Digital Merchandising Apprentice - Times Holidays

Duration: 2 Year Apprenticeship

Start Date: January 2027

Location: London Bridge

Your team: The Travel team operates across three divisions under the Travel Director: Commercial, Partnerships, and Retail. The Commercial team focuses on selling advertising solutions across print and digital platforms, while the Partnerships team works with tour operators and travel agents to generate performance-based revenue. Times Holidays is the newest business in the Travel Team and  launched in July 2025 as an in-house travel agency selling bespoke holidays directly to Times print and digital audiences. 

The Campaign Management and Merchandising team is responsible for managing end-to-end marketing campaigns, executing visual presentation, and leading commercial positioning and promotional strategy for travel products across digital and print platforms. They collaborate closely with the Times Holidays Product team to translate curated travel itineraries into high-performing online assets, oversee CMS publishing, maintain style and URL link integrity, and curate strategic content to drive ecommerce revenue and conversion targets. Additionally, the team handles partner campaign deployment, multi-channel marketing execution (including newsletters and social media), and commercial reporting and analysis.

There are approx. 20 team members of the News UK Travel team, plus five dedicated travel agents.

Your role: Reporting to the Merchandising and Campaign Manager, the Digital Merchandising Apprentice will help drive sales and customer engagement by managing the visual presentation and promotion of travel products for Times Holidays. This role is responsible for sourcing relevant travel packages, crafting engaging web copy, and optimising promotional content across digital and print marketing channels.

Being an apprentice at The Times: During your time with us, you will earn above the living wage while receiving comprehensive, hands-on training. You’ll work 4 days a week with The Times and spend 1 day studying toward a fully funded Marketing Level 3 Qualification. Along with mentorship from top industry professionals, we will provide any tailored support you need to reach your full potential.

Day to day you will: 

• Build and optimise travel product packages aligned with editorial content across social media, newsletters, and the website.

• Write engaging website copy and maintain asset/image libraries from travel partners.

• Integrate content into the WordPress CMS, generate tracked booking URLs, and audit link accuracy.

• Collate supplier offers and communicates key promotions to internal teams in monthly roundups.

• Track traffic metrics and travel trends to continuously refine merchandising strategies.

• Spend 4 days gaining hands-on experience and 1 day studying toward your Level 4 Sales Executive Qualification.

What we are looking for from you:

• Be part of a commercial team focused on selling holidays to customers and being part of the travel industry

• Working with Google Suite, AI tools, and data analysis in Excel or Google Sheets.

• Understanding and interest in the online travel environment with broad knowledge of destinations, providers, touring, cruise, and current industry trends.

• Data-literate and comfortable working toward sales targets and commercial KPIs.

• Detail-oriented, highly organised, self-driven, and collaborative in a fast-moving environment.

Application Process 

Online Application > Google Meet Interview > Assessment Centre

As part of the Online Application process, we would like you to provide answers to the following 3 questions:

• Briefly introduce yourself and tell us why you’re interested in pursuing a career in the apprenticeship you’ve applied to?

• What interests you about the company you are applying to and suggest one improvement you would make to the content?

• Describe a learning curve you recently navigated. Outline the steps you took, the challenges you faced and what the outcome was.

News UK is 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 and Virgin Radio UK, and we have market-leading local stations across Ireland. Our world-famous brands provide news, analysis, opinion and entertainment to almost 40 million people each month. Spanning print and pixel, audio and video, events and experiences, our multi-format brands are home to a plurality of opinion, representing the diverse communities we serve. Driven by passion, guided by principles and acting with purpose, we exist to promote a fair society, freedom of speech and a little bit of fun. Rethinking continually the business of storytelling, we represent, reflect and reach the nation, telling the stories that matter. 

Life at News

Driven by passion, guided by principles and acting with purpose. We represent, reflect and reach the nation, telling the stories that matter. We inform our audiences so that they can make decisions based on trusted information.

We represent, reflect and reach the nation, telling the stories that matter most. To ensure these stories resonate with as broad an audience as possible, it is essential that our organisation reflects the diversity of the people we reach. Whether through age, gender, ethnicity, disability, social class or sexuality, we are committed to representing the rich variety of voices that make up our society. And we champion a culture where everyone has the opportunity to contribute and thrive as we continue to innovate and drive long term sustainable growth. This is done through our Diversity Strategy.

At News UK, we take pride in our exceptional employee-led networks that bring together individuals with shared interests and create a vibrant sense of community. We believe our networks play a vital role in fostering a collaborative and supportive work culture at News UK. Groups that we support include the African & Caribbean Network, Parents and Carers, and LGBTQ+ group News Is Out, and the Apprentice Society.

Benefits

Some of our benefits include:

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

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

• Private medical insurance including coverage for pre-existing conditions

• Discounted gym memberships, free ClassPass at Home, weekly virtual yoga classes

• ‘Bikes for Work’ and ‘Electric Car’ scheme

• Up to 60% discount on Harper Collins books

• Access to exclusive events and competitions with exciting brands such as talkSPORT, Virgin Radio UK & The Times. Weekly virtual panel chats with top journalists and celebrities

• Access to wellbeing benefits such as EAP, physio/massage and counselling

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

• 25 days holiday plus bank holidays, as well as an extra anniversary day off

• Up to 3 paid volunteering days per year to support causes you care about

We are committed to providing an inclusive recruitment process. If you require reasonable adjustments due to a disability or health condition at any stage of your application or interview, please let us know. You can contact us at [email protected] to discuss how we can support you to perform at your best.