Marketing Traineeship

Marketing Trainee
The Watermill Theatre — Bagnor, Newbury, RG20 8AE

Salary: £24,785 FTE pro rata (£12,393 total for the agreed contract period, subject to experience)
Contract: 6 months full-time or 9 months part-time — to be agreed with the successful candidate. Starting November 2026.
Hours: 25 hours per week (part-time) or 37.5 hours per week (full-time). Some evening and weekend work required.
Reports to: Marketing Manager
Probation: 1 month

Benefits:

• Free onsite parking
• Discount in the restaurant and bar
• Two complimentary tickets per production (subject to availability)
• 5.6 weeks annual leave pro rata, including public holidays
• Auto-enrolment into a qualifying pension scheme if eligible

About the role

This traineeship is part of our Careers through the Arts Project, in collaboration with Corn Exchange Newbury. The project provides a programme of opportunities and events to inspire young people in West Berkshire to discover careers in the arts and develop arts-based transferable skills.

You'll support the full-time marketing team at the Watermill Theatre in a practical, hands-on role — a chance to develop new skills and build real experience in arts marketing.

Careers through the Arts traineeships are open to anyone aged 18 to 25 with an interest in the arts who wants to develop practical experience in a professional environment. Previous qualifications and/or experience in this industry is not essential. These opportunities will suit candidates who prefer to learn through experience.

As a producing theatre, our Marketing team plays a key role in bringing productions to audiences. Working across digital and print campaigns, you'll gain hands-on experience promoting our productions, events and wider activities. You'll help create engaging content for a range of digital platforms, assist with email marketing campaigns, support the distribution of print materials and contribute to a variety of marketing projects — developing practical marketing skills while gaining insight into how campaigns are planned, delivered and evaluated in a busy producing theatre.

Key relationships: Outreach, Development, Catering, Box Office, Front of House, and Production & Stage Management departments.

What you'll be doing

• Assisting the marketing team in creating and sending marketing emails using Dotdigital and Spektrix
• Regularly updating the Watermill website using the content management system to keep information current
• Updating and maintaining front of house display areas including posters, leaflets and signage
• Creating content using Canva for the website and social media, including resizing images, simple video editing and artwork layouts
• Assisting the Marketing Officer and taking the lead on social media content — scheduling posts, writing copy, and regularly checking and responding to comments and messages
• Researching the latest digital marketing trends and content ideas
• Collating press coverage and quotes from online resources, newspapers and magazine articles
• Supporting show campaigns and marketing activity
• Maintaining and updating print distribution lists, and delivering print to local sites
• Working across other departments to support marketing for Outreach, Development, Front of House and the Restaurant
• Assisting in maintaining the organisation's archive records

Organisational commitments

• Carrying out any other tasks required on an ad hoc or continuing basis, appropriate to the level of responsibility of the post
• Undertaking relevant training and development as required
• Driving change through actions and words that advocate inclusion and equality, creating a culture that recognises and celebrates diversity
• Being accountable for the safety of yourself and others, in line with our Health & Safety Policy
• Creating a positive working environment, underpinned by the organisation's values
• Ensuring we collect and use data to inform decisions, demonstrate our impact and fulfil our funding conditions
• Complying with all legal requirements relating to GDPR
• Contributing to our environmental sustainability goals

What we're looking for

• A genuine enthusiasm for and interest in theatre and marketing
• Good written and verbal communication skills, including copywriting and proofing with absolute attention to detail
• Self-motivated, practical and flexible, with a positive outlook and can-do attitude
• Organisational skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities and deliver to tight deadlines
• A collaborative team player who enjoys working with others
• Awareness of what's trending and a good understanding of social media platforms
• An eye for design, with the ability to create eye-catching visuals and take photos for social media
• Sound numeracy skills
• Computer skills, including proven ability with Microsoft Office packages
• Willingness to work some evenings and weekends when required

How to apply

Send a short one-page cover letter or a video (2 minutes maximum) explaining why you want to undertake this traineeship and how you meet the person specification, along with your CV and a completed Equal Opportunities monitoring form, to Carys (Producing and Administrative Assistant):

Email: admin@watermill.org.uk
Post: Watermill Theatre, Bagnor, Newbury, RG20 8AE

Closing date: Monday 14 September
Interviews: Week commencing 28 September

Equal opportunities

The Watermill Theatre is committed to equal opportunities for all. We believe a diversity of perspectives enriches our work, and we take an equality of opportunity approach that aspires to give everyone the chance to achieve their potential.

The Equal Opportunities monitoring form helps us develop our policies and procedures around diversity and monitor our performance. The information you supply will not be made available to anyone, including recruiting managers, in any form other than anonymous data.

We are a Disability Confident Committed employer and will guarantee an interview to any applicant who self-identifies as deaf or disabled, or from a global majority background, and who meets the criteria. If this applies to you, please state so clearly in your cover letter.

If we can support your application by offering an alternative format, please contact admin@watermill.org.uk. We also want interviews to be as accessible as possible, so let us know in your application if there's anything we can do to support this.

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