Jobs and Opps at The Financial Times, Prospect Magazine, Arts Professional, and Many, Many More ☀️

Plus, all our numbers for the last financial year.

A couple of weeks ago, I finished our accounts. I always make sure to get them done early and remind myself with a looming calendar reminder called ‘Jem Does Her Taxes Day 🎉’, but, even with the emoji, it always feels like a slog. To make things cheaper, and to help myself understand our finances, I do a lot of the admin myself. I’m the one picking through each transaction on our bank account, asking myself where the hell I put that receipt, and why anyone picks accounting as a career.

Thankfully some people do, and now that the professionals have checked and approved my work, I’m able to share some of the numbers with you. As the people who put your trust in us every year to do good things and make sensible choices, I always think it’s important to be transparent and share what we do (and don’t do) — and my inbox is always open for thoughts and questions. These numbers cover the accounting period between September 2021 and September 2022:

• The Top Line Figure: We turned over just shy of £92,000. I will never get over how much of a head-spinner business accounts are. It’s a wild, massive number — but with a team of five people, that only works out at £18,400pa each full-time, before you come to any other expenses. Don’t worry, we don’t have five full-time people at that rate, because paying people fairly is non-negotiable. That’s why we have one full-time staffer supported by a part-time team.

• How We Made Money: This year our accounts were heavily skewed by the Kickstart Scheme. We received £26,600 to pay for Kickstart trainees, all of which went on their wages and training courses. Without this grant, our turnover would have been about £65,000. This was made up of about £5,600 from affiliate sales, £13,000 from job advert sales, £25,000 from memberships and events, and £21,000 from sponsorships. This is the first year we’ve broken it down in such detail, and the first time members have been our biggest driver — thank you all so, so much.

• How We Spent It: By far our biggest expense for the year was staff costs; we spent £67,000 on salaried workers. We also gave £12,000 back to the freelance community, mainly to those writing pieces and running events. We spent £3,500 on services — this includes stuff like our Zoom licence, travel to IRL events, and web hosting, and we paid for all of our Kickstart trainees to go on a training course of their choice. Finally, we spent £1,200 on goods, mainly printing our annual magazine. After some client refunds, there was about £8,000 before tax which will be reinvested in new web development and creating a buffer fund should we struggle financially at any point in future.

This is probably one of the lengthiest email introductions I’ve ever written, so I’ll leave this here. We’ll be mulling over this during the next few weeks, to see what we should focus on and improve going forward — but thank you so much again for your support. If you can, please tell your boss to advertise with us or your uni lecturers to take out institution membership — every penny makes a huge difference.

🚨 [EVENT] How To Get Started With Adventure Writing

If the sunny weather has got you pining for adventures, Elise Downing is here to help you get started. She is the first woman to ever run a lap of Great Britain self-supported, an experience she wrote about in her first book Coasting. She’ll talk about how to find ideas and adventures, construct a narrative and add colour to your writing, and how to get your writing out there.

• The Financial Times has opened up applications for its apprenticeship scheme, which is being run in conjunction with The Manchester Evening News. You don’t need a degree for this scheme and it pays £21,749pa.

• 🚨 Prospect Magazine has teamed up with the Aziz Foundation to offer an editorial fellowship for people from a Muslim background. It pays £25,000pa and lasts for six months. It’s got a short closing date so act fast.

• I’ve looked it up and Perendale Publishers make content for the food and aquaculture industry, including a magazine just about pet food! They’re looking for a multimedia journalist to focus on digital and are paying up to £25,000pa.

• 🚨 The deadline for the local democracy reporter role at The KM Group is fast approaching. You’ll be covering a great political patch at a great independent media group and it pays £21,170–25,000pa.

• Country & Town House is hiring a social media executive to work across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. It pays £23,000pa.

• Imperial College London is looking for two communications interns, who will get to write news pieces, work on social media, and manage media requests. It pays £14.24ph.

• Found via the wonderful MediaBeans, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home is looking for a website coordinator. I had a look at the job description and it is actually a junior role that pays £25,000pa.

• Insider is hiring a junior news reporter, who will work weekends. It pays a very generous starting salary of £35,000pa.

• Crafted is running a digital marketing traineeship, working across SEO, content, data, and paid advertising. It pays the National Minimum Wage.

• 🏡 🕑 And, finally, Football Live, a podcast show, is looking for a part-time reporter and will pay £20ph.

• [AD] 🏡 Arts Professional is hiring a journalist ahead of their relaunch, and you’ll be covering the arts and cultural sector. It pays £26,750pa.

• The BodyShop Magazine, which is about car repair, not the shop, is hiring a deputy editor. It pays £30–33,000pa and you’ll be writing for online and the web.

• [AD] The team at ITV are in need of an on-screen journalist in Bradford to tell stories which aren’t currently being told. It pays £26,329–49,343pa.

• Leeds-List is looking for a copywriter, but this is a publication. You’ll be writing content about food and drink, culture, and lifestyle for audiences across Leeds and Yorkshire. It pays £27–32,000pa.

• 🚨 Two STV jobs closing today — as ever ignore that pesky site bug, that’s what we’re going to spend our savings on! They’re looking for a multimedia journalist for maternity cover which pays £26,435–39,500pa and a production journalist which pays £26,435–31,100pa.

• Here’s your latest BBC jobs round-up for the week — these ones are all Band C, which means they pay £25,670–50,313pa. They are openings for a UK-based journalist for the Ukrainian service, a journalist for the BBC Local team in Bradford, a journalist at BBC Monitoring, and a journalist to look after audio production at BBC World Service.

• There are also a couple of senior-level jobs this week — BBC Arabic is hiring a senior digital journalist and BBC World Service is hiring a senior journalist to focus on video production. Band D jobs like these pay £36,195–64,688pa.

• 🚨 Also closing this week is the vacancy for journalism tutors with our friends at News Associates. It pays £25–35,000pa depending on experience.

• 🚨 Last call to apply for the deputy editor role with The Bureau of Investigative Journalism that closes this week. It pays £65–70,000pa and is a great chance to cover stories that make a difference.

• More investigations this week — Liberty, off of human rights, is hiring an investigations editor to look after their agenda-setting collaborations. It pays £53, 695.77pa.

• NBC News Digital has an opening for a homepage, app, and social editor. It’s a full-time freelance contract and it pays £40–60,000pa.

• The lovely people at It’s Nice That, who also run a bunch of great jobs boards, are looking for freelancers to help them with marketing and brand projects. Pays £150–250 a day.

• Yahoo Sports is in need of more pitches, especially ones focused on women’s sports. Get in touch with Johanna Huybers via DM.

• CW: Abortion. Lucy Morgan from Glamour UK is open to pitches off the back of the mother-of-three who has been jailed after using abortion pills. Always make sure you’re comfortable if pitching personal stories and look after yourself.

• 🚨 There are only three days left to apply for this role as a copy editor with a public sector client. It pays £202 per day.

• Other roles in a similar space include this content writer gig covering financial services which pays £350 a day, another Government client that needs a content producer and is paying up to £300 a day, and Canva which need a freelance SEO copywriter to focus on the South Korean market.

• Good Tape, a new print magazine that wants to tell untold stories in the podcast industry, is paying $0.50 a word and wants to hear your ideas.

• Harry Lambert at the New Statesman wants pitches on big subjects, that have the feel of American magazine journalism.

• Scott Bedgood from Wizehire is in need of freelancers to write blog posts, white papers, emails, and more. Pays up to $0.50 a word and you’ll need to get in touch by the end of the week.

• Tech Radar Gaming is doing a week of content on queerness, by queer writers very soon. They’re looking for pitches and will pay £200 a piece.

• Angus Colwell is now working on the online commissioning team at The Spectator so is open to ideas.

• And, finally, Protean Magazine is always looking for pitches. Their base rate is US$300 and they accept everything from journalism to poetry.

• 🚨 🎪 As mentioned up top, this is your last chance to get tickets for our adventure writing workshop on Monday. Elise Downing will help you craft compelling stories — even if your adventure was only 10 minutes down the road.

• Entries to the Wales Media Awards are now open for 2023. It doesn’t actually say on the form when entries close, so we’ll chase this — and advise you to submit ASAP in the meantime.

• 👩🏽‍💻 We’ve got one more co-working session on offer this week, if you need a bit of help to get through the sunny slump. Join us tomorrow at 11am for a power hour to get through everything you need to get done. Bring iced drinks.

• BBC News is running a free workshop next week, talking all about how to get into journalism and the BBC.

• Action Against Hunger is offering a grant for photographers, videographers, and content creators to create a humanitarian project. There’s up to €10,000 available.

• Everyone TV & Freeview has launched a mentoring scheme to help people aged 18 to 25 who want to get into the television and digital media industry.

• Have you ever thought that journalism is a bit like surfing? No, I hadn’t either, but when Severin Carrell, Scotland editor for The Guardian says it, it does kind of make sense? You can read more of his wisdom here.

• And, finally, we are very stoked to announce we’re launching a new institution membership scheme for universities, who can sign up to get member benefits for their students. Tell your lecturers!