Traffic Manager

About the Role

We are hiring for an experienced Traffic Manager to join a fast-paced creative environment in Cape Town, South Africa.

The Traffic Manager will sit at the centre of the creative workflow, ensuring that people, projects and timelines are coordinated effectively across the creative department.

This person will manage incoming briefs, allocate resources, track workloads and project timelines, and ensure that creative and production teams are working efficiently and collaboratively to meet deadlines.

We are looking for someone who understands how creative work moves through an agency or studio environment and who is confident balancing the needs of creatives, producers and stakeholders across multiple projects.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage and prioritise incoming creative briefs and requests, ensuring briefs are clear and complete before work begins

• Allocate resources across designers, copywriters, freelancers and other creative teams based on availability, skillset and project requirements

• Monitor team workloads, capacity and project timelines, identifying potential risks or resourcing challenges before they impact delivery

• Work closely with stakeholders, producers and creative teams to balance project requirements, deadlines and available resources

• Maintain accurate and up-to-date trackers for active and upcoming projects

• Manage traffic and resourcing dashboards and adjust team assignments as priorities change

• Facilitate regular traffic and resource meetings to align teams on priorities, deadlines and staffing requirements

• Attend project and status meetings where required to stay close to changing project needs

• Coordinate freelance resources alongside Operations and HR, including onboarding, IT requirements and project orientation

• Support the identification of freelance and external vendor partners when additional resource is required

• Track team availability, leave and out-of-office schedules to identify potential coverage gaps

• Review team hours against project budgets to support effective resourcing and staffing decisions

• Support internal agency initiatives, cross-functional projects and operational planning

• Help develop and improve agency processes and workflows across briefing, creative review and project delivery

• Identify opportunities to make the creative workflow more efficient without compromising quality

Experience and Skills

• 4 to 6 years of experience within traffic management, creative resourcing or creative operations

• Previous experience within an agency, creative studio, marketing environment or similar fast-paced business

• Strong understanding of creative and project management workflows

• Experience managing multiple projects, priorities and deadlines simultaneously

• Strong resource planning and workload management experience

• Experience working with project management and workflow tools such as Jira, Monday.com, Workfront, Celoxis or similar

• Strong Microsoft Office skills, particularly Excel, PowerPoint and Word

• Excellent organisational and time management skills

• Strong communication and stakeholder management ability

• Comfortable working closely with designers, copywriters, producers, strategists and other creative stakeholders

• Familiarity with tools such as Adobe Creative Suite or Figma would be advantageous

What We Are Looking For

You will be someone who is highly organised, adaptable and comfortable operating in a fast-moving creative environment.

You should be confident making decisions around priorities and resources, while remaining calm and diplomatic when managing competing demands.

The right person will be:

• A strong multitasker with excellent attention to detail

• Calm and solutions-focused under pressure

• Confident managing competing deadlines and priorities

• A clear and collaborative communicator

• Comfortable challenging timelines or resource requests when required

• Able to see the bigger picture while still managing day-to-day workflow

• Proactive in identifying capacity issues and potential delivery risks

• Passionate about improving how creative teams work together

This is a great opportunity for an experienced Traffic Manager, Creative Resource Manager, Studio Traffic Manager or Creative Operations professional who enjoys being at the heart of a busy creative team.

Sphere Digital Recruitment currently have a variety of job opportunities across digital so feel free to get in touch with us to find out how we can help you. Please take a look at our website.

Sphere is an equal opportunities employer. We encourage applications regardless of ethnic origin, race, religious beliefs, age, disability, gender or sexual orientation, and any other protected status as required by applicable law.

If you require any adjustments or additional support during the recruitment process for any reason whatsoever, please let us know.