Junior designer

Closing date for applications: Monday 2 February 2026

Salary: £28,000 - £31,000 dependent on experience (+bonus +benefits)

Location: London

Hachette Children's group is seeking a Junior Designer to support it's award-winning fiction list.

Hachette Children's Group is one of the UK's largest children's publishers, our mission is to make it easy for children and young people everywhere to access books and see themselves reflected. We aim to maximise our readers' life chances by inspiring a lifelong love of reading, publishing books for every stage of their journey to adulthood from Enid Blyton to Alice Oseman's Heartstopper. Hachette Children's Group is a division of Hachette, one of the largest publishing groups in the UK, with 10 publishing divisions and over 60 imprints. Everyone here is proud to be in the business of opening doors and minds.

What you'll be doing

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a talented, motivated and creative Junior Designer to join the Hachette Children’s Fiction team in a full-time position.

• Reporting to the Senior Designer for Fiction/Non-fiction you’ll design a select number of titles from start to finish, as well as providing design support on others.
• Working closely with the editors, Senior Designer and the Art Director you’ll also be involved in the development of existing titles, exploring formats and designing occasional marketing material.
• You will need to ensure that all work is delivered to the highest standard and on schedule, and that all administration and file management is up to date and accurate.
• You’ll be involved in every aspect of the design process, working closely with staff in all other departments.

Who we are looking for

We are looking for a highly creative and organised Junior Designer to join the Hachette Children’s Group, working on the Fiction list on titles for ages ranging from 5-YA. The successful candidate will have excellent design and visual communication skills, as well as collaboration and project management capabilities.

This is a broad and varied role, and the right candidate will embrace working closely with the editors, Senior Designer and the Art Director in the development of new and existing titles, exploring formats and designing occasional marketing material. We are looking for a versatile Junior Designer who is aware of current trends and likes to develop new ideas. We need you to bring a positive, can-do approach and a desire to build strong relationships with your immediate team, other departments, as well as illustrators, authors and agents.

• An understanding of good design and a passion for children's fiction is essential.
• Applicants should also have an appreciation and enthusiasm for the illustrators who work within this area of the market.
• An excellent knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite is essential.

In your application, please submit your CV, cover letter, and a PDF Portfolio of recent relevant work (which is uploaded 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 AgeWise, Gender Balance, Thrive, Pride, All Together, Wellbeing and religious networks
• Season ticket loans
• And much more!

The role will be based at our London with a blend of in-office (3 days) and homeworking (2 days) per week.

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

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.