Production Manager

• Return
• Division
• Orion
• Department
• Production
• Location
• London, Sheffield
• Salary
• £45,000-£53,000 dependent on experience and location (+bonus +benefits)
• Contact type
• Full Time Permanent
• Publishing division
• Orion
• Closing date
• Monday, 12th October 2026

At Orion, we believe every story matters. Open, agile, passionate and innovative, our mission is to bring the best publishing to the greatest variety of people. Ambitious to continually raise the bar, we believe good stories can come from anywhere and so encourage and value contributions from everybody here.

Orion is a division of Hachette, one of the largest publishing groups in the UK, with 10 publishing divisions and over 60 imprints. Everyone here is proud to be in the business of opening doors and minds.

• Lead the mono production team in delivering the mono and special editions publishing programme, owning production schedules and critical path adherence to ensure all projects are delivered on time, within budget and to the required quality standards.
• Recruit, train and develop staff through regular meetings, performance reviews and training, to maintain a motivated, experienced team with a focus on mono production and special editions.
• Monitor and adjust workload across the team, coordinating multiple projects to ensure effective use of resources and programme delivery.
• With the Production Director, plan and organise the structure and workflow of the department, and lead the continuous improvement of departmental working practices, procedures and systems.
• Manage all aspects of production for own titles, including complex fiction and non-fiction, high-profile authors and special editions. Ensure all print and ebooks are delivered on time, within agreed budgets and to the required quality standards, communicating any variations appropriately.
• Partner with Editorial, Design, Sales and other stakeholders to deliver high-quality, cost-effective products, drive continuous profitability improvements, and lead the adoption of technical developments and innovations that support the publishing programme.
• Develop and maintain strong supplier relationships, negotiating costs for individual projects and supplier agreements within agreed guidelines, ensuring pricing is correct for contract and bespoke manufacturing, supplier invoices are paid on time, and investigating, trialling and onboarding new suppliers where appropriate.
• Maintain accurate schedule, cost and specification information in Biblio, ensuring title records are up to date and supporting effective production control, reporting and decision-making.
• Assist in departmental tasks as directed by the Production Director, including analytical support, and deputise for the Production Director as required.

• Experience of leading and developing people, projects or workflows, with the ability to motivate others, support performance and contribute to the success of a high-performing production team.
• Significant knowledge of print production processes, particularly mono publishing, special editions and ebooks, with experience of managing complex production projects from concept to delivery.
• Experience of managing multiple priorities and projects simultaneously, including ownership of production schedules, critical paths and resource planning.
• Strong commercial understanding of production costs, supplier management and negotiation, with knowledge of the impact of production decisions on profitability and gross margin performance.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capability, supported by excellent numeracy and computer literacy.
• Experience of using Biblio would be advantageous but is not essential.

• Strong relationship-building and…