Metadata & Content Manager

Physics World; West of England; On-site; GBP 45,000 - 55,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work model

Competitive pension

Bonuses

Health & wellbeing benefits

Job summary

IOP Publishing is seeking a Metadata & Content Manager to lead the Content Management team and ensure quality, accessibility, and discoverability of our scholarly content and metadata across our publishing portfolio.

You will manage a team, drive standards, and collaborate with Production, Product, and Technology to optimise workflows and deliver high-quality metadata and content dissemination for researchers and partners worldwide.

Qualifications

• Strong experience with XML technologies and scholarly publishing standards (JATS, BITS, XPath, XSLT, Schematron).
• Deep understanding of scholarly publishing workflows, metadata standards, and content lifecycle management.
• Experience delivering content, metadata, or publishing platform projects and translating business requirements into operational solutions.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop a Content Management team.
• Drive content and metadata quality initiatives to improve accuracy and discoverability.
• Oversee content dissemination services to internal systems and external platforms.

Skills

XML tech

Publishing workflows

Team leadership

Content metadata

Problem solving

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

JATS

BITS

XPath

XSLT

Schematron

Job description

Metadata & Content Manager

JOIN THE COMMUNITY.

Making science better, together.

Be part of a community working together to make science better. A society publisher with the perfect blend of not-for-profit purpose and commercial perspective. Here, we help each other be the best we can be: a team big enough to impact and small enough to care.

Shape the future of research discoverability

At IOP Publishing, we're passionate about making scientific research accessible, discoverable, and impactful. We're looking for a Metadata & Content Manager to lead our Content Management team and play a pivotal role in ensuring the quality, accessibility, and discoverability of our content and metadata across our publishing portfolio.

This is an exciting opportunity for someone who combines technical expertise with people leadership and is motivated by improving how scholarly content is managed, enriched, and delivered to researchers and partners around the world.

Role Summary

As Metadata & Content Manager, you'll be responsible for the operational management of IOP Publishing's content and metadata assets, ensuring they are accurately maintained, enriched, and distributed in line with industry standards and business requirements.

You’ll:

• Lead and develop a team of Content Management Specialists, providing guidance, support, and opportunities for growth.
• Drive content and metadata quality initiatives, establishing measures and standards that improve accuracy, completeness, and discoverability.
• Oversee content dissemination services, ensuring content and metadata are delivered effectively to internal systems, industry partners, and external platforms.
• Act as the operational subject matter expert for content management, metadata, and content dissemination activities across the business.
• Collaborate closely with Production, Product, and Technology teams to optimise workflows and implement new capabilities.
• Lead continuous improvement initiatives that enhance service quality, operational efficiency, and stakeholder experience.
• Manage archive and legacy metadata activities, ensuring the long-term integrity and accessibility of content assets.

What we’re looking for

• We’re interested in hearing from people who can bring a blend of technical knowledge, operational excellence, and leadership experience.

You’ll likely have:

• Strong experience working with XML technologies and scholarly publishing standards, including JATS, BITS, XPath, XSLT, and Schematron.
• A deep understanding of scholarly publishing workflows, metadata standards, and content lifecycle management.
• Experience managing content dissemination and delivery workflows using content delivery systems, APIs, system integrations, and SFTP-based transfers.
• Knowledge of industry infrastructure and metadata organisations such as Crossref, ORCID, CHORUS, CLOCKSS, Portico, and NISO.
• Experience delivering content, metadata, or publishing platform projects and translating business requirements into operational solutions.
• Proven people management experience, with a passion for developing and supporting others.

You’ll thrive in this role if you are:

• A natural problem solver who enjoys tackling complex technical and operational challenges.
• An effective communicator who can build strong relationships across teams and with external partners.
• Comfortable making decisions and balancing competing priorities.
• Motivated by continuous improvement and delivering high-quality outcomes.
• We know it is unusual for someone to tick every box so if you don’t meet all the criteria but demonstrate most of the skills and experience we are looking for, and have the enthusiasm to work with us, go ahead and apply.
• We aim to review applications soon after they are received and will arrange interviews when there’s someone we’re keen to meet, therefore we may conduct interviews prior to the closing date and reserve the right to close the advert early.

Why work with us at IOP Publishing:

Purpose:We are a world leader in the development of publishing for the scientific community - working in the interests of science and scientists, we aim to maximise the impact of the research we publish.

Culture:We offer a truly international culture with offices in Europe, Asia and the US and our reach is global. Our culture is the perfect blend of dedicated and intelligent professionalism, informal, friendly collaboration and authenticity with a social conscience.

Financial Benefits:A competitive salary starting from £50,000 (Band C) depending on experience, an excellent pension scheme, a discretionary annual bonus scheme, and a range of other useful and cost‑saving benefits available through our benefits platform.

Health and Wellbeing:33+ days holiday (including bank holidays), a 35-hour working week, life assurance, cycle-to-work scheme, dental insurance, health care cash plan, and a great positive working environment in our brand-new office in central Bristol - modern airy and designed with all of our colleagues in mind – for work and social time.

Flexibility:A flexible hybrid working environment to suit everyone’s needs. As there will not be a requirement for the person in this role to be in the office on a weekly basis, we are open to considering applicants from a wider geographical area who are happy to travel to Bristol for quarterly meetings, annual appraisals, one to one and team meetings, subject to business needs. (any travel to the Bristol office is at the employees expense).

And last but not least, did we mention that we are unique: IOP Publishing is central to the Institute of Physics, a not-for-profit society and we gift‑aid all our profits to support science through the activities of the Institute.

IOP Publishing is an equal opportunity employer. Our goal is to ensure that diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) are built into our identity in a way that is natural and sustainable, visible through the work we produce, our company branding, our professional networks and the communities we serve and support, which includes our employees, talent communities and candidates. We particularly welcome applicants from under‑represented backgrounds.

We make recruitment and workplace adjustments wherever we can, so please let us know if there’s anything that we can do to support you.

Please note that we are unable to provide visa sponsorship for candidates. If however you already have the right to work in the UK or hold an eligible work permit or visa, we encourage you to apply for this position