strong creative direction, guidance, and mentorship to team members in the infographic space.
• Skills to foster a collaborative and innovative work environment that encourages growth and excellence.
• Ensure efficient resource allocation and manage workflow to meet tight deadlines.

Infographics Strategy and Execution:

• Develop and execute a digital first infographics strategy aligned with the wider team’s overall goals and objectives. Understand and advocate for a component based design approach with a scale and re-use goal.
• Experience in championing technical and software innovations that help deliver on our build once, output everywhere strategy.
• In a world awash with data, you have the proven visual vocabulary and experience to focus on what matters; giving graphics equivalence with text in the narrative role.
• Evidenced ability to see the story in the data, to pitch, and drive a culture of data visualisation design best practice - you know why pie charts are problematic, ensure correct visualisation techniques are used to best represent data. Build an understanding and appreciation for this discipline across teams
• Senior collaboration skills enabling cross functional work with senior editorial and data teams to identify compelling story angles and data visualisation opportunities. Advocate for the user - always.
• A proven strong design vision for digital platforms, and the ability to oversee the creation of stunning standard setting, visually engaging infographics and data-driven visual content across all platforms (web, app, and social media).
• Ensure the team design digital infographics to the highest standard – maps, diagrams and data visualisations are accurate, consistent, informative, clear and engaging, regardless of timeframe.
• You know when to say no, how to persuade stakeholders, and instinctively bring data to your problem solving techniques.

Cross-Platform Experience:

• Lead the process of refining and enhancing infographics tailored for diverse digital and broadcast platforms.
• Stay up-to-date with emerging trends, best practices, and evolving technologies in infographics and visual storytelling. Be proactive in testing and applying new technical and design led approaches and workflows.
• Continuously explore new tools, technologies, and formats to enhance the visual impact and user experience of infographics.

Change Management:

• Experience in effectively leading a team through organisational changes, technological advancements, and shifting priorities.
• Identify and address challenges related to process improvements, workflow efficiency, and resource allocation.
• Implement change management strategies to ensure smooth transitions and effective adoption of new methodologies.

Senior Stakeholder Management:

• Collaborate closely with senior leaders, editors, and stakeholders to understand their goals and illustrate the impact of infographic and mapping storytelling on driving user engagement.
• Provide regular updates on the team's progress, achievements, and challenges.
• Act as a trusted advisor, demonstrating a deep understanding of data and infographics' role in storytelling and audience engagement.
• Drive the conversation around all things infographics and cross platform tech and innovation in this space.

Are you the right person?

• Experience in a relevant field (e.g., Visual communication, HCI, or data design)
• Experience in a design lead role.
• Proven experience in leading and managing a team of digital infographics designers and visual storytellers.
• Strong portfolio demonstrating design flair, and expertise in web based infographics, mapping and data visualisation across various digital platforms.
• Extensive cross-platform experience, creating content for web, mobile, and social media.
• Excellent knowledge of design principles, typography, colour theory, and information hierarchy.
• Proficiency in industry-standard design tools and software (e.g., Adobe Creative Suite, Figma, D3 and other data visualisation tools).
• Familiarity with HTML, CSS, and web publishing platforms is a strong plus.
• Experience working with OSINT sources and tools is a strong plus.
• Exceptional project management skills with the ability to prioritise, delegate, and manage multiple projects simultaneously.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills for effective collaboration with cross-functional teams and senior stakeholders.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment and adapt to rapidly changing priorities.
• Experience working in a news environment is a strong plus.

About the BBC

The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC for different reasons and they will be given priority consideration ahead of other applicants. Priority consideration means for those employees seeking redeployment their application will be considered alongside anyone else at risk of redundancy, prior to any individuals being considered who are not at risk.

We don’t focus simply on what we do – we also care how we do it. Our values and the way we behave are important to us. Please make sure you’ve read about our values and behaviours here.

Diversity matters at the BBC. We have a working environment where we value and respect every individual's unique contribution, enabling all of our employees to thrive and achieve their full potential.

We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to be part of the BBC – whether that’s to contribute to our programming or our wide range of non-production roles. The more diverse our workforce, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity.

We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. We will consider flexible working requests for all roles, unless operational requirements prevent otherwise.

To find out more about Diversity and Inclusion at the BBC, please click here.