Production Editor - Fixed-term, Maternity Cover
London, England, United Kingdom Full-time Posted 1 week ago
The Royal Society is the UK's national academy for science. Its purpose is to recognise, promote and support excellence in science, and encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity. Scholarly communication has been central to the Society's mission since it launched the world's first scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions, in 1665. Researchers who have published in the journals of The Royal Society include Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke, Benjamin Franklin, Caroline Herschel, Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday, Dorothy Hodgkin, James Clerk Maxwell, Albert Einstein, Kathleen Lonsdale, Alan Turing and Stephen Hawking.
The Publishing section publishes a portfolio of 11 prestigious journals, which disseminate high quality research worldwide and generate a positive financial return for The Royal Society. The Society is committed to making all of its journals Open Access on sustainable models.
The Production Editor plays a critical role in ensuring the accuracy, consistency, and timely delivery of journal content. This position involves coordinating with authors, freelancers and vendors to oversee the copyediting, typesetting, proofreading and final quality checks of manuscripts. The Production Editor ensures that all content follows in-house style guidelines and industry standards. They are also responsible for adhering to production schedules, resolving content or formatting issues, and supporting continuous improvements in workflow efficiency and quality control.
Reports to: Production Manager
Line manages: none
Location: Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AG plus hybrid working
Hours: Full time, 35 hours a week
Contract: 10 month fixed-term maternity cover
Pay band: C
Salary: £35, 726 per annum
The application closing date is 29 June 2026 at 23:59.
Interviews will be held on 9 July 2026
Key Skills And Responsibilities
At Band C you will hold a specialist role. Pay Band C roles are described in the following dimensions:
Decision-making - Your work is varied and you have a range of administrative or technical tasks. You take decisions in line with specific routines, guidelines or procedures. You plan your own work and coordinate with others on how their work fits into the broader plan of activities. Supervision is available for issues that fall outside of existing operating guidelines or your realm of knowledge
Thinking challenges - The solutions to issues or problems are not always obvious and investigation is needed before choosing a way forward. Your initiative is required to help find ways to improve working practices and procedures in your area of work, in sorting out problems that occur in day-to-day work or improvements to work processes.
Communicating - You maintain relationships which involve liaison or coordinating with a range of internal and/or external contacts on mainly transactional issues.
Developing people - You may be responsible for allocating work to, or checking the work of less experienced colleagues
Managing Resources - You may perform activities such as reconciling information/data or analyses of expenditure or income, adhering to agreed procedures
Applying knowledge & expertise - You require proficiency in, and keeping up to date with, skills required for your area of work or technical skills acquired through relevant work experience and/or vocational qualification.
The competency levels for a pay Band C role are described below.
Self-management
The Publishing section publishes a portfolio of 11 prestigious journals, which disseminate high quality research worldwide and generate a positive financial return for The Royal Society. The Society is committed to making all of its journals Open Access on sustainable models.
The Production Editor plays a critical role in ensuring the accuracy, consistency, and timely delivery of journal content. This position involves coordinating with authors, freelancers and vendors to oversee the copyediting, typesetting, proofreading and final quality checks of manuscripts. The Production Editor ensures that all content follows in-house style guidelines and industry standards. They are also responsible for adhering to production schedules, resolving content or formatting issues, and supporting continuous improvements in workflow efficiency and quality control.
Reports to: Production Manager
Line manages: none
Location: Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AG plus hybrid working
Hours: Full time, 35 hours a week
Contract: 10 month fixed-term maternity cover
Pay band: C
Salary: £35, 726 per annum
The application closing date is 29 June 2026 at 23:59.
Interviews will be held on 9 July 2026
Key Skills And Responsibilities
- Administer all stages of the production process (typesetting, proofing, checking online PDF and XML/HTML formats and print issues) in a timely manner and to the required high standard.
- Proof-read, where necessary, all publishable work for scientific consistency and presentation (online and print), advising authors accordingly. Compile additional content.
- Source and select cover pictures.
- Approve electronic content to schedule.
- Monitor actual versus page budgets.
- Monitor the journal KPIs using internal dashboards. Interpret data to identify and act on issues.
- Assure secure storage of content in structured format for easy repurposing.
- Co-ordinate editors, authors and suppliers to meet contractual publication dates.
- Communicate with editors, authors and suppliers in a timely and professional manner.
- Implement appropriate quality-control checks at all stages, ensuring high standards are maintained.
- Send print orders to printer upon publication of issues.
- Raise purchase orders and enter invoices into finance system, flagging any discrepancies or questionable invoices to the relevant Production and Finance staff or to the Head of Editorial & Production.
- Check Empress to ensure publication list is correct.
- Alert Production Manager to problems (shortfall/excess of material, supplier issues, author complaints, integrity concerns, scheduling delays).
- Ensure quality and timely adoption of new projects and new methodologies.
- Project work as required.
- Provide appropriate cover for other members of the Production team in periods of absence as required.
- Perform additional duties as assigned by Production Manager.
- Demonstrable attention to detail (essential).
- Excellent written and oral communication skills (essential).
- Sound IT skills (MS Office and bespoke production systems) (essential).
- STM journal publishing experience (desirable).
At Band C you will hold a specialist role. Pay Band C roles are described in the following dimensions:
Decision-making - Your work is varied and you have a range of administrative or technical tasks. You take decisions in line with specific routines, guidelines or procedures. You plan your own work and coordinate with others on how their work fits into the broader plan of activities. Supervision is available for issues that fall outside of existing operating guidelines or your realm of knowledge
Thinking challenges - The solutions to issues or problems are not always obvious and investigation is needed before choosing a way forward. Your initiative is required to help find ways to improve working practices and procedures in your area of work, in sorting out problems that occur in day-to-day work or improvements to work processes.
Communicating - You maintain relationships which involve liaison or coordinating with a range of internal and/or external contacts on mainly transactional issues.
Developing people - You may be responsible for allocating work to, or checking the work of less experienced colleagues
Managing Resources - You may perform activities such as reconciling information/data or analyses of expenditure or income, adhering to agreed procedures
Applying knowledge & expertise - You require proficiency in, and keeping up to date with, skills required for your area of work or technical skills acquired through relevant work experience and/or vocational qualification.
The competency levels for a pay Band C role are described below.
Self-management
- Works unsupervised and can motivate self
- Produces results under pressure
- Can manage in stressful situations
- Pushes for the best results
- Contributes ideas and identifies opportunities to work with others both within the team and across the organisation
- Willing to provide feedback to sectional colleagues when requested Produces succinct presentations and papers for senior colleagues
- Understands when to seek senior advice on potentially delicate negotiations
- Makes the best of internal/external resources and coordinates well with external partners to best meet the needs of the Society
- Builds contingency into projects taking into account possible outside factors
- Sets and monitors performance against quality and results orientated targets.
- Focuses on both short and long-term goals
- Determines and clarifies the exact requirements of any situation
- Checks information for accuracy and raises concerns if information is inaccurate
- Extracts the key points succinctly, clearly and accurately
- Puts forward suggestions for improvement concerning current processes or systems
- Tries different ways of doing things to get the best results
- Overcomes obstacles and is not deterred by setbacks; checks assumptions and first principles and works out alternative approaches
- Reacts proactively to new challenges and works in a flexible manner to produce solutions
- Provides feedback and participates in discussions surrounding new ideas approaches or projects
- Delegates effectively, setting clear expectations and authority
- Monitors results and feedbacks to team on a regular basis
- Recognises others' contributions and acknowledges their limits
- Helps others to identify ways to improve their performance
- Prioritises supervisory responsibilities and carries them out in a timely fashion
- Understands and can identify client/stakeholder/staff needs and looks for opportunities to improve their experiences
