Deputy Website Editor
Reform UK · City of Westminster
Location: Westminster, London
Salary: Competitive
Reporting to: Website Editor
The Role
Reform UK is seeking an ambitious Deputy Website Editor to help run its new, enlarged digital newsroom from the party's Westminster headquarters. Working closely with the Website Editor, this role will be central to turning the Reform UK website into a fast, authoritative and high-performing national publishing operation.
The Deputy Website Editor will run shifts, commission stories, manage handovers, quality-control output, respond to breaking news and help maintain the homepage and daily publishing agenda across a seven-day rota. The role requires strong native digital skills, excellent judgement, energy and the ability to keep a busy team organised when the news agenda changes quickly.
What you'll do
- Run shifts and keep the newsroom buzzing
- Deputise for the Website Editor and take clear responsibility for the newsroom, homepage and publishing agenda during assigned shifts.
- Run commissioning, handovers and daily priorities so every important story has an owner, deadline, platform package and next action.
- React quickly to breaking news, speeches, events and political developments, reallocating resources and updating priorities without losing control of the broader schedule.
- Help manage early, late and weekend rotas, ensuring consistent leadership, continuity and resilience across the seven-day operation.
Key Responsibilities
Commission strong, original digital journalism
Commission and edit breaking news, original reporting, interviews, explainers, policy coverage, video-led stories and event packages that can compete for national attention.
Push reporters beyond low-value rewriting and clipping, encouraging original angles, strong sourcing, clear headlines and useful follow-up coverage.
Help build named topic ownership and repeatable coverage rhythms around priority areas so the website develops authority as well as volume.
Ensure copy is accurate, well structured, properly sourced and appropriately optimised before publication, with clear escalation on contentious or higher-risk material.
Maintain high standards of headline writing, homepage presentation, internal linking, embeds, recirculation and lifecycle management of time-sensitive pages.
Use data, SEO and audience signals intelligently
Monitor real-time and longer-term performance and use the evidence to influence commissioning, headlines, homepage treatment and follow-up coverage.
Apply strong SEO knowledge to breaking and evergreen publishing, helping grow non-branded discovery and authority around Reform UK's key topics and public figures.
Spot opportunities quickly from search demand, audience behaviour, social signals and the developing news agenda, and convert them into practical editorial action.
Develop the team and maintain high standards
Coach reporters and producers during shifts, providing clear feedback and helping less experienced colleagues improve speed, judgement and native digital skills.
Support performance management, training, rota planning and team development, identifying gaps or recurring workflow problems early.
Work as part of one joined-up digital operation
Coordinate closely with Video & Live and Brand Social Media so major stories and events are planned for the website and adapted effectively across other platforms.
Work constructively with Communications, Campaigns, Policy, Operations and other stakeholders while maintaining clear editorial priorities and avoiding unnecessary gatekeeping.
Help ensure website content supports wider audience journeys into email, ReformGo, membership, events and other appropriate actions without weakening the core editorial product.
Performance and Leadership:
- Apply strong editorial and legal judgement to fast-moving content, escalating defamation, contempt, privacy, copyright or other risks appropriately.
- Use clear green/amber/red approval principles so routine work moves quickly while contentious or high-risk material receives the right level of review.
- Identify bottlenecks and recurring errors, fix the underlying workflow where possible and escalate structural issues before they become operational failures.
- Give the Website Editor clear updates on performance, risks, staffing issues, opportunities and decisions requiring follow-up.
- Contribute proactively to editorial planning, new formats, topic strategies and improvements to the website rather than treating the role as shift supervision alone.
- Build trusted relationships with reporters, senior editors, political colleagues and subject specialists, communicating clearly even when priorities conflict.
THE PERSON
We are looking for a strong digital news operator ready to take a significant next step: someone with management experience, excellent native digital instincts and the energy to help build and rapidly grow a new national publishing operation.
Essential experience and capabilities
- Senior experience in a busy digital newsroom, ideally within a national publisher, broadcaster, news brand or similarly high-output environment.
- Some proven management or shift-leadership experience, including commissioning, editing, feedback, handovers and staff coordination.
- Excellent editorial judgement and the confidence to make quick decisions on breaking stories, homepage priorities and competing demands.
- Strong hands-on CMS and digital publishing skills, with an instinctive understanding of how modern website newsrooms operate.
- Good SEO expertise and the ability to apply search thinking to both breaking news and longer-term authority-building content.
- Advanced understanding of analytics and performance data, with the curiosity to understand why content works and what should happen next.
- Strong writing, editing and headline skills, with a sharp eye for accuracy, presentation, audience impact and detail.
- Comprehensive understanding of media law, legal and compliance requirements relevant to digital political publishing.
- Excellent communication and team-working skills, with the ability to motivate colleagues, handle pressure and deal constructively with stakeholders.
- Proactive, highly reactive to opportunity and full of ideas; motivated by results rather than process for its own sake.
- A genuine interest in British politics and the enthusiasm and discretion required to work effectively inside a mission-led political organisation.
- Willingness to work full-time from Reform UK's Westminster HQ and take part in an early/late/weekend rota. Flexibility is essential; this is not a conventional 9-to-5 role.
Highly desirable
- Experience deputising for a website editor, news editor, audience editor or comparable senior digital role.
- Experience managing a homepage or live news operation during major breaking stories, elections or significant public events.
- Strong understanding of recirculation, internal linking, email capture and the relationship between editorial content and owned audience growth.
- Experience commissioning video-led or multimedia stories and working closely with social and video teams.
- A track record of suggesting and delivering new formats, coverage approaches or workflow improvements that produced measurable audience gains.
Why join Reform UK?
This is a rare chance to help build a national digital newsroom rather than simply inherit one. The Deputy Website Editor will have substantial influence over daily output, team culture, standards and the practical systems that determine whether the operation succeeds.