Production trainee

Closing date for applications: 26 October 2025

Salary: £25,500 per annum - plus financial travel support

Learn the ins and outs of book production in this six-month traineeship! From initial costings to final delivery, you'll gain hands-on experience and insight into the process that transforms creative ideas into beautifully finished books.

The scheme is for voices we want to hear more of in publishing. Could yours be one of them?

Make your mark by spending six months between January – July 2026 working with the best at the number one publisher in the UK. You’ll immerse yourself within one of our key business areas, learning the ropes, taking ownership of projects and contributing to our mission to make books for everyone. Whatever team you’re placed with, you’ll gain universally applicable skills that will equip you for wherever you go next. We’ll teach you about all publishing and Penguin, and support you to make the next steps in your career journey.

The scheme is for people from lower socio-economic backgrounds. If you meet this eligibility criteria but perhaps you’re changing careers, don’t have a degree, or haven’t often seen yourself reflected in publishing, we’d love you to apply! Whatever your gender, background, or community, we want to hear your story. All trainees are paid £25,500 per annum (equivalent to £12,750 for the six months of the traineeship). We also offer a travel bursary for those commuting from outside of London. For further information and the full role descriptions, please see our website.


Production trainee

Our publishing operations teams oversee the making of our finished products in their various formats. From costing for acquisition to paper type and finishes – they bring our books from ideas to actuality. Within publishing operations, production teams play a pivotal role in the publishing process by transforming print files into physical and digital books for readers across the world. They project manage each book from its inception to delivery to the customer. This means liaising with several departments and printers throughout the process to ensure that everything is running smoothly and that critical deadlines are met within the schedule.

As a trainee in the production team, you’ll be working on colour-illustrated production across the Children’s and Quadrille publishing houses. You’ll support on a range of tasks in the production of our print titles, including costing, scheduling, quality control, tracking deliveries and attending meetings. You’ll work with colleagues across the business as well as liaising with external suppliers.

Knowledge and skills you’ll gain: an understanding of the process of producing a book, including colour management; an insight into how production can contribute to sustainability goals; communication and negotiation skills; organisational skills; attention to detail; technical knowledge of complex systems (e.g. Biblio).

If you’re organised, have good attention to detail, and interested in how things work, this could be the role for you.


Eligibility criteria

You’ll need to have a pre-existing right to work in the UK for the duration of the traineeship as unfortunately we are not able to offer visa sponsorship. You don’t need a degree, you just need to be over 18. To achieve our mission to make books for everyone because a book can change anyone, we are seeking out new voices. To apply, you’ll need to identify as from a lower socio-economic background. We use parental occupation at age 14 to measure this as the Social Mobility Commission suggests it to be the most accurate measure available to assess socio-economic background, as well as being accessible to those from all nationalities.

To apply for the scheme, at age 14 your highest-earning parent/guardian was not in management and was employed in one of the following categories: 

• technical and craft occupations such as motor mechanic, plumber, printer, electrician, gardener, train driver
• routine, semi-routine manual and service occupations such as postal worker, machine operative, security guard, caretaker, farm worker, catering assistant, sales assistant, HGV driver, cleaner, porter, packer, labourer, waiter or waitress, bar staff
• unemployed (claimed Jobseeker’s Allowance or earlier unemployment benefit for more than a year)

We recognise these are broad categories that may not fully reflect the many hundreds of jobs out there, or exactly fit your family situation. Please use your judgement when self-identifying.

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