Ebury Spotlight Editorial Trainee in City of London

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.

Ebury Spotlight is the home of our entertainment publishing. Our focus is to find the brightest talent and create standout, must-have books of the moment. From autobiography and memoir to television, sport, music and comedy, we are proud to be one of the UK’s most successful teams dedicated to publishing pop culture books for everyone. We’re a small team with an entrepreneurial and start-up mentality who are in a period of consistent growth and are at the forefront of entertainment publishing in the UK trade market. Our authors include the Ted the Dog, Greg James, Tom Felton, Molly-Mae Hague, Paloma Faith, Jess and Norma and Sir Geoff Hurst.

As an editorial trainee working with Spotlight in Ebury, you’ll work in a varied and interesting role across multiple projects at different stages of the publishing process – from idea to acquisition to editing to publishing – ultimately giving you experience of the entire life cycle of a non-fiction title. You’ll have the opportunity to contribute to ideas for new titles and give feedback on proposals. You’ll contribute creatively by writing cover copy, brainstorming title ideas and setting up cover shoots. You’ll also support on a range of administrative tasks including conducting competitor sales research, collating proofs and answering copyeditor queries.

Knowledge and skills you’ll gain:

An understanding of the full life cycle of a book and the publishing industry in general; editorial skills including copyediting, proofreading and writing copy; market awareness; organisational skills; time management skills; IT proficiency across Microsoft Office, Biblio and Power BI.

If you’re interested in storytelling and music, film, sport or general pop culture, 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.