Rights and sales trainee

Closing date for applications: 26 October 2025

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

Want to help books reach audiences around the globe? This traineeship offers the chance to discover how stories are sold, translated and adapted for readers worldwide.

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.


Rights and sales trainee

The Penguin Random House rights teams help our established brands and debut author talent go global. We expand our books to reach readers in other markets including:

• USA: where we secure deals with the best US publishers to publish our books
• Dramatisation: where we connect with media partners to turn our books into films, television programs and theatre productions
• Translations: where we negotiate with international publishers to translate our UK titles and publish into other languages (sometimes up to 50 languages or more!).

As a trainee with the rights team, you’ll help make sure our books reach global audiences through translations and adaptations. You’ll split your time between children’s rights and adult’s rights, working with a range of different titles and exciting author brands. You’ll help support activity around international book fairs, research international markets, create sales materials including genre rights guides and update international publisher information and networks of contacts.

Knowledge and skills you’ll gain: an understanding of how books reach global audiences; sales and negotiation skills; an understanding of consumer reading trends in international markets; organisational skills; project management skills; how to add value to a sales team.

If you have a passion for books and the ability to enthuse and inspire others, 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.