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Location: Hybrid/Remote in Office (based in Sheffield)
Contract: Permanent
Recruiter: Will Thom
Hours: 37.5
Closing Date: 2 weeks from publishing
At Twinkl, we are committed to supporting those who teach by ensuring that our content meets the exceptional quality standards that our customers deserve. With a mission to inspire and empower teaching and learning, ensuring we have high-quality, educationally aligned images is a key part of our brand style and offering.
The Illustration Production Lead is responsible for managing the full lifecycle of illustration requests from intake to completion, ensuring that work is delivered on time, on brief, and aligned with broader business objectives. They will also focus on ensuring requests are essential with a clear value add, working to reduce duplicate or low-value requests.
This role requires exceptional leadership to guide a team of illustrators, strong process management to maintain lead times under one week, and an innovative mindset to integrate AI technologies and optimise resources. The Illustration Team Leader will be instrumental in maintaining quality, improving efficiency, and fostering the growth of the illustration team.
Ongoing projects / how you’ll spend your day:
Request Management
* Manage the intake, assessment, and allocation of all illustration requests.
* Maintain a clear prioritisation framework to ensure high-impact projects are addressed first.
* Act as a strategic filter to ensure creative resources are spent where they will have the greatest impact.
* Ensure illustrators have all the information, references, and context they need to work efficiently.
* Challenge and refine briefs where needed to ensure maximum relevance and quality.
* Standardise the briefing process to reduce misunderstandings and rework.
* Escalate resourcing or priority issues to senior leadership when required.
Workflow and Process Management
* Oversee the full request-to-completion process, ensuring delivery within the agreed 1-week lead time.
* Monitor request timelines and proactively address potential bottlenecks to prevent delays.
* Continually refine and improve the illustration workflow for speed, quality, and consistency.
* Introduce new methods, templates, or tools to improve efficiency and communication.
Resource Efficiency and Asset Re‑Use
* Identify opportunities to use pre-existing illustrations to meet new requests.
* Track frequency of re-use to measure cost and time savings.
AI Adoption and Technology Integration
* Promote the effective use of AI tools to assist and accelerate illustration work.
* Identify requests that could benefit from AI support to reduce illustrator time spent on AI failures.
* Provide training and best‑practice guidelines for AI integration in the creative process.
* Measure AI adoption rates and track time saved through automation.
Team Leadership and Line Management
* Provide day‑to‑day direction, motivation, and guidance for illustrators.
* Conduct regular 1-to-1s, performance reviews, and career development discussions.
* Support team members through workload challenges, providing mentorship and feedback.
* Use data and metrics to identify performance trends, skill gaps, and improvement opportunities.
* Encourage innovation, experimentation, and continuous learning.
* Support illustrators with development plans and progression.
* Implement performance improvement plans if/when necessary.
Qualifications
* Strong commercial understanding and entrepreneurial mindset.
* Strong leadership skills with experience managing creative teams.
* Excellent organisational and project management capabilities.
* Experience with process or production management.
* Familiarity with AI‑assisted platforms and an eagerness to explore new technologies.
* Data‑driven mindset with experience in monitoring and improving team performance.
* Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to inspire and motivate a team.
If you require a reasonable adjustment to the application/selection process to enable you to demonstrate your ability to perform the job requirements please include this at the foot of your covering letter. This will help us to understand any modifications we may need to make to support you throughout our selection process.
Benefits and Perks
* A friendly, welcoming and supportive culture. We believe work should be fun and always put people before the process.
* Diversity, inclusion and belonging – our Employee Network Program includes working groups for LGBTQ+, People of Colour, Disabilities (visible and invisible), Women in Tech and Working Parents.
* Westfield Health, 33 annual leave days per year plus an additional day after two years of service (cap at 38).
* Flexible working policy with opportunities to work from home and Twinkl subscription.
* Seasonal events.
* Cervical and prostate screening.
* Company sick pay after 3 months of service.
* After probation – cycle to work scheme.
* Long‑term service reward – Life insurance, enhanced pension contribution, enhanced maternity pay, enhanced adoption pay and enhanced paternity pay.
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