Director - Audience Strategy & Engagement, News

Job Title:

Director - Audience Strategy & Engagement

Reports to: Executive Editor & Managing Director, Sky News

Division: Sky News

Base location: Osterley

We are putting in place a new leadership structure to strengthen collaboration across the newsroom and support delivery of our 2030 vision for a premium, video‑first Sky News, built for the digital future.

The Director, Audience Strategy & Engagement is a senior leader responsible for defining and delivering Sky News’ platform strategy, ensuring content is discoverable, relevant and distinctive across all platforms, in keeping with the Sky News vision to be a premium, video first digital news organisation.

The role is highly data‑driven, requiring strong AI expertise and a deep understanding of audience behaviour, platform performance and content distribution. It uses audience insights to guide editorial decisions and works closely with the Hubs to ensure content performs well. It plays a key part in converting users of Sky News’ free content into paying subscribers.

The Director, Audience Strategy & Engagement owns the editorial product experience for the Sky News owned and operated platforms and works collaboratively with the Sky Product team to optimise these services.

The role blends strategic thinking with editorial instinct and leads a team of editors and specialists to maximise reach and impact. It requires close collaboration across editorial, product, marketing and commercial teams to drive growth and innovation.

The Director, Audience Strategy & Engagement will be someone with a wide industry perspective and an agitator for change – they must want to challenge the status‑quo.

• Define and lead the audience strategy across all platforms, ensuring alignment with editorial and commercial goals.
• Oversee the Platform teams, including platform curators as well as audience insight specialists.
• Commit to innovation, experimentation and challenging the status‑quo – this role must embrace and drive change.
• Partner with editorial hubs by providing the audience strategy to inform commissioning decisions.
• Partner with the Sky News commercial team to convert business strategies into editorial and platform strategies.
• Own and evolve the editorial product experience for Sky News’ owned and operated platforms (website and app), working closely with the Sky Product team to ensure delivery, audience growth and alignment with editorial and commercial priorities.
• Lead the curation of content across platforms, ensuring it is presented in a way that maximises engagement and impact.
• Oversee community management, including performance monitoring, feedback loops and platform‑specific engagement tactics.
• Collaborate with product and technology teams to ensure tools and workflows support audience‑centric publishing.
• Represent the audience perspective in senior editorial and strategic forums.
• Manage budgets and resources to support audience growth and engagement initiatives.
• Be a fully committed member of the Sky News leadership team, aligned wholly with Sky News’ collectively agreed strategic vision and goals, and embody these in the leadership of the Audience Strategy & Engagement team.
• Champion diversity, inclusion and accessibility in content and engagement strategies.

• Proven experience in audience development, digital publishing and content strategy at a senior level.
• Deep understanding of audience behaviour, analytics and performance metrics across platforms.
• Strong data skills and AI expertise to optimise content performance and inform strategic decisions.
• Experience overseeing the delivery and presentation of content across multiple platforms, ensuring consistency and audience relevance.
• Experience owning and evolving a product roadmap, particularly for digital news platforms.
• An expertise in digital video.
• Strong leadership and team management skills, with experience leading cross‑functional teams.
• Strategic thinker with the ability to translate insight into editorial and platform impact.
• Experience working with editorial, product and commercial stakeholders to align goals and…