Planning and PlanningResource are the leading sources of independent intelligence for the professionals that administer and navigate the UK planning system.

We produce a website, a fortnightly print magazine, and several daily and weekly bulletins, circulating to more than 7300 paid users.

Job Description

This is a new position on Planning, created as part of a strategy for the brand to provide deeper insight and higher value content for its audience.

The role will be central to the operation of the content team on Planning, one of the most successful titles in the business division of the UK’s leading independent publisher.

Main responsibilities:

• To deliver market-leading research reports from initial conception to end product: generating ideas, collecting and analysing data and commissioning, editing and writing reports. 
• To conceive, commission, write and edit in-depth journalistic content, including investigative features, interviews, market reports and case studies.
• Managing external and internal contributors to support production of the above
• To help deliver our goal of producing content that will prompt our audience to use our products increasingly intensively.

The ideal candidate will be a journalist with the ability to identify our readers' information needs, and meet them through a mixture of original data sourced through our own research, and original analysis of publicly available data.

Among candidates that would be of particular interest to us would be people who are already working as section editors, or reporters with a history of devising and writing high quality features, or using data journalism to generate stories that are important to their readers.

Existing knowledge of the planning and/or built environment sectors would be helpful, but is not as important to the role as curiosity and a willingness to become immersed in the subject matter.

The Insight Editor will: 

• Plan, commission, write, edit and ensure timely delivery of content including research reports, features, surveys (including Planning's surveys of the consultancy and planning law markets), supplements and case studies, working under the direction of the editor.
• Gather and analyse market intelligence to define research parameters and article topics
• Use online analytics tools to assess which material best meets Planning's goal of producing content that will prompt our audience to use our products increasingly intensively. 
• Visualise pages, working closely with the art editor and production editor on the layout of these pages. 
• Check all copy that he/she has commissioned to ensure that it meets the brief, makes sense and provides a compelling read, before passing it onto the production editor for detailed sub-editing. 
• Where needed, write research reports, features, online news and print news analysis
• Write headlines. 
• Liaise with the online editor to ensure material that he or she has commissioned is presented to its best advantage online and on social media as well as in print.
• As required, act as an editorial adviser to the awards and conferences teams.
• Act as an ambassador for the title, raising awareness of the title’s research function
• Liaise with third party data partners where appropriate
• Support the commercial objectives of the title by liaising with the subscriptions, marketing and sales team to keep them informed of editorial plans
• Work within a budget agreed with the editor.

The Insight Editor will need the following skills:

• The ability to understand our core audience's most pressing information needs, and devise content to meet them. 
• The ability to use, or learn to use, online analytics tools to assess our audience's interest in different types of content
• Creative skills, especially in the conception of ideas for content. 
• Organisational skills, especially in forward planning, project management and handling multiple deadlines. 
• Commissioning skills, from writing briefs to ensuring deadlines are met.
• Exemplary writing and editing skills: able to write and edit content so that it is accurate, objective, authoritative, concise and clear.
• The ability to identify essential data for our readers that we should be sourcing through our own research.
• Skills in analysing other organisations' data to produce useful information for s specific audience
• Supervising journalist colleagues, freelancers and contributors from the profession, motivating them to produce excellent quality material
• Ability to work effectively with the art and production editors to bring print pages alive
• Knowledge of copyright laws and legal issues.

The Insight Editor will also need the following attributes:

• Rigorous attention to detail both in written copy and in analysing data.
• Able to work independently, while maintaining regular communications with the rest of the team
• Productivity 
• Ability to juggle various projects and commitments,
• Curiosity about the subject (determination to find out not only what has happened but why and how)

EXPERIENCE

• Substantial reporting experience on a newspaper, news website, or business-to-business or consumer title
• Previous experience of using online analytics tools to steer decision-making about content would be useful, but is not essential.
• A track record of conceiving and commissioning high quality long-form content, including surveys and/or original data journalism, would be an advantage, but is not essential. 

Click 'Apply' now.

Closing date for all applications is 1 February 2019.