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Closing date for applications: 5 October 2025Salary: £50,000+ dependent on experience (+bonus +benefits)Location: This role can be based at our London or Sheffield office, with a blend of in-office (3 days) and homeworking (2 days) per week. Use your negotiation skills to shape the deals behind bestselling books while leading the contracts teams of two dynamic publishing divisions.Hachette UK is a creative powerhouse and the UK's second largest book publishing group. We're made up of 11 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.Hachette Children's Group is of the UK's largest children's publishers. Our mission is to make it easy for children and young people everywhere to access books and see themselves reflected. We aim to maximise our readers' life chances by inspiring a lifelong love of reading, publishing books for every stage of their journey to adulthood from Enid Blyton to Alice Oseman's Heartstopper. Octopus publishes books for everyone. We love to enlighten, nourish, entertain and most of all inspire readers and listeners everywhere. Octopus is a leader in illustrated publishing, across all categories but especially in food &amp; drink. We have a truly international business, selling directly into every territory in both English language and Foreign co-editions.The contracts &amp; business affairs department powers the creative success of Hachette UK’s publishing divisions through technical expertise and sound commercial partnership. We engage with authors, editors, agents, and marketing teams at all stages of a book’s lifecycle, from pre-acquisition through to production, promotion, publication and beyond. The department comprises a team of 21 who handle approximately 3,500 contractual paperwork requests per annum, which include a wide variety of contracts. We are looking for a senior manager, contracts &amp; business affairs, to lead the Hachette Children's Group (HCG) and Octopus Publishing Group (OPG) contracts teams as a parental leave cover.&nbsp; What you'll be doingPart of the HUK contracts senior team and reporting to the director for contracts &amp; business affairs, the successful candidate will work closely with the HCG and OPG publishing teams as well as with colleagues in the contracts &amp; business affairs department to:<ul><li>Ensure contracts are drafted and negotiated to high standards working within company policy and KPIs</li><li>Advise editorial and publishing teams on contractual elements of acquisitions</li><li>Draft and review contracts including brand licensing agreements, and negotiate amendments as needed</li><li>Draft, check and amend other contractual paperwork, including addenda, novations, reversions and cancellations</li><li>Handle internal and external contract queries</li><li>Take part in IP creation projects in an advisory role</li><li>Line manage line report(s) and train and develop members of the teams as appropriate</li><li>Build and maintain successful working relationships with colleagues at all levels of the contracts &amp; business affairs department, HCG, OPG and other relevant HUK teams</li><li>Use initiative, within the parameters of company and group policies, to find creative solutions to unusual problems arising from complex negotiations</li><li>Deliver training to editors and others at HCG and OPG on contracts &amp; business affairs department processes and guidelines</li><li>Lead the HCG and OPG contracts teams and be the team's first point of contact with the Orion leadership team</li></ul> Who we are looking for<ul><li>Proven experience in contracts (or business affairs/legal) in the publishing, media or entertainment sectors</li><li>Advanced drafting skills</li><li>Ability to conduct effective negotiations</li><li>Ability to lead a team that thrives</li><li>Thorough understanding of copyright and contract law, relevant knowledge of other intellectual property law e.g. trademarks</li><li>Knowledge of, or aptitude for, relevant applications/systems</li><li>Commercial awareness and financial literacy</li><li>Ability to communicate and build positive working relationships with contacts at all levels</li></ul> What we offerOur staff are our greatest asset, and our benefits reflect this:<ul><li>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)</li><li>Generous pension schemes</li><li>Rent deposit loans</li><li>2 community days per year</li><li>Summer hours (finishing at 1pm on Fridays during the summer months)</li><li>Retail discounts through Hachette rewards</li><li>Cycle to Work scheme</li><li>Eye care vouchers</li><li>Wide-ranging training library</li><li>Development programmes (including mentoring)</li><li>Up to 70% off book purchases</li><li>A charity bookshelf</li><li>12 Staff-led employee networks that are voluntary, including&nbsp;Gender Balance, Thrive, Pride, All Together, Wellbeing&nbsp;and Religious networks</li><li>Season ticket loans</li><li>And much more!</li></ul> Our commitmentThe 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&nbsp;<a href="http://www.booktradeentrysupport.org/" target="_blank">www.booktradeentrysupport.org</a> 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 for interview, please let us know.Please state in your application that you found this role through Creative Access.

Carmelite House

Hachette UK

Senior contracts manager (13 month FTC cover)

Closing date for applications: 22 September 2025Salary: Starting from £36,000 Bring your negotiation skills to a leading global publisher and shape the contracts that deliver bestselling books across the UK, Australia and India.Simon &amp; Schuster, a global leader in general interest publishing, is dedicated to providing the best in fiction and nonfiction for readers of all ages, and in all printed, digital and audio formats. Its distinguished roster of authors includes many of the world’s most popular and widely recognised writers, and winners of the most prestigious literary honours and awards. It is home to numerous well-known imprints and divisions such as Simon &amp; Schuster, Scribner, Atria Books, Gallery Books, Adams Media, Avid Reader Press, Simon &amp; Schuster Children’s Publishing and Simon &amp; Schuster Audio and international companies in Australia, Canada, India, and the United Kingdom, and proudly brings the works of its authors to readers in more than 200 countries and territories.We are looking to recruit an enthusiastic and proactive contracts manager, responsible for drafting and negotiating contracts for the UK, Australia and India adult and children’s publishing divisions. They will provide contractual advice across the business, delivering a focused and quality service. This role will include line management responsibility for the contracts assistant. Responsibilities<ul><li>Reporting to the head of contracts, the contracts manager will draft and negotiate contracts with authors, agents, publishers, and other third parties for the acquisition of rights across key territories</li><li>The successful candidate will work closely with internal stakeholders to negotiate favourable terms and will provide legal and contractual advice to editorial teams</li><li>The role also includes analysing US and agency contracts, advising colleagues on contractual queries, and overseeing digitalisation of backlist contracts</li><li>The successful candidate will oversee workflow, maintain high-quality standards, and support team members’ professional growth and development</li></ul> Knowledge, skills and experience<ul><li>The ideal candidate will be organised and efficient, a competent negotiator, and have excellent verbal and written communication skills</li><li>Strong interpersonal skills are essential for building and maintaining effective working relationships</li><li>Candidates must have relevant experience working with publishing or media-related contracts, trade publishing experience being desirable, with a solid understanding of current publishing practices</li><li>A good grounding in administration, IT and&nbsp; database systems is a must</li><li>A legal background is advantageous but not essential</li></ul> Simon &amp; Schuster UK is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, colour, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, creed, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship status, marital status, disability, gender identity and gender expression. At Simon &amp; Schuster UK, the spirit of inclusion feeds into everything that we do, we believe that opportunity, access, resources and rewards should be available to and for the benefit of all.Please state in your application that you found this role through Creative Access.

Simon & Schuster UK

Contracts manager (FTC)

2 Business Development / Sales / Rights / Legal Fixed term contract Opportunities