The Times and Sunday Times are looking for an SEO journalist to grow our readership and reach new audiences through search.

You will play a key role in continuing the digital evolution of the newspapers and the integration of SEO into editorial processes. 

Based in a fast-paced newsroom, you will share actionable insights and make recommendations on what stories we cover and how.

Every day you will be identifying trending topics and finding innovative ways to optimise our award-winning journalism. 

You will be forward planning with different sections and shaping strategies to maximise search traffic to news and evergreen stories.

As well as acting as a go-to person on SEO, you will be responsible for training reporters, editors and sub-editors in best practices. 

You will also play an active role in writing headlines and adding high-quality internal links to improve the reading experience. 

Key skills and experience 

• Editorial SEO experience in a newsroom or similar environment 

• Excellent communication and people skills 

• Strong SEO editing and digital headline writing skills 

• Experience working with Google Analytics and keyword research tools 

• Good understanding of tech SEO principles behind editorial practices

This job is for you if

• You have sound news judgement and an audience-first mindset

• You enjoy using search data to inform your decision-making 

• You can explain trends and patterns in traffic clearly and concisely 

• You’re always up to date with SEO and digital publishing developments 

To apply you must have the right to work in the UK.

Apply with a covering letter and your CV by June 18.

About The Digital Team

The Times and Sunday Times represent a combined 400 years of covering news and providing comment and analysis in the UK and the world.

We are authoritative, credible, responsible, trusted and a part of the nation’s cultural heritage.

This role will join our cross-title digital strategy team. The team is charged with finding and telling stories on our digital platforms in the most appropriate formats and empowering the newsroom to present stories in new and innovative ways.

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, talkRADIO and Virgin Radio, and we have market-leading local radio stations across Ireland. In April 2022, we launched TalkTV, a major new TV channel available to everyone across the UK, delivering a schedule of news, current affairs and entertainment and sport. Our world-famous brands provide news, analysis, opinion and entertainment to almost 40 million people each month. Spanning digital and print, audio and video, events and experiences, our 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: At News UK we believe our people are our heartbeat - they are the driving force behind our brands and we want the ways we work to enable people to thrive.  Some of us work flexibly, in many different ways. We encourage you to talk to us about the flexibility you would like. We can’t promise to offer exactly what you want, but do provide multiple flexible working options.  Many of us work in a hybrid way between one of the News UK & Ireland offices and remotely.  

We champion diversity and inclusion, we strive to maximise and encourage every individual’s potential and ensure everyone feels valued. We support this through our Diversity Board, D&I  strategy & training, creating more diverse content and our intern and apprenticeship programmes.  We also have 9 employee-led networks; Cultural Diversity, News is Out, GenZ, Sustainability Champions, News for Parents, Women in Tech, News UK Christian Fellowship,  Women’s Steering Group and Disability network. 

We take pride in looking after our amazing talent at News UK supporting the Health and Wellbeing of our staff. We offer private medical insurance covering pre-existing conditions, discounted gym memberships, ClassPass at Home, weekly virtual HIIT, yoga and run club classes, and a ‘Bikes for Work’ scheme, as well as offering opportunities for physio/massage, counselling and legal support. 

In addition we also offer:   

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

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

• 30 days holiday and up to 4 volunteering days per year;

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

We want to ensure that everyone we meet has the opportunity to perform to their best when interviewing, so feel free to let us know, at any stage, whether you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, and we will do our best to accommodate.  

News UK is an official partner of the Journalism Diversity Fund, founder of the Journalism and Disability Forum, and proud member of the Valuable 500. At News UK, we will continue to promote an inclusive and diverse workplace, to help people with visible and non visible disabilities create careers in media and aim to make our content accessible to all.