Senior communications consultant (12 month FTC)

Closing date for applications: Sunday 1st February 2026

Salary: £50,000 - £60,000 dependent on experience and location (+bonus +benefits)

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

Shape strategic communications at the heart of the publishing industry, working across books, people and culture.

Hachette UK is a creative powerhouse and the UK's second largest book publishing group. Our mission is to make it easy for everyone to discover new worlds of ideas, learning, entertainment and opportunity. We're made up of 10 autonomous publishing divisions and over 60 imprints with a rich and diverse history and an incredible range of authors. We're also the market leader in e-books and publish a range of bestsellers in audio format, the fastest growing part of our business.

Our award-winning adult publishing divisions are Orion, which won Publisher of the Year at the 2021 British Book Awards; Little, Brown; John Murray Press; Hodder & Stoughton; Headline; Octopus, and Bookouture, which won British Book Awards' Imprint of the Year in 2025. They publish fiction and non-fiction in digital, audio and print format, from the world's best and most diverse authors, including Brit Bennett, Candice Carty-Williams, Martina Cole, Michael Connelly, John Grisham, Stephen King, Stieg Larsson, Nelson Mandela, Stephenie Meyer, Maggie O'Farrell, Delia Owens, Ian Rankin, J.K. Rowling, Colson Whitehead, and Malala Yousafzai. Hachette Children's Group publishes a wide and vibrant range of books for children across all age ranges, while Hachette Learning is a market leader in resources for both primary and secondary schools.

Hachette UK is part of Hachette Livre, the world's third largest trade and educational publisher. As well as our headquarters in Carmelite House, London, and our state-of-the-art book distribution centre in Didcot, Oxfordshire, we have recently opened five new offices in Manchester, Bristol, Sheffield, Newcastle, and Edinburgh. The UK region also includes offices in Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, the Caribbean, and Ireland.

It's an exciting time to join our business as the publishing market continues to grow and thrive. The UK remains the largest exporter of physical books in the world and book adaptations for film and TV are the foundation of the UK's creative industries.

What you'll be doing

• Strategic Communications: advising on and executing a robust internal communications strategy that aligns with Hachette UK’s mission and pillars.
• Strategic Advisory: acting as a trusted advisor to the business on communication issues that influence company reputation and the overall employee experience.
• Integrated Communications: Collaborating with our HR team, Divisional Communications Directors, and Hachette UK Board members to ensure a unified voice for both internal and external stakeholders.
• Employee experience focused: front-footed in finding efficient ways to make it easy for staff to get information and news, including working on internal events, both in office and off-site.
• Content & Engagement: driving communications and leveraging analytics and listening tools to fine-tune our activity and deliver high-impact storytelling.
• External Representation: Supporting the Group Communications Director by contributing to the creation and drafting of communication and building on the company’s presence on external channels, including our website, LinkedIn and Instagram.
• Adaptive Expertise: Working flexibly and intuitively to lend expertise in line with changing business needs, ensuring the communications function remains agile in an evolving landscape.

Who we are looking for

An experienced and strategic communicator with:

• Exceptional communication skills and proven success in developing and executing impactful internal and external communications strategies and plans. As well as the ability to distill business initatives into simple, persuasive, and engaging content for a broad audience.
• Outstanding owner mentality,who is solution-focused and brilliant at taking the initative.
• Strategic agility and ability to balance long-term strategic planning with a "hands-on" approach to delivery in a fast-paced environment.
• Expert stakeholder management skills. Someone who is confident in building relationships and gaining buy-in from senior leaders, acting as a trusted advisor on sensitive issues.
• Digital expertise in using platforms and tools to enhance communication reach and monitor impact.
• External understanding and experience in external communications or PR, ideally in the arts sector, and experience with media relations and responding to press office queries.

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)
• 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!

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.