Influence Executive

An Influence Executive works on campaigns that change what people think or do - usually by getting third parties to carry the message rather than advertising directly. In practice this means two overlapping worlds: influencer marketing (identifying, briefing and managing social media creators on behalf of brands) and public affairs/advocacy (building support among politicians, journalists, charities and professional bodies for a client or employer's position). The job title is used in PR and communications agencies, in-house marketing teams, charities and membership organisations, and the day-to-day work differs a lot depending on which of those you join.

Starting salary: £22k–£30k
Live graduate jobs: Search all jobs
Main way in: Direct application to junior agency roles
They usually ask for: A degree is usual but the subject often doesn't matter much

Approximate graduate salary

Typically around £22,000–£30,000 to start, though this varies widely - London agencies and in-house corporate roles sit at the higher end, while smaller regional agencies and charities often start lower.

What you'd actually do

Researching and building lists - either of social media creators who fit a brand's audience, or of MPs, peers, select committee members, trade bodies and campaign groups relevant to an issue, and keeping those lists current in a spreadsheet or specialist database
Drafting outreach: emails to creators or their talent agents with campaign briefs and deliverables, or letters, briefings and consultation responses aimed at policymakers and stakeholders
Running the day-to-day of a live campaign - chasing content from creators, checking posts carry the correct advertising disclosure, collecting links and screenshots, or coordinating a roundtable, parliamentary drop-in or stakeholder webinar
Monitoring: tracking social conversation and sentiment about a client, or scanning Hansard, government consultations, committee announcements and the trade press for anything that affects the organisations you work for

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Pulling campaign reports together - reach and engagement figures from platform analytics or influencer tools, media coverage summaries, notes on who said what in Parliament - and writing the short commentary that explains what it means
Sitting in on client calls and internal planning sessions, taking actions, then doing the follow-up work nobody else has time for
Negotiating and administering the unglamorous bits: contracts and fees with creators or agents, usage rights, invoices, gifting and seeding logistics, and keeping the compliance paperwork in order

How graduates get in

Direct application to junior agency roles - PR, communications, social and influencer marketing agencies hire at assistant or executive level year-round rather than on fixed graduate-scheme timetables. This is the most common route in.
Formal graduate schemes at larger communications groups and some in-house marketing teams. These exist but are a minority of openings and are competitive.
Internships and placements - a summer or year-in-industry placement at an agency, or a few months' paid internship, is a very common stepping stone and often converts into a permanent offer.
Moving across from an adjacent junior role: social media executive, PR assistant, marketing assistant, political researcher or parliamentary assistant in an MP's office. Parliamentary work is a well-trodden route into the public affairs version of this job.

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Volunteering or campaigning experience - student union roles, political party campaigning, or running social accounts for a society or small charity - used as evidence of relevant skill when you have no paid experience.
Apprenticeship routes into PR and marketing exist and are a legitimate alternative to a degree, though less common at agencies that recruit heavily from graduates.

What employers ask for

A degree is usual but the subject often doesn't matter much. PR, communications, marketing, politics, English, history and sociology are all common. For public affairs work, politics or a related subject helps because you need to understand how Parliament and Whitehall actually work.
Most employers ask for a 2:1, though plenty of smaller agencies will take a 2:2 with strong relevant experience. Some ask for no specific classification at all.
Demonstrable interest in the field - a personal or society social account you've grown, a blog, campaign volunteering, or being able to talk fluently about a recent campaign you admired and why it worked.
Some practical experience is effectively expected at agencies: an internship, placement, student media or a freelance social media gig. Having none makes entry harder but not impossible.

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Professional qualifications are not required to start. Some people later take CIPR (Chartered Institute of Public Relations) or CIM (Chartered Institute of Marketing) qualifications, sometimes funded by the employer.
For influencer work specifically, familiarity with how TikTok, Instagram and YouTube actually operate - formats, algorithms, creator economics - matters more than any qualification.

Skills that matter

Clear, fast written English in several registers

You'll write a chatty creator brief in the morning and a formal briefing note for a civil servant in the afternoon, and both need to sound right first time.

Research and source-checking

Whether you're vetting a creator's past posts for anything that could embarrass a client, or checking an MP's voting record, getting this wrong is the main way junior people cause real damage.

Spreadsheet and data handling

Campaign tracking, creator budgets, stakeholder lists and reporting all live in spreadsheets, and someone has to make the numbers add up and mean something.

Working knowledge of advertising and lobbying rules

UK influencer content must be clearly labelled as advertising under ASA and CMA rules, and public affairs work has transparency and registration requirements - breaching either is a client crisis.

Relationship management under pressure

You are the person chasing a creator who's missed a deadline or a stakeholder who hasn't replied, and you have to stay polite and persistent while a client asks for updates.

Judgement about reputational risk

Spotting that a partnership, phrase or timing could go badly before it's published is what separates an executive people trust from one who needs checking.

Putting these on a CV? We counted which skills 12,914 live graduate adverts ask for, and what to do with the answer — part of our application advice.

Where it leads

Executive or assistant level for roughly the first year or two, doing the research, monitoring, coordination and drafting under close supervision.
Senior executive - you own workstreams, deal directly with clients or internal stakeholders, brief creators yourself and start being trusted with judgement calls rather than just tasks.
Account manager or campaign manager - running campaigns end to end, holding a budget, managing one or two juniors. Timelines here vary a lot: small agencies can promote quickly, larger ones more slowly.
Account director, head of influence, or senior public affairs manager - winning or retaining business, setting strategy, representing the agency or organisation in the room.
From there, routes diverge: agency leadership and new business, a senior in-house communications or corporate affairs role (often better paid and more stable), consultancy, or moving into talent management, platform-side roles, or policy and government relations proper. Many people also switch between the influencer-marketing and public-affairs sides of the discipline mid-career.

What people get wrong

“It's about being an influencer, or at least hanging out with them.”

You almost never appear in any content. The job is the administrative and strategic scaffolding behind it - contracts, briefs, usage rights, deadline chasing and reporting. Glamour is a small fraction of the week.

“"Influence" always means social media.”

In public affairs, charity and membership-body settings, an Influence Executive works on influencing policy and decision-makers - parliamentary monitoring, consultation responses, stakeholder engagement. Read the job description carefully, because the two versions of this role share almost no daily tasks.

“It's a creative role where you come up with big ideas.”

At executive level the work is overwhelmingly organisational and detail-driven. Ideas get more airtime as you become senior; early on, reliability and accuracy are what get you promoted.

“Compliance is someone else's problem.”

Junior staff are usually the ones checking that #ad labels are present and correct and that lobbying activity is properly declared. A missed disclosure becomes a regulator issue and a client crisis very quickly.

Where this varies

The biggest split is sector. In a marketing or PR agency, "influence" means influencer and creator marketing: fast-moving, consumer-focused, heavy on social platforms and client servicing. In a charity, trade association, professional body or public affairs consultancy, it means influencing policy and decision-makers: slower cycles, more writing, more Westminster and devolved-government knowledge. Location matters too - public affairs work clusters around Westminster, Holyrood, the Senedd and Stormont, while influencer marketing is spread across London, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol and increasingly remote. Agency life tends to mean more clients, longer hours and faster promotion; in-house tends to mean one brand or cause, more depth and often better pay and hours.

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General guidance about the role across the UK market, not about any specific employer. Entry routes and requirements vary — always check the individual job advert.