Marketing assistant

Closing date for applications: 19 August 2026

Salary: £28,250 based in London; £26,000 based outside of London (+bonus +benefits)

From Attenborough to Elly Griffiths – join the marketing engine behind some of the UK's biggest books and get your first step into publishing.

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 fiction brands such as Mick Herron, Elly Griffiths and Beth O'Leary and the biggest names in non-fiction including David Attenborough, Trevor Noah and Miriam Margolyes. We pride ourselves on being entrepreneurial, curious, and excited about discovering and nurturing new voices that can shape and shake our world.

What you'll be doing

Supporting a team of ten ambitious trade marketers, you’ll play a vital role in assisting across the breadth of the John Murray Group’s trade publishing by ensuring that administrative activities are managed accurately, efficiently, and professionally. You’ll learn how to support a thriving team, delivering on key requirements of the role including:

• Providing administrative support for the team, including managing the marketing email inbox, organising meetings, minute-taking, updating data in our systems and raising POs/invoices
• Co-ordinating the design, production and distribution of marketing materials, in print and digital formats
• Honing your skills to pitching for coverage in trade media such as The Bookseller
• Researching and collating information for internal and external presentations
• Assisting in organising key marketing events and attending where needed
• Contributing creatively to the development of digital marketing, e.g. communities, blogs, social media channels, newsletters etc.
• Attending training and then using relevant systems to run datasets for the marketing team
• Supporting the team on campaign tasks including influencer research, bookseller outreach and mailings

Who we are looking for

Are you organised and efficient, a team-player with a positive outlook and a love for books? We’d love to hear from you!

We are looking for a marketing assistant to support our team. A successful candidate for this role will be accurate and efficient within an admin role, with a proactive approach to managing tasks and supporting a busy team. We’d love to hear from you if you enjoy working collaboratively and are also able to use your own initiative and prioritise when completing independent tasks. You’ll be extremely organised and reliable, able to manage multiple deadlines simultaneously and unafraid to ask questions in the spirit of learning how best to support across the team. Strong written and spoken communication skills are essential, as you’ll be interacting with colleagues from all departments, as well as external stakeholders such as authors.

This is an entry-level role and previous publishing experience is not required, but we'd welcome candidates with proven admin and organisation skills and ideally experience working in a busy environment.

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
• An active range of staff-led employee networks that are voluntary, including AgeWise, Gender Balance, Thrive, Pride, All Together, Wellbeing, Women in Techand religious networks
• Season ticket loans
• And much more!

This role can be based at our London, Edinburgh or Sheffield offices, 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.

We want everyone to have the opportunity to perform at their best during our recruitment process. If you need any adjustments, you can let us know at the ‘Reasonable Adjustments’ section of your application. We’ll make sure you’re supported throughout the process.

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

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