Head of Digital job in Darwen

What’s in it for you?

Joining Hakim Group means becoming part of the UK’s fastest-growing community of independent optical practices. We live by our values – honest, ambitious, kind, industrious, and meticulous. Our people are the heartbeat of our business, and we provide the tools, structure, and support to help you grow professionally and personally.

This is a hybrid role, with three days a week based at our HQ in Darwen.

You will also receive:

You’ll have the opportunity to shape the digital backbone of one of the fastest-growing healthcare organisations in the UK. Your work will directly influence how practices appear online, how patients discover and book care, and how consistently the group delivers high-quality experiences as it scales.

Benefits include:

• Competitive salary
• Company pension
• Employee discounts
• Free on-site parking
• Cycle-to-work scheme
• Sick pay

About the Role

As Head of Digital, you will lead the vision, performance, and operation of Hakim Group’s digital ecosystem — 400–500+ practice websites, central platforms, and evolving digital services. You will own digital as a commercial growth engine, driving new patient acquisition through organic discovery, SEO/AEO, high-performing booking journeys, and Paid Media campaigns, while maintaining exceptional end-to-end patient experience and seamless handover to practices.

Collaborating with IT, Marketing, Creative, CRM/Data, and Practice Operations, you will build a scalable, efficient, and future-ready digital environment to support the group’s ambitious growth strategy.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and own the digital strategy, aligned to growth and practice-level goals.
• Oversee the architecture and management of 500+ websites, including design systems, SEO structures, booking journeys, and central platforms.
• Lead technical and strategic SEO/AEO approaches and organic content strategy across hundreds of practices.
• Oversee Paid Media (Google & Meta) campaigns, governance, optimisation, and reporting to complement organic acquisition and drive measurable bookings.
• Optimise modular booking flows and conversion rates across the estate.
• Ensure end-to-end patient journey quality and practice enablement.
• Own analytics frameworks, data flows, and insights for actionable decision-making.
• Manage external agencies, offshore teams, and global production partners.
• Lead, coach, and develop a multidisciplinary digital team.
• Explore emerging technologies, AI tools, and workflow automation for continuous improvement.

Skills, Knowledge & Experience

Essential

• Significant experience leading large-scale, multi-site digital estates with strong operational governance.
• Strong grounding in technical SEO, Core Web Vitals, structured data, and scalable multi-location search.
• Experience owning conversion and user journey optimisation, ideally across booking or high-intent funnels.
• Deep understanding of analytics (GA4/GTM), tagging/event structures, and data flows into CRM/CDP.
• Experience partnering with IT on domains, hosting, security/resilience, and system migrations.
• Successful track record managing agencies and offshore teams with structured governance and SLAs.
• Strong process mindset: capable of designing scalable workflows and improving delivery quality at volume.
• Experience coaching and developing high-performing teams.
• Experience overseeing Paid Media strategy and teams across Google and Meta, ensuring campaigns complement organic acquisition and drive efficient, measurable bookings.
• Ability to set scalable governance for Paid Media, including account structure, naming conventions, budgets, tracking/attribution, and landing page standards.
• Skilled in running disciplined optimisation cadences across high-volume local campaigns, including testing, conversion-rate improvement, and lead quality, partnering with Marketing, CRM/Data, and Practice Ops to ensure end-to-end journey alignment.

Desirable

• Experience in healthcare, retail, optical, or other service-led multi-location organisations.
• Familiarity with headless architectures, PIM platforms, or selective commerce journeys.
• Working knowledge of accessibility standards (WCAG), GDPR, DSAR, and release governance.
• Exposure to booking/diary systems and complex journey mapping.

Attributes & Behaviours

• Commercially minded and outcome-focused, with strong judgement on prioritisation and resource allocation.
• Strategic thinker with strong architectural intuition and operational discipline.
• Patient- and practice-first mindset: reduces friction, improves clarity, and strengthens in-practice outcomes.
• Calm, clear, and structured — especially under pressure or during change.
• Highly collaborative; able to bridge digital, IT, marketing, creative, CRM, and practice ops.
• Supportive leader who builds confidence, clarity, and accountability within the team.

What’s Next?

Click apply now and a member of our recruitment team will be in touch

Salary – Max

GBP £0.00

Salary – Min

GBP £0.00