JOB TITLE: Head of Social Media
DEPARTMENT: Digital
LOCATION: Based at Stamford Bridge, travel to Cobham and matches when required
CONTRACT: Permanent
The Opportunity
The Head of Social Media will define and lead the strategic direction of Chelsea Football Club’s global social media presence — engaging more than 195 million fans across over ten platforms. This role is pivotal in shaping how Chelsea communicates with the world, drives digital engagement, and delivers measurable commercial value through social media.
Leading a talented in-house team and international agency partners, the Head of Social Media will ensure all activity enhances Chelsea’s brand, supports business priorities, and drives fans to the club’s website, app, and online shop — converting engagement into tangible outcomes such as ticket sales, merchandise revenue and data growth.
This is a senior leadership position requiring creative excellence, commercial intelligence, and the ability to influence and collaborate across all areas of the club’s business.
Closing date: 19th April
We encourage you to apply as soon as possible. In the event that we receive a large number of applications, the position may be filled before the listed closing date. To avoid missing out, please submit your application at your earliest convenience.
Key Responsibilities
Strategy
- Lead the creation and delivery of a world-class social media strategy that positions Chelsea as a global digital leader while directly supporting key business priorities — including promoting the clubs web and app, sponsor visibility, ticketing, retail, hospitality, and community impact.
- Define and implement a cohesive global strategy across all men’s and international social channels, with clear goals, performance metrics, and audience development plans.
- Work closely with the women’s commercial and marketing teams to define a social media strategy specifically designed to support the needs of the women’s business
- Use data and audience insights to guide content and business decisions, optimise reach and engagement, and report on performance against key indicators such as traffic to owned platforms, conversion rates, and ROI back to key stakeholders
- Ensure social media activity consistently drives traffic and conversion to the club’s owned platforms — the website, app, and online shop — building deeper, more measurable fan relationships.
- Collaborate with senior stakeholders to ensure alignment with brand, communications, and marketing strategies, reinforcing Chelsea’s global brand identity.
- Set and review performance KPIs with the wider digital, marketing, and commercial teams, embedding social media as a key engine of business growth.
Support business goals: partnerships, campaigns, data collection and driving traffic
- Integrate social media into the heart of Chelsea’s commercial and marketing ecosystem, ensuring all content supports core business outcomes — from brand growth to measurable sales and engagement.
- Collaborate with Partnerships to deliver innovative, high-performing branded content that delivers value for sponsors while maintaining fan authenticity.
- Partner with the Growth and Digital teams to drive sustained traffic and conversion to the Chelsea website, app, and online shop, turning engagement into measurable revenue.
- Lead the creative and strategic use of social media to boost ticket and hospitality sales, promote merchandise and retail campaigns, and amplify the work of the Chelsea Foundation.
- Champion data acquisition strategies — converting global social audiences into first-party data and supporting targeted audience growth in key markets.
- Report to senior leadership on the financial and strategic contribution of social media, ensuring clear visibility of its commercial value.
Creative, content and social media excellence
- Aligned to Chelsea’s brand, set the creative vision for Chelsea’s social media output, ensuring content is globally admired for its originality, quality, and storytelling.
- Oversee the production of content that entertains, inspires, and informs — designed to engage fans and drive them seamlessly to owned platforms for deeper experiences and transactions.
- Lead ideation and briefing processes to ensure social content is strategically aligned, data-informed, and tailored for each platform’s strengths and audience behavours.
- Collaborate with the internal creative, design, and video teams to produce standout visual and video content that supports both brand storytelling and commercial conversion goals.
- Stay ahead of emerging trends, technologies, and platform developments, ensuring Chelsea remains at the cutting edge of digital engagement and fan experience.
- Build strong partnerships with major social platforms to secure enhanced visibility, drive commercial value, beta opportunities, and strategic collaborations that extend Chelsea’s reach.
Manage a high-performing team
- Provide inspiring, strategic leadership to a team of in-house professionals and a network of international social media agencies, ensuring cohesive global execution across all markets.
- Set clear objectives and development plans for the in-house team, fostering a culture of creativity, collaboration, and accountability.
- Lead by example — cultivating a high-performance culture built on innovation, learning, and excellence, while empowering individuals to contribute to the club’s global social media ambitions.
- Oversee agency relationships and output in key growth regions — including LATAM and the US - and work with the club’s APAC team to ensure growth in the region
- Establish clear goals, performance standards, and communication processes to ensure all agencies deliver best-in-class social media activity that supports fan growth, engagement, and commercial performance in each region.
- Act as the senior advocate for social media across the organisation, representing the function at executive level and ensuring its integration within the wider marketing, commercial, and communications strategies.
What You’ll bring
- Proven track record leading multi-channel social media operations for a global brand or elite sports organisation, ideally within football, entertainment, or fast-moving media sectors.
- Extensive experience in senior digital or social media roles, with demonstrable success in audience growth, engagement, and monetisation.
- Deep understanding of social media platforms (TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, YouTube, Threads, WhatsApp, and emerging platforms), their commercial potential, and analytics tools.
- Strong commercial mindset with experience driving measurable traffic, sales, and data acquisition through social media.
- Exceptional creative judgment, with a track record of leading innovative campaigns that deliver both engagement and business outcomes.
- Experienced in managing global agency relationships and cross-functional collaboration.
- Insight-driven decision-maker, skilled in translating analytics into actionable strategy.
- Inspiring leader with a history of building high-performing teams and nurturing talent.
- Gravitas and strong stakeholder management skills; able to influence senior executives and represent the club externally.
- Deep understanding and passion for football, with knowledge of the Premier League and Women’s Super League.
Our Expectations:
- To embody the club’s BLUE behaviours (Brave, Lead, Unity, Edge) in the approach to work and interaction with others
- To adhere to the club’s policies and procedures, including Health & Safety, Financial Authorisation, Confidentiality and GDPR.
- To act as an ambassador for diversity, equality, and inclusion, and demonstrate a positive commitment by treating others fairly in line with our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Policy and reporting any acts of discrimination through appropriate channels
- To create a safe environment and act to protect all young people and vulnerable adults that are either in your care or attending club premises, and report any concerns to the Safeguarding Lead
- To report any misconduct or suspected misconduct to the HR Department.
Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:
At Chelsea we recognise that the diversity of our people is one of our greatest strengths and we are taking positive action to ensure our existing colleagues and job applicants can fully be themselves and bring their own unique experiences and perspectives to Chelsea FC. This means giving full and fair consideration to all applicants regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity.
If you need reasonable adjustments made to the recruitment process, please reach out to your recruiter, who will be able to advise and support you.
Chelsea FC is fully committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of all children, young people and adults at risk (vulnerable groups). We therefore require all successful applicants to complete a DBS Check prior to starting employment. Depending on the role, successful applicants may also be required to undergo other child protection screening where appropriate.
