Junior designer

Closing date for applications: 19 September 2025

Salary: £27,000+ dependent on experience and location (+bonus +benefits)

Locations: This role can be based at our London or Sheffield office, with a blend of in-office (3 days) and homeworking (2 days) per week.

Develop your design career in publishing by supporting experienced designers and creating standout, market-leading covers.

The John Murray Group, which encompasses John Murray Press, Quercus and John Murray Specialist, is one of the fastest growing and most profitable divisions of Hachette UK, with imprints that encompass a range of bestselling, pioneering and prize-winning publishing. From exciting debuts, crime fiction and celebrity-led titles, to lifestyle, memoir, history and thought-provoking non-fiction, we are home to bestselling authors and brands such as Billy Connolly, Miriam Margolyes, Mick Herron, Trevor Noah and Akala. Short-listed for Publisher of the Year at the British Book Awards in 2022. We pride ourselves on being entrepreneurial, curious, and excited about discovering and nurturing new voices that can shape and shake our world.

This an exciting opportunity for a creative and organised individual, who is looking to start their career in publishing design. Reporting to the deputy art director, you will be developing market-leading designs for our book covers, with a particular focus on our specialist non-fiction imprints. These imprints include Sheldon Press, John Murray Business, Hodder Faith and John Murray Learning. Not only will you be fully immersed in the whole cover design process with guidance from senior designers, but you will be adapting international buy-in titles to fit the UK market, and supporting the wider team with their own creative projects.

You’ll be full of creative energy and thrive on working with an engaged, passionate, and close-knit team, where you can learn and develop your skills. Your portfolio will demonstrate a strong understanding of type and image, as well as a range of projects showing an understanding of designing for specific markets. You will be full of ideas, and eager to learn and develop in this fast paced, supportive environment.


Responsibilities

• To be responsible for appropriate and distinctive designs that fit market needs across all imprints, with a particular focus on our Specialist non-fiction imprints
• To be personally responsible for designing approximately 30 covers per year
• Seeing through projects from initial research and visuals stage to sending print ready files to production
• Supporting senior colleagues with artworking tasks
• Adapting international buy-in artwork to fit best within the UK market
• Keeping up to date with publishing and design markets and trends, to inform your designs

Knowledge, skills and experience

• Technical design skills, including proficiency with a Mac and Adobe creative software (Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, etc.)
• A portfolio which shows a passion for design, full of ideas, with range of projects that demonstrate technical skill and market awareness
• Some understanding of both print and digital production techniques
• Happy supporting colleagues as well as working independently on your own projects
• Flexible, highly motivated and organised – can prioritise workloads effectively
• Knowledge of or interest in book design, as well as visual design in general
• Understands consumer needs and how to position a design within the market
• Meticulous eye for detail

In your application, please submit your CV, cover letter and portfolio of recent work (which is in the cover letter section).


What we offer

Our staff are our greatest asset, and our benefits reflect this:

• 28 annual leave days per year, increases to 29 days after 2 years' service and goes up to 30 days after 5 years' (+ bank holidays)
• Private medical insurance
• Dental insurance
• Generous pension schemes
• Rent deposit loans
• 2 community days per year
• Summer hours (finishing at 1pm on Fridays during the summer months)
• Retail discounts through Hachette rewards
• Cycle to Work scheme
• Eye care vouchers
• Wide-ranging training library
• Development programmes (including mentoring)
• Up to 70% off book purchases
• A charity bookshelf
• 12 Staff-led employee networks that are voluntary, including Gender Balance, Thrive, Pride, All Together, Wellbeing and religious networks
• Season ticket loans
• And much more!

Our commitment

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

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 need us to make any adjustments to help you attend for interview, please let us know.

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