Brand Experience & Creative Lead

About us

You’ve probably heard of Autotrader, but do you know what we’re all about?  

We’re the UK’s leading automotive marketplace, a heritage brand, and a tech darling of the stock market. We bring together vehicle buyers and sellers to give them real choices. Cars may be what we're best known for but we’re also the place for pretty much everything else on wheels, from e-bikes to caravans. 

In the automotive world, change is a constant, that’s why we take our job of untangling the complex car-buying journey very seriously. 
 
At our core, we’re all about people. We go our own way while embracing diversity and celebrating our differences. We dedicate ourselves to the idea that we work better together. 

Autotrader is a beautiful, surprising and vibrant place to work. We might not be for everyone, but we could be perfect for you. 

About the job

We’re seeking an experienced Brand Experience & Creative Lead with outstanding visual and graphic design skills to shape and elevate the Autotrader brand. You’ll lead our Brand Experience Team and work closely with our Creative Lead (Copy) to deliver a compelling, coherent brand presence across every touchpoint. This is your opportunity to be the creative force behind a household name, ensuring we show up for all stakeholders —consumers, customers, and employees —in a way that’s both inspiring and consistent.  

The core part of the role will be to maintain and evolve our brand experience. You’ll do this by leading a talented team of designers, and owning our brand systems—including the Autotrader brand toolkit and its integration into our digital products. 

Your remit will be varied and impactful. You’ll collaborate with teams across Product, Marketing, People & Culture and more to develop and execute creative concepts that resonate with diverse audiences. Whether it’s delivering an unforgettable annual conference, crafting standout trade communications, or partnering with agencies on multi-million-pound consumer campaigns, you’ll bring Autotrader’s brand, values, and strategy to life through exceptional visual storytelling.   

If you’re a visionary leader who thrives on collaboration, creativity, and setting high standards, we’d love to see how you can help shape the future of Autotrader. 

What we're looking for

• Broad visual design experience, spanning brand advertising, events and internal comms, and you are comfortable working across a variety of mediums to bring stores to life (incl. graphic design, video, illustration, animation).
• Experience of delivering a brand experience at scale, through brand principles, guidelines and design systems, and you are comfortable using a full suite of creative tools (Figma, Adobe CS etc.).
• An exceptional communicator, able to inspire the organisation with your vision for the Autotrader brand and bring this to life through simple but compelling stories and creative.
• Someone deeply collaborative, able to form strong relationships with your peers and stakeholders from across the business, and work with them to translate business goals and strategy into creative brand experiences and communications.
• The ability to lead and direct the work of external agencies alongside our internal teams. 
• A proven leader, inspiring teams with a clear vision, whilst setting up the right operational structure to ensure throughput and quality. You can demonstrate experience recruiting, building and developing high-performing creative teams.
• Able to take responsibility for the quality of creative output (even where you haven't been directly involved). You are comfortable calling out work that doesn't meet the required standard and working with teams and individuals to improve this.
• Curiousity about how new technologies are being adopted by creative teams to improve the quality and efficiency of their outputs, are you're open minded about the role that AI will play in the future of the creative and design disciplines.

Benefits

We’re offering a salary of £75,000 – £90,000 plus an additional 10% of your salary awarded to you in shares each year. These awarded shares will become yours in yearly instalments over the next three years, and you can choose to either sell them or keep them as shares.

You'll have 28 days holiday per year, and that's in addition to bank holidays and half day closures on Christmas and New Year's Eve.

That’s not all. You'll be enrolled in our pension scheme, where our standard contributions are 7% and employee contributions are 5%. We also have comprehensive private medical cover, enhanced family leave provisions, a car salary sacrifice scheme, share-save options, and much more. 

We always want to give you the support you need and help prioritise your wellbeing, that’s why we provide access to 24/7 online GP and dentist, as well as specialist support for assisted fertility, gender dysphoria, menopause, period care plans and lots more.  

On top of all that, our hybrid model, Connected Working, combines the best of both worlds – office and home working. You’ll have two fixed weekly office days for team collaboration and one more of your choice to suit your work-life balance.  

Additionally, we have our remote-first periods at set times during summer and winter. During these periods, you can work remotely anywhere in the UK and from certain locations abroad.

 

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