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Contracts Assistant

What You’ll Be Doing

As Contracts Assistant you will provide administrative and project support to the individual contracts teams for Hachette’s publishing divisions.

You will work closely with existing contracts staff, providing support to the director and manager(s) on a regular basis, and other team members as required.

The contracts department of 20 people handles approximately 3,000 contractual paperwork requests per annum. This includes author contracts, subsidiary rights agreements and other contractual paperwork such as amendments and contributor agreements. 

Who we are looking for

We are looking for someone with:

  • Meticulous eye for detail.
  • Computer literacy – good skills in Word, Excel, PowerPoint.
  • Knowledge of, or aptitude for, relevant applications/systems, e.g. Biblio.
  • Personal organisation.
  • Excellent standard of written and spoken English.
  • Ability to communicate and build positive working relationship with contacts at all levels.
  • Ability to work collaboratively as part of a team.
  • Adaptability.
  • Interest in the publishing industry.

What we offer

Our staff are our greatest asset and our benefits reflect this. In addition to 25 days annual leave days per year plus bank holidays, we have an extensive list of benefits that include: a wide-ranging training library, development programmes including mentoring, cycle to work vouchers, private medical Insurance, eye care vouchers, up to 70% off book purchases, a charity book shelf, two volunteer days per year to use at your charity of choice, many employee networks to join, summer hours (finishing at 1pm on Fridays during the summer months!), season ticket loans, rent deposit loans, generous pension schemes and much more!

The role will begin working from home due to ongoing Covid-19 restrictions, but once normality resumes this role will be based at our London office, Carmelite House, with a blend of in-office (three days) and homeworking (two days) per week.

Who we are and what we do

About Hachette UK

Hachette UK is a creative powerhouse and the UK’s second largest book publishing group. Our mission is to make it easy for everyone, everywhere, to unlock new worlds of ideas, learning, entertainment and opportunity.

We’re made up of 10 autonomous publishing divisions and over 50 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; Quercus; Octopus and Bookouture. 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.

We also publish leading authors in many specialist areas of the market, including Mental Health, Business & Finance, Coaching, Autism, Dyslexia, Yoga, Fashion, Art and Photography.

Hachette Children's Group publishes a wide and vibrant range of books for children across all age ranges, while Hodder Education 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 because 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.

Our culture

People at Hachette UK are incredibly proud of the contribution publishing makes to the world and we believe that embracing diversity in all its forms is the key to creating a culture that will make us a better publisher. Our people thrive in an environment that accepts and encourages the sharing of different ideas and opinions, and we publish a wide range of voices to reach the broadest audience possible.

Five years ago, we created ‘Changing the Story’, a programme of strategic policies, cultural initiatives and progressive partnerships to put diversity at the heart of everything we do. It is now one of the four pillars of our business strategy and something that every colleague is involved in from the day they join Hachette UK.

As part of ‘Changing the Story’, we have eight employee networks to foster inclusion and belonging, and to bring about ongoing change in our company and the wider industry. These include Hachette Pride, which is dedicated to sharing the voices of LGBTQ+ staff and authors, Hachette THRIVE, which supports our Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff and authors, and Hachette Gender Balance, which works to ensure balanced recruitment and progression for all genders within the company. Today, more than a thousand employees are members of one or more of these networks.

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 for 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

Closing date: Sunday 3 October 2021.

Contracts Assistant

Hachette UK, London
Full-time, Permanent
Publisher
Contracts
Salary description: 
£24,000 per annum

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