Production assistant

Location: London
Department: Production, Priddy Books
Contract: Full Time, Permanent

Are you an enthusiastic, highly organized individual who would love to be surrounded by books all day? Build your publishing experience by supporting the production of baby, pre-school and novelty books at Priddy Books.
Priddy Books are a children’s publisher specializing in baby, pre-school, and novelty books. You will join a collaborative and energetic team that works closely alongside in-house creative departments and external global suppliers to bring engaging books from concept to delivery. Priddy Books are seeking an assistant to join our team in Farringdon, London. This position is a fantastic opportunity to support a busy production team with their admin and learn all aspects of book production within a supportive publishing environment.

Your Role
As Production Assistant, you will play a vital role in supporting the day-to-day operations of our production team. You will help maintain the safety and compliance documents for the team as well as handling some reprint titles and co-editions. You’ll build a strong knowledge of production workflows and supplier coordination.

Your Key Responsibilities

• Administrative and compliance management: Managing the admin for a busy team ensuring compliance documents are uploaded to the Biblio system.
• Supplier liaison and pricing clarity: Liaising with suppliers to ensure price scales are clear and up to date.
• Data preparation and meeting coordination: Preparing data for weekly meetings to ensure calls are seamless and all records are clear.
• Cross-functional team collaboration: Working closely with in-house creative teams to coordinate manufacturing requirements.
• Production support and reprint execution: Supporting production of reprints and co-editions, getting schedules and prices ready and handling some reprints and co-editions.

Essential Experience, Abilities, Knowledge and Values You’ll Need to Succeed

• Administrative and organizational excellence: Excellent general office and administrative skills, with a proven ability to prioritize a busy, varied workload and manage your time effectively to meet tight deadlines.
• Clear and proactive communication: Effective written and spoken communication skills, with the ability to negotiate, share information reliably, and build positive professional relationships with external suppliers and internal stakeholders.
• Financial and numerical aptitude: A high level of numeracy and solid financial awareness; comfortable working with costings and spreadsheets and processing invoices.
• Problem-solving and detail orientation: A proactive, solution-oriented approach to tasks, with a high degree of accuracy and attention to detail when managing records and schedules.
• Basic print process knowledge: A basic understanding of or curiosity about print processes and reprographics.
• Inclusion and representation: An active dedication to promoting diverse voices and inclusive practices, taking personal responsibility for ensuring our workplace and publishing reflect the communities we serve.
• Community: A collaborative approach to building a supportive and vibrant environment.
• Curiosity: A strong drive for learning and a readiness to embrace different perspectives.
• Integrity: A foundation of openness and honesty, taking responsibility for actions and learning from mistakes.

Desirable Skills We’d Love You to Have

• Office and administrative foundation: Basic familiarity with office systems, administration, or publishing processes.

What You’ll Get in Return

In return we can offer you a range of great projects, a supportive and collaborative working environment as well as a competitive salary and benefits package.

Some of the benefits we offer:

• 28 days’ annual leave increasing with years of service + bank holidays
• Generous pension scheme
• Discounted private medical insurance or health cash plan
• Group income protection scheme
• Enhanced family pay and leave
• Flexible working hours and summer hours (early finish on a Friday during summer months)
• 2 volunteer days per year
• 75% off all Pan Macmillan books and regular staff book sales (highly reduced rates)
• Season ticket loan/advance
• Cycle to work scheme
• Daily free breakfast and monthly company lunch

How to apply & eligibility:

• Our process: All applications must be submitted via our careers site to be considered. We are unable to accept CVs or applications sent via email.
• Our timelines: Because we review every application thoroughly and with care, our shortlisting process can take some time. We appreciate your patience and will be in touch as soon as we have an update on your application.
• Right to work: All applicants must be able to demonstrate the right to live and work in the UK in order to be considered for this role.

Our commitment to diversity & inclusion:
At Pan Macmillan, we are committed to publishing a wide range of voices that reflect the full breadth of the communities we serve. Joining us means playing an active role in bringing our titles to life as part of a team that champions inclusion at every level. We are dedicated to building a workplace that is as diverse and welcoming as the stories we tell, ensuring all perspectives are celebrated across everything we do.

We welcome applications from all individuals, including any age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. Our efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are ongoing, and we continually strive to learn and improve.

Disability confident scheme:
As a Disability Confident employer, we actively encourage applications from disabled candidates and people with long-term health conditions, aiming to offer an interview to everyone who meets the essential criteria for the role and chooses to apply under the scheme. The essential criteria can be found under our ‘Essential experience, abilities, knowledge and values you’ll need to succeed’ section.

Please note, some of our vacancies attract an exceptionally high volume of applications. In these circumstances, to ensure a fair and focused process for everyone, we may need to limit the overall number of interviews. Where this happens, we will look closely at who most closely aligns with the requirements to select the candidates applying under this scheme who best meet the essential criteria, in line with official government guidance.

Please remember that you are never required to disclose a disability to us, and you only need to share what you feel comfortable with.

Adjustment & support:
We want to ensure that all candidates are supported throughout the recruitment process. If you have any reasonable adjustments or accessibility requirements, please contact gillian.dacosta@macmillan.com.

Privacy notice:
All personal information which we process in connection with your application will be treated in accordance with our Recruitment Privacy Notice. Please read this notice before submitting your application.

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.