Editorial Operations Manager

Informa PLC; Milton Heights; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading academic publishing company is seeking an Editorial Operations Manager to enhance peer review workflows and improve author and editor satisfaction. The successful candidate will lead a global team, optimize editorial processes, and ensure compliance with industry standards. This role encourages innovative problem-solving and offers a hybrid work model with excellent benefits and a focus on work-life balance.

Benefits

Flexible working culture

25 days annual leave

Private medical insurance

Employee assistance programme

Pension scheme

Life assurance

Qualifications

• Ability to manage and develop high-performing teams.
• Experience in process optimization and strategic planning.
• Proficient in Power BI and advanced Excel skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop team to achieve optimal performance.
• Implement data-driven improvements in editorial workflows.
• Foster stakeholder engagement and manage relationships.

Skills

Team Leadership

Data analysis

Communication skills

Project management

Process improvement

Analytic skills

Education

Advanced degree preferred

Tools

Power BI

Microsoft Office

Online submission platforms

Job description

The Editorial Operations Manager (EOM) role focuses on optimizing peer review workflows and enhancing Author and Editor satisfaction through data-driven approaches and best practices. Working collaboratively with other EOMs, this position is responsible for ensuring smooth transitions of new society titles to T&F and for collaborating with key Editors and Societies to gather feedback on processes and ways of working. Our Editorial Operations Managers design and implement process improvements across all submission-to-dissemination tasks whilst empowering their team to communicate with relevant internal and external (e.g. vendor, society) colleagues, address bottlenecks, and resolve issues to facilitate seamless integration and onward processing. Overall, the role aims to improve services for Authors, Editors, and Reviewers whilst deploying processes and policies to meet KPIs and financial targets. With support from the Director of Editorial Operations, the EOM cultivates a culture of continuous improvement, swiftly identifying and addressing workflow obstacles. This position emphasizes sharing best practices and implementing rapid improvements to streamline editorial operations services for Editors, Authors and Editorial Colleagues and maintain high-quality standards throughout the publication process.

Responsibilities & Qualifications

• Team Leadership and Development: Manage, motivate, and develop high-performing teams across global locations, ensuring effective recruitment, performance management, and training.
• Continuous Improvement, Strategic Planning and Process Optimization: Continuously, develop and implement comprehensive strategies to enhance content flow processes and operational efficiency across diverse journal portfolios.
• Optimize peer review workflows: Implement best practices and utilize data-driven approaches to eliminate unnecessary processes to streamline and improve Editors and Authors experience within the framework of editorial standards.
• Quality Assurance and Ethical Standards: Maintain high standards of scientific integrity, liaise with Publishing Ethics and Integrity to develop processing policies, procedures and monitoring processes to prevent misconduct, ensuring compliance with industry best practices.
• Stakeholder Engagement and Relationship Management: Foster strong partnerships with internal teams, external vendors, and key stakeholders to drive service improvements and revenue growth.
• Contribute to continuous improvement of the Researcher Services Journal Optimisation, Oversee the implementation and optimisation of manuscript management systems and processes, In collaboration with PRS Solutions team to ensure optimal support for editors authors and reviewers.
• Technology Integration and Innovation: steward the deployment of automation tools and use of data analytics platforms to assess efficacy and deploy standardised operations, with focus on end-to-end (submission to dissemination) scalability.
  In depth knowledge of best practice administration and management of academic content submitted to online submission platforms (preferably in Journals, Academic Publishing)
• An ability to use Power BI and be proficient with Microsoft Office packages. Having Advanced Excel skills is an advantage.
• Having excellent Communication Skills with an ability to tailor your style whilst presenting data and ideas. It will be essential to communicate well with stakeholders and translate the data into meaningful insight.
• Significant project management experience, including monitoring performance and building effective teams within an open access journals publishing environment.
• A Clear understanding of process improvement principles would be a distinct advantage, as delivery of increased capacity with minimal impact on head count is a standing objective.
• An ability to run, create and analyse reports with complex data sets.
• Demonstrable analytic skills of complex data sets to model and visualise data.
• An understanding of process improvement principles would be a distinct advantage, as delivery of increased capacity with minimal impact on head count is a standing objective.
  Informa is a leading academic publishing, business intelligence, knowledge and events business, creating unique content and connectivity for customers all over the world. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a member of the FTSE 100.

Taylor & Francis Group operates globally and produces high quality, peer reviewed books and journals. We produce unique, trusted content by expert authors, spreading knowledge and promoting discovery globally. We aim to broaden thinking and advance understanding, providing academics and professionals with a platform to share ideas and realize their individual potential. Our purpose is to foster human progress through knowledge. We strongly believe that this requires us to encourage and examine different ideas and voices, so that any work that meets our exacting levels of quality deserves to be included in our publications. This requires open minds, the opportunity for robust debate, and the courage to defend perspectives that stand up to scrutiny, even if they conflict with our personal beliefs or values. Because that's the only way to find the best obtainable version of the truth and, ultimately, foster human progress. If you agree, then we'd love to hear from you.

If you're excited about working with Taylor & Francis to foster human progress through knowledge, we invite you to apply even if your existing skills and experience don't fit every item listed above. At Taylor & Francis, we are at our best and most successful when colleagues can be themselves and make a contribution regardless of their identity or background. As a colleague, you will have the opportunity to further innovate and develop in areas that you are passionate about. Our goal is to empower you with the resources, incentives, and flexibility you need to enjoy success at work and to live a healthy, balanced life. Taylor & Francis is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We believe in and value diversity of people and thought, fostering a supportive and inclusive environment where all colleagues can learn and succeed as their true selves. Taylor & Francis recruits, develops, and retains colleagues without regard to any protected personal characteristics or other non-merit based factor. We genuinely care about our colleagues, promoting work-life balance, wellbeing, and flexible working. We believe that the skills and experience you bring to Taylor & Francis are invaluable. We want you to have the opportunity to develop your abilities, and to innovate and develop in areas which you are passionate about.

The successful candidate will be able to utilise our balanced working model. We ask that candidates live within a commutable distance of the Milton Park (OX14 4RN) office to ensure that as a balanced worker they can make it to our office locations 3 days per week.

To find out more about our business and the great career opportunities please go to our Careers Site.

Benefits

• An excellent work/life balance with a fantastic, flexible working culture
• Hybrid working with 2 days per week worked from home
• 25 days annual leave per year plus a day off for your birthday
• 3 additional discretionary days off during the holiday season at the end of the year
• 4 paid volunteering days each year
• Company funded single cover private medical insurance
• Employee assistance programme - offering 24/7 well-being support
• Share Match - Plan that matches every share purchased with two free shares.
• Pension scheme
• Life assurance, plus optical and medical care