Hachette design internship

Salary: £27,000 pro-rata

Location: London

Internship dates: Between June and September 2026

Kickstart your career with a publishing design internship at major UK publishing group, creating book cover concepts and working on live briefs.

Hachette UK is a creative powerhouse and the UK's second largest book publishing group. Our mission is to make it easy for everyone to discover new worlds of ideas, learning, entertainment and opportunity. We're made up of 10 autonomous publishing divisions and over 60 imprints with a rich and diverse history and an incredible range of authors. We're also the market leader in e-books and publish a range of bestsellers in audio format, the fastest growing part of our business.

Our award-winning adult publishing divisions are Orion, which won Publisher of the Year at the 2021 British Book Awards; Little, Brown; John Murray Press; Hodder & Stoughton; Headline; Octopus, and Bookouture. They publish fiction and non-fiction in digital, audio and print format, from the world's best and most diverse authors, including Brit Bennett, Candice Carty-Williams, Martina Cole, Michael Connelly, John Grisham, Stephen King, Stieg Larsson, Nelson Mandela, Stephenie Meyer, Maggie O'Farrell, Delia Owens, Ian Rankin, J.K. Rowling, Colson Whitehead, and Malala Yousafzai. Hachette Children's Group publishes a wide and vibrant range of books for children across all age ranges, while Hachette Learning is a market leader in resources for both primary and secondary schools.

Hachette UK is part of Hachette Livre, the world's third largest trade and educational publisher. As well as our headquarters in Carmelite House, London, and our state-of-the-art book distribution centre in Didcot, Oxfordshire, we have recently opened five new offices in Manchester, Bristol, Sheffield, Newcastle, and Edinburgh. The UK region also includes offices in Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, the Caribbean, and Ireland.

It's an exciting time to join our business because the publishing market continues to grow and thrive. The UK remains the largest exporter of physical books in the world and book adaptations for film and TV are the foundation of the UK's creative industries.

What you'll be doing

Over the summer of 2026 we’re expanding the Hachette Design Internship.

We’re offering six places for enthusiastic creative talent to become an active member of three Hachette design teams (two weeks in each). The internship will offer a broad experience covering each division’s different areas of publishing, giving full oversight of the industry and what it takes to take a book from concept to the shelves of consumers.

Interns will work across a combination of the following divisions: Hachette Children’s, Hodder and Stoughton, Little, Brown Book Group, Orion, Octopus and Welbeck for the duration of the internship.

The focus of your work during this time will be completing a series of live briefs, as much as is feasible in the time. From first visuals, through the feedback stage and to have a final print-ready cover.

You will also be tasked with other jobs which would likely include:


• Shadowing designers on live projects,

• Attending cover visual and briefing meetings,

• Picture researching,

• Attending a photoshoot

• Art-working visuals to meet production standards

• Meeting colleagues in other key design-related departments (production, editorial, marketing)

Please include your CV, Cover Letter and Portfolio (which can be enclosed in the Cover Letter section).

The internships are scheduled to take place between June and September. The role is hybrid, with some home-working and suggested office presence. Hardware and software will be provided.

Who we are looking for

We’re looking for an enthusiastic creative with a passion for design to learn more about the world of book design within a publishing setting.

We don’t require any specific qualifications or training. We ask for evidence of your passion for books and design, with a portfolio of work that demonstrates your creative skills.

Our commitment

Hachette employs people on the basis of their abilities. We aim to attract and develop talent from a base as broad as the world of readers we want to reach, with a wide and representative range of age, faith, disability, race, gender, sexuality and socio-economic, regional and cultural backgrounds.

If you are shortlisted and require any reasonable adjustments to support you in the recruitment process, you will have an opportunity to make this request in your application.

The Book Trade Charity offers financial support to people looking to enter the book trade but who may struggle to afford the costs of attending interviews and undertaking junior roles. For more information visit www.booktradeentrysupport.org

We welcome and encourage applications from candidates who are under-represented in the creative industries.

Please make sure that you state in your application that you found this role via Creative Access.