Purpose of the Role

To have divisional responsibility for negotiating and drafting contracts for the acquisition and licensing of rights in cooperation with the Editorial and Rights teams. To provide advice and support to the Contracts team in delivering a focused and quality service to the publishing divisions

Key responsibilities

• Draft and negotiate contracts with authors, agents, publishers and other third parties for the acquisition of publishing rights;

• Analyse U.S. and foreign rights contracts, compare to previous templates with publishers, negotiate contracts in close consultation with colleagues in the department in addition to relevant Editorial and Business teams;

• Advise and assist publishing teams of any implications with offers and to anticipate contract/legal concerns and offer strategies to resolve them by providing authoritative advice;

• Offer advice to the Rights department on contractual matters and negotiate and draft specific clauses where appropriate;

• To contribute to the development of a precedents and contracts database system for the department;

• Assist the senior leadership team by providing timely management information and to assist and support them when required;

• To manage one or more assistants.

Essential Experience:

• Experienced with major acquisition and licensing agreements through working in publishing contracts

• Able to draft a wide range of agreements, for example, confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements, personal guarantee for an author’s services when contracting with a company, first serial rights agreements, author agreements with associated publicity obligations

• Experienced in building good working relationships both inside and outside a team and able to communicate information clearly to all levels of the business

• Good knowledge of copyright and contract law issues

• The ability to keep abreast of professional, legal, commercial, technological and working practice changes

Desirable Experience:

• Understanding of the nature of different types of rights, in particular evolving new media rights and digital distribution issues

• Familiarity with the publishing industry

• Previous management experience

Benefits

• Hybrid working model (3 days in the office)

• 28 days holiday plus bank holidays (option to buy and sell holiday days)

• Enhanced pay for maternity, paternity, adoption and shared parental leave

• Private healthcare cover and life assurance

• Summer Hours 

• Free access to HeadSpace, employee assistance programme (24 hour helpline), mental health first aiders, and a wellbeing portal

• Season ticket loans (from day 1 for entry level) and cycle to work scheme

• Relocation Rent Support Loan 

• Employee networks: HC All In (open forum), Elevate (for ethnic minority colleagues), HarperParents, Menopause at Work, Pride at HC, Social Mobility Network and Neurodiversity at Work

• Unlimited training on our Learning and Development portal, management courses (up to MA level) and mentoring programmes

• Virtual GP and eyecare vouchers

• Gym membership discount

• Onsite physiotherapy (London only)

• Charitable donation matching and 2 volunteering days

• We're a certified Carbon Neutral company

• Green Electric/Hybrid Car Benefit Scheme (salary sacrifice)

• With Trees for Life we plant a tree in the Highlands of Scotland for every permanent hire

• Free e-books and audiobooks, digital newspaper subscriptions and discounts on books

• Subsidised canteen and retail discounts

• Onsite prayer room

At HarperCollins, we value authenticity and integrity in our recruitment process. To ensure a fair and accurate evaluation of all applications, we ask that all responses to assessment questions reflect your own thoughts, experiences, and capabilities.  This allows us to fairly assess your knowledge, skills, and experience to determine how they align with the role. We value diverse perspectives and genuine contributions, even if answers are not perfect. The use of AI tools or external assistance to generate responses is discouraged unless explicitly permitted for specific tasks.

If you wish to discuss anything regarding this position and/or your application to this role, please reach out directly to stephanie.jemmett@harpercollins.co.uk with subject heading ‘Vacancy Query’ plus the job title and we will aim to get back to you within 5 working days.

Please note, if you are interested in the role you would need to submit your application via Applied. We do not accept email applications.