Key Account Manager, UK Sales - 12 month Fixed Term Contract

The Vacancy

Key Account Manager, Special Sales – 12 month Fixed Term Contract

The Key Account Manager will contribute towards our ambitious growth strategy for the Special Sales channel working across all [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] publishing divisions to sell our extraordinary list of bestselling authors and brands. Our list encompasses Children’s, Head of Zeus, Adult Trade, Cookery and Lifestyle including the following authors: William Dalrymple, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Johan Hari, Elodie Harper, Dan Jones, SJ Maas, Madeline Miller, Poppy O’Toole, J.K Rowling and Katherine Rundell.

The candidate will have responsibility for sales made to a range of Special Sales accounts with a specific focus on driving backlist strategy in close collaboration with publishing teams.

The Role

• Manage a varied portfolio of accounts, creating and ensuring best practise is followed at all times.
• Contribute to strategies to maximise turnover and profit of Special Sales department, selling across the Children’s, Adult Trade, Lifestyle, Head of Zeus and Special Interest divisions whilst working towards group sales strategy and targets.
• Actively identify new business opportunities in the non-trade and non-traditional retail sector.
• Demonstrate commercial awareness and an in depth understanding of P&Ls in order to build bulk print runs working closely with the UK Sales and Export teams to maximise ROI for the business.
• Represent the Special Sales team at relevant internal meetings, providing market insight, contributing to and shaping sales strategy.
• Feed into internal reporting across all publishing divisions, including, but not restricted to business reviews, acquisition discussions and weekly sales updates.
• Work closely with the publishing, production and operations teams and senior stakeholders.
• Support sales team colleagues when necessary.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Strong oral and written communication skills and the ability to communicate with stakeholders of different levels.
• Excellent time-management and organisational skills, experienced at multi-tasking and prioritising work-load.
• Demonstrate excellent client relationship building and development skills.
• Self-starter, able to use initiative with excellent problem solving skills.
• Strong negotiation skills with a clear understanding of the commercials.
• Creative, flexible and agile approach to sales.
• Good attention to detail.
• Knowledge of Biblio, Vista, Nielsen and Cognos would be advantageous.
• Skilled at Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Additional Information

The role is a full-time, 12 month fixed term contract position. Due to begin in April 2026.

Salary Range: £35,000 - £38,000 per annum

The role is based at our London office 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP. On a hybrid-working pattern of 2 days office based / 3 days home based (or fully office based if preferred). Allocated office days for this role are: Mondays & Tuesdays

Please apply with a CV and covering letter addressed to Human Resources (Word or PDF format only) via the ‘APPLY NOW’ button detailing how you meet the requirements outlined above for this role by 23:59 on Friday 23rd of January 2026.

For best results, please use a desktop to apply as some mobile browsers may not fully support the application portal.

[Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] reserve the right to close the role early if we exceed the required number of applications

The Company

[Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] Plc. is a leading independent publishing house, established in 1986, with authors who have won the Nobel, Pulitzer and Booker Prizes, and is the originating publisher and custodian of the Harry Potter series. [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] has offices in London, New York, New Delhi, Oxford and Sydney. [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] is committed to creating a working environment that stimulates creativity and collaboration, is respectful of difference, is inclusive and ethical in its practice, and promotes well-being.

Contact

Email: [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] (For enquiries only)