Studio manager

Create, maintain and improve the working environment that helps us thrive. Be part of the team delivering meaningful work with the UK’s most significant and interesting cultural organisations.

Download the full job description.

We are looking for someone who enjoys working in and with our team, creating and managing the environment where we all thrive.

You’ll be in charge of our admin, from the day-to-day bookkeeping to arranging our monthly cultural outings.

This is a busy multi-faceted role with many regular tasks alongside the need to take on wider projects and to deal with problems and opportunities as they arise.

You’ll need to juggle many tasks whilst maintaining a cheerful and helpful approach to clients, colleagues and suppliers.

This is a job that you can make your own and a fantastic opportunity to learn and develop. We are looking for someone to exceed our expectations and challenge our preconceptions.

We can imagine the role stretching in all sorts of directions, to suit your interests and skills. Or it might suit someone who just loves the day-to-day admin of a studio.

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Salary: around £30K

We’re genuinely open to a discussion if you feel you are worth more, or if you feel you’d need to work up to this level.

Location: hybrid

We are a team. Some work fully or partly remotely but most enjoy the collective culture of our studio in Greenwich, London. For this role we expect minimum studio days to be Mon – Wed.

Flexible hours

7.5hrs per day, plus an hour’s lunch. Core hours are 10:00 – 16:00, weekdays (so people can start at 7:30 and work ‘til 16:00, or start at 10:00 and work ‘til 18:30; and anything in between).

Leave

We offer 25 days of annual paid leave (plus bank holidays) which increases after you’ve been here two years. Plus: you can also buy or sell up to five days each calendar year.

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Additional things that mark us out:

• We have a proven record meeting the highest standards of social and environmental impact
• You’ll always be treated with respect and empathy. You’ll work with your manager to keep learning in ways that suit you
• Funded monthly cultural outing with the team – in person (sometimes remote)
• Monthly breakfast briefings with leading figures from the sector
• Regular training sessions delivered by team members and guests
• Membership of the Arts Marketing Association with access to online resources
• Annual team discussion days – where we celebrate the past and play an active part in planning your future
• Occasional team dinners
• Recruitment referral bonus
• Cycle to work scheme
• Travelcard loans (interest free)
• Free tickets and opportunities to attend shows and client events
• A well stocked kitchen with cupboards full of fancy teas, coffee and biscuits
• The world’s best portfolio of the nicest arts clients

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The role

Maintaining our studio

• You’ll be in charge of maintaining our working environment or finding the right suppliers to do so.
• You’ll be involved or in charge of everything from feeding the fish to backing-up the server and providing IT troubleshooting.
• You’ll oversee our fire alarm system and be our first aid contact; and you’ll keep our kitchen cupboards stocked with tea and biscuits.
• You’ll always be seeking new ways to make our work and our studio more environmentally sustainable.

Bookkeeping/invoicing

• You will need to be scrupulous in all areas of bookkeeping and invoicing, liaising with our Director to ensure that we keep accurate records, pay all invoices within a week of receiving them, and charge fairly and promptly for all our work.

Managing systems

• As a busy studio, it’s important that we have efficient and effective procedures and systems in place. It will be your job to follow, champion, maintain and constantly improve upon those systems, and document those improvements.

People focused

• This is a people focused role. We’re a team, we work hard, we’re passionate about what we do and we are honest and fair in the way we do it; we want to work with people who share these values.
• You’ll be involved in lots of areas of people management, from organising our monthly cultural outings to helping us remember to celebrate milestones and birthdays.
• You’ll be organising activities including our monthly cultural outings, Xmas meal and annual team discussion days.

Liaising with clients

• Excellent client relationships are vital to our success. You’ll be in the front-line, answering the phone, greeting guests, contacting clients, sending out welcome packs, and setting-up meetings etc.

Liaising with suppliers

• We work hard to make sure we get the best value from all of our suppliers (not just the cheapest). It will be your job to negotiate prices, nurture relationships and manage specific tasks.

Championing our values

• Like everyone in the Cog team, you’ll be an advocate for our values, especially around Sustainability, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging.

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Qualities and knowledge required

We’re looking for someone who can show us they’d be a great addition to our team. That probably means they can demonstrate the following:

• Organised with a meticulous eye for detail
• Ability to manage concurrent projects
• Excellent written and verbal communication
• Numerate with experience in bookkeeping and purchasing
• Comfortable following existing (written) instructions when needed, and using your own initiative when appropriate
• An understanding of when to escalate and when to use initiative
• Positive attitude and energetic approach to working in a team. A self-starter with a desire to constantly improve and develop
• Interest in the work of Cog and our clients

Would be great if…

These aren’t essential to you getting the role, but would be an added bonus:

• Experience of working in a creative office/studio environment
• A knowledge and experience of working in the arts, cultural and heritage sectors
• Knowledge and experience of using Harvest (project management and time-tracking), Xero (accounts), Google Apps for Business and Adobe Creative Cloud
• IT knowledge and ability to troubleshoot problems