Organic Search Manager
Portfolio scale. You own how integration actually runs across a set of accounts and two teams. This role brings direct commercial accountability. You oversee portfolio utilisation, margins and client retention, and you manage Leads rather than individual contributors. You are accountable for the portfolio of client accounts your team manages; the team runs the accounts day to day. You keep enough expertise in integrated organic search to judge quality, and build capability across the team.
How this role differs
You move from leading a pod to owning a portfolio commercially, and you take on formal line management, probation and progression decisions for the team.
The Manager owns the operating model: resourcing, hand-offs and the profitability of integrated delivery. The Organic Search Consultant owns the method, and fixes the accounts where integration has failed and nobody can say which side is at fault.
Roles and responsibilities
- Own how integration works across the portfolio: how scope is split, how teams hand off, and who owns the whole.
- Resource across both disciplines and remove the duplicated effort between them.
- Report integrated accounts against a single organic performance measure, not separate SEO and Digital PR metrics, and hold the team to it.
- Own the profitability of integrated accounts, including the cost of the coordination itself.
- Build capability so integration does not depend on one or two people holding it together.
- Develop the team's ability to present strategies, handle feedback and pushback, and maintain client confidence while results develop.
- Lead a team of four to six, including Leads, and be accountable for the quality of everything it produces.
- Line-manage the team through the full cycle: objectives, probation reviews, calibration, ratings, progression cases and formal performance management.
- Make hiring decisions for Executive and Lead roles, from writing the brief through to the offer recommendation.
- Be accountable for the client relationships across the portfolio your team manages, stepping in on scope negotiations, difficult conversations and renewal discussions.
- Retain the team: spot flight risk early and act on it before it becomes a resignation.
Entry requirements
Gateway skills needed at 8+ in the previous role to step into this one.
How this role is weighted
Immediate growth path
Accountable for outcomes beyond own portfolio or discipline.
Portfolio scale. The Consultant is the recognised expert voice. Same level, no drop in title or reward.