Head of Studios, Audience and Commercial - WC2E 9DD in Cookham

Permanent Full time; 40 hours per week Based in Covent Garden, London Competitive salary

The Royal Ballet and Opera continues to lead the way in opera, ballet, music and dance both live on stage and through multiple digital platforms, from live streaming to worldwide cinema screenings. Our Covent Garden theatre has been at the heart of London and British cultural life for three centuries. We are home to two world-class Companies: The Royal Ballet and The Royal Opera. The Royal Opera House describes the place we work, not who we are. The whole is always more than the sum of its parts - we may be a House, but three quarters of our audiences experience what we do outside this building. While our Covent Garden theatre is the nerve centre, the impact and influence of the organisation can be felt in every corner of the country, and around the world.

Thanks to the role played by our Audiences & Commercial (A&C) division we continue to push boundaries and explore new ways to tell our stories, helping encourage people to attend live performances, watch screenings at the cinema or performances streamed online, or simply come in to enjoy the shop, bars, and restaurants in our iconic Covent Garden building.

As we continue to expand and diversify our audiences, the team are looking to appoint a Head of Studios, to lead our visual creative functions - Design, AV and Imagery - as well as Delivery; ensuring teams are set up to produce outstanding assets that meet creative briefs and objectives.

The Head of Studios will also be part of the senior leadership team within A&C. The ideal candidate will be a strong leader, skilled at stakeholder management within a creative context. Critical to success in this role is the ability to set clear direction, manage priorities and build strong relationships across the organisation - ensuring stakeholders are aligned on objectives, scope, timelines and budget, and that Studios delivers excellent and effective creative for a wide range of internal briefs.

Essential to the role, candidates will need to be able to demonstrate:

• Significant experience leading creative teams to deliver organisational goals effectively.
• Strong leadership capability: setting clear direction, defining standards, prioritising work and delivering within constraints (time, budget and resource).
• Working knowledge of creative processes across design, imagery and AV, with an understanding of how these intersect with editorial/content creation.
• Working knowledge of production/delivery processes in a creative studio context.
• Demonstrable stakeholder management skills with the confidence and credibility to engage across a wide range of disciplines and seniority.
• Excellent communication skills, including the ability to brief clearly, influence, negotiate, and manage expectations.

The Royal Ballet and Opera is one of the UK's leading arts organisations and our aim is to inspire imagination, ignite emotion and make the extraordinary for everyone. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion underpin all that we do. We want our people to be representative of the diversity in the UK. We understand the creativity and innovation that diversity can bring and strive to create an inclusive environment in which everyone can thrive. We encourage applications from people with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences and skills to join our teams. We particularly welcome applications from those who are from a global majority background and/or those who are disabled, as they are under-represented within our organisation.

We are a Disability Confident Employer, which means that we are actively working to ensure that candidates with disabilities and long-term health conditions feel supported, engaged and able to fulfil their potential in the workplace. We will endeavour to offer an interview to candidates who tell us they wish to participate in the scheme and who demonstrate in their application that they meet the essential criteria for the role, though sometimes due to the volume of qualified candidates with declarations this is not possible.

The RBO is also committed to safeguarding and protecting all children, young people, and adults and we implement robust safer recruitment practices. Due to our safeguarding promise, certain roles will be subject to a DBS check before commencing employment with us, which will be indicated in the advertising.

Closing date for applications: 11:59pm, 2nd June 2026. To ensure a fair process, late applications will not be considered under any circumstances. Applicants must have work authorisation for the UK. No agencies.