Senior journalist, regional journalism (planning) – BBC

Job requisition ID: 54954
Closing date: 5 November 2026
Job band: D
Contract: Permanent, full-time
Department: BBC World Service
Location: Nairobi
Terms and conditions: Local

The BBC is happy to discuss flexible working. You can indicate your preference in your application, although there is no obligation to do so at this stage. Flexible working will also form part of the discussion at offer stage.

Purpose of the role

The planning team plays a central role in the BBC’s regional journalism across Africa. It helps direct editorial priorities, commissioning and content across Africa and the World Service language services.

Working across teams, regions and platforms, the team provides editorial coordination to ensure strong, distinctive journalism is identified early, planned effectively and shared as widely as possible.

The team acts as a key link between production hubs, World Service language teams and English-language output. It communicates forward plans, identifies opportunities for collaboration and promotes content with the potential to reach audiences across different platforms.

The team also helps bring greater visibility and coherence to regional journalism across Africa, enabling teams to work together effectively and maximise the reach and impact of their strongest stories.

Why join the team?

The BBC is looking for an experienced senior journalist to join the Africa regional service planning team, helping to connect teams, content and editorial priorities across languages and platforms.

The role requires strong editorial judgement to anticipate the news agenda, coordinate forward plans and identify opportunities for original journalism and collaboration.

Working with teams across African language services, the World Service and wider BBC output, the senior journalist will help ensure the BBC’s strongest journalism is visible, shared and reaches the widest possible audience.

The postholder will deputise for the assistant editor when required.

Key responsibilities

• Work on key documents for BBC staff that communicate content plans and the news agenda.
• Originate and produce stories, which may include scripting and editing content across a range of BBC output.
• Allocate work to the team and monitor progress, helping to ensure the quality and professional standard of its output.
• Work on digital content.
• Deliver work to tight deadlines.
• Commission and select relevant material, ensuring it meets the BBC’s editorial standards.

Essential criteria

• The ability to manage resources, staff, technical facilities and budgets.
• Thorough knowledge of African current affairs and audience needs.
• Extensive experience of producing and creating digital content, with the ability to write creatively and engagingly and to adapt, produce and translate content accurately, clearly and in a style appropriate for different audiences and forms of media.
• Experience of working in planning or on major projects and delivering to deadlines.
• The ability to build and maintain effective working relationships with teams in African countries.
• Experience of producing content for underserved and younger audiences.
• Experience of using digital analytics to maximise the impact of video content and inform changes where needed, alongside demonstrable knowledge of digital platforms and the different ways audiences consume news.
• A sound understanding of the BBC’s editorial guidelines and a commitment to the editorial aims of BBC News.

Further information

This job description sets out the essential characteristics of the role, its principal responsibilities and the skills, knowledge and experience required for a satisfactory level of performance. It is not intended to provide a complete and detailed account of every aspect of the role.

If you are offered the role, the BBC will carry out employment screening checks. These include reference and right-to-work checks and, where applicable to the role, safeguarding and adverse media or social media checks. Any offer will be conditional on these checks being satisfactory.

Before your start date, you may need to disclose any unspent convictions or police charges in line with the BBC’s recruitment policy. This allows the BBC to discuss any support you may need and assess any risks. Failure to disclose relevant information may result in the withdrawal of an offer.

For general queries, contact bbchr@bbc.co.uk.

Applications cannot be accepted by CV and must be made online.