The Times and Sunday Times Graduate Trainee Scheme

This 2-year graduate journalism programme provides hands-on training across reporting, production, and digital teams to develop skills in creating news content and growing audiences.

Job Description

The Times and The Sunday Times invites applications for its 2026 graduate training programme. This is an opportunity to work at Britain’s most trusted quality newspapers, alongside award-winning journalists.

You will receive on the job training, mentoring and guidance and will spend time with a number of different departments across both papers, including reporting, production and digital teams. You will learn everything we can teach you about how to create content, tell stories, attract, grow and capture an audience.

We are looking for candidates with originality, talent, commitment and a love of journalism. The two-year scheme is based in London and if you are offered a place on the training programme, you will start work at the end of August 2026.

Applications close on Sunday 19th April 2026

We are News UK: 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, Talk and Virgin Radio UK, and we have market-leading local radio 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 multiplatform brands are home to a plurality of opinion, representing the diverse communities we serve. News UK is wholly owned by News Corp.

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.

To do this, we believe our employees must represent different backgrounds, perspectives and experiences. We strive to maximise and encourage every individual’s potential and ensure everyone feels valued.

We support this through our Diversity Strategy, which focuses on three main priorities - attracting talent from a wider, more representative pool, developing equity programmes to drive better representation in our leadership, and ensuring diversity in our workforce as well as the journalism and content we produce.

We also currently have 13 employee led networks and groups that support our strategy and connect like minded employees socially.

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%

• 30 days holiday, plus bank holidays and up to 4 volunteering days per year