The Times and The Sunday Times, Head of Audience

Head of Audience

The Head of audience is responsible for overseeing our editorial strategy to grow, engage and retain audiences across platforms. This role focuses on driving audience growth through data-driven insights, content distribution strategies and close collaboration with marketing. The ideal candidate will be an experienced leader and strategic thinker with a passion for news, analytics and community building. The heads of our SEO, Social Media, and Editorial Data and Engagement teams report into this role.

Apply with a covering letter and your CV by December 1.

Responsibilities

• Work closely with editorial, marketing and other key stakeholders to grow and engage both existing and potential new audiences we are trying to capture


• Oversee the creation and implementation of audience development strategies across search, social and subscriber engagement


• Act as a bridge between editorial, marketing, and product teams to align on initiatives that drive audience growth and engagement.


• Collaborate with the Editorial Data Lead and the Director of Data & Insight to determine our editorial data strategy and develop our tooling


• Drive initiatives that enhance content discoverability, such as SEO, mobile-first content, and innovative storytelling formats for new and diverse audiences.


• Optimise the audience journey from awareness to conversion, working closely with marketing to design and implement conversion tactics and win-back strategies.


• Work with marketing to develop targeted campaigns aimed at converting engaged readers into subscribers and re-engaging lapsed subscribers.


• Present regularly at news conference, highlighting key audience metrics and provide feedback on editorial projects


• Successfully manage productive relationships with the head of digital, news editors, desk heads and journalists across The Times and Sunday Times newsrooms


• Manage the team, develop their skills and capabilities, promote increased performance and implement innovative ways of working


• Work with the planning editor, news desks and commissioning editors to forward plan for editorial projects, digital coverage and events

Skills and experience

• Minimum of 5 years of experience in audience development and content strategy, with at least 3 years in a leadership role


• Experienced journalist with strong news judgement


• Leadership and people management skills


• Ability to pull editorial insights from data, understanding various platform-specific metrics to inform decisions


• Demonstrable experience of product development for a news website


• An ability to work under pressure, to tight deadlines and with rigorous accuracy


• Persuasive presentation skills, well-developed interpersonal skills, with the ability to solve problems and negotiate positive outcomes


• Able to communicate succinctly and effectively, especially with senior editors


• Experience of working collaboratively with multidisciplinary teams


• A strong understanding of editorial compliance and regulatory issues

We offer a flexible working arrangement where employees are expected to be in the office a minimum of three days per week. For the remaining two days, there is the option to work remotely if desired.

We are News UK: One of the leading media businesses in the UK and Ireland. Our newsbrands include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, The Sun on Sunday and The TLS. Our national broadcast brands include talkSPORT, Times Radio, Talk and Virgin Radio UK, and we have market-leading local radio stations across Ireland. Our world-famous brands provide news, analysis, opinion and entertainment to almost 40 million people each month. Spanning print and pixel, audio and video, events and experiences, our multiplatform brands are home to a plurality of opinion, representing the diverse communities we serve. News UK is wholly owned by News Corp.

Life at News

Driven by passion, guided by principles and acting with purpose. We represent, reflect and reach the nation, telling the stories that matter. We inform our audiences so that they can make decisions based on trusted information.

To do this, we believe our employees must represent different backgrounds, perspectives and experiences. We strive to maximise and encourage every individual’s potential and ensure everyone feels valued. We support this through our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Strategy, which focuses on three main priorities - attracting talent from a wider, more representative pool, developing equity programmes to drive better representation in our leadership, and ensuring diversity and inclusivity in our workforce as well as the journalism and content we produce. We also currently have 12 employee led networks and groups that support our strategy and connect like minded employees socially.

Benefits

Some of our benefits include:

• Maternity leave up to 18 weeks full basic salary & paternity leave up to 2 weeks


• Wide range of training available, plus full LinkedIn Learning access


• Private medical insurance including coverage for pre-existing conditions


• Discounted gym memberships, free ClassPass at Home, weekly virtual yoga classes


• ‘Bikes for Work’ and ‘Electric Car’ scheme


• Up to 60% discount on Harper Collins books


• Access to exclusive events and competitions with exciting brands such as talkSPORT, Virgin Radio UK & The Times. Weekly virtual panel chats with top journalists and celebrities


• Access to wellbeing benefits such as EAP, physio/massage and counselling


• A generous pension scheme with employer contributions of up to 5%


• 30 days holiday, plus bank holidays and up to 4 volunteering days per year

We want to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to perform to their best when applying for a role. If you would like to receive any information in a different way or for us to do anything differently to support you apply for any of our roles please contact us on careers@news.co.uk.