Journal manager, Production

Closing date: 3rd February 2025

Salary: £30,000 per annum, dependent on skills and experience

Location: We operate a hybrid working policy that requires a minimum of 2 days per week in the Oxford office.

Do you want to help shape the future of academic publishing?

We are looking for a new Journal Manager, to support external clients (journal editors, Society and editorial office staff) by ensuring production processes and outputs match client needs, troubleshooting, advising on best practices and reporting on production performance as required. You will collaborate with clients and suppliers by proposing, agreeing and managing changes in production processes and requirements as needs evolve, and where such changes improve the quality, efficiency, and standardisation of work. Please note that we have both permanent and fixed term positions available for this role.

Responsibilities

• Consult with clients on options for all aspects of the production process, making recommendations in line with business goals to ensure strong, sustainable processes that match client needs and meet client expectations, and highlighting risks associated with customised requirements.
• Ensure updates to client requirements are promptly communicated to the relevant teams and accurately documented, to support effective delivery of content and services to agreed standards.
• Act as the point of contact for queries and feedback received from journals clients, responding in a timely and professional manner to resolve varied issues, provide analysis, and improve production performance, and representing OUP’s production services in conference calls and face-to-face meetings with clients.
• As required, provide regular or ad hoc reports to clients accurately to an agreed timeline, demonstrating production performance against agreed goals, providing contextual information and analysis, and where appropriate making recommendations to improve processes and performance.
• Proactively recommend updates or changes to the production process relevant to the client and internal stakeholders, soliciting feedback or decisions where required, to support department and business goals of ensuring an outstanding experience for customers and clients during the production process.
• Maintain accurate journal-level documentation (style guides, process instructions, feedback records).
• Manage delivery of journal-level changes to processes or requirements, including working with internal teams and external suppliers to co-ordinate implementation.
• Support external editors in selecting journal issue line-ups, including providing accurately reports of available articles, to ensure the timely publication of journal issues.

Knowledge, skills and experience

Essential

• Experience in relationship management in a professional environment
• Excellent communication skills
• Superior negotiation and influencing skills
• Ability to comprehend and communicate complex information
• Ability to work independently, handle multiple projects simultaneously, and work to tight deadlines
• Ability to manage contractors or 3rd-party suppliers
• Ability to work in a team
• Ability to learn quickly and work flexibly with varied software
• Good organisational skills
• Good IT skills

Desirable

• Experience in a publishing environment
• Experience in a production environment
• Excellent presentation skills
• Experience in client account management

Benefits

We care about work/life balance here at OUP. With this in mind we offer 25 days’ holiday that rises with service, plus bank holidays and Christmas closure (3-days) and a 35-hour working week. We are open to discussing flexibility in respect to working patterns, dependent on role. We also have a great variety of active employee networks and societies. 

We help make your money go further by contributing to your pension up to 12%, offering loans and savings schemes through our partnership with Salary Finance, in addition to travel to work schemes and access to a wide range of local discounts.

We are committed to supporting diversity in our workforce, and ensuring an inclusive environment where all individuals can thrive. We seek to employ a workforce representative of the markets that we serve and encourage applications from all.

Please state in your application that you found this role through Creative Access.