Deputy Head of SEO

The Sun is looking for a talented individual with a background in search engine optimisation, significant newsroom experience and a track record of delivering results. 

The Sun is the biggest news brand in the UK, publishing hundreds of stories a day and reaching over 170m unique users digitally every month. Its exclusives set the news agenda and its campaigns have changed the lives of many. Delivering news, entertainment, and sports coverage to millions of readers every day. With a rich history spanning decades, we are dedicated to providing accurate, insightful, and engaging content across print and digital platforms.

The Sun has a mass-market audience and aims to appeal to a diverse audience in the UK and beyond.

The role

As Deputy Head of SEO you will be responsible for supporting the Head of SEO in developing and implementing the editorial and tech SEO strategy, as well as helping lead our large, talented team of SEO editors and writers in London.

Day to day you will: 

• Help grow organic search, Discover and Google News, and emerging search channels such as LLMs and video

• Analyse and report back to the newsroom on SEO successes and failures 

• Be confident in identifying search and Discover trends and communicating them to the newsroom

• Help lead and manage a large team of SEO editors and reporters

• Lead The Sun’s SEO breaking news and live blog strategy 

• Help oversee The Sun’s evergreen strategy

• Be confident with a range of SEO tools (Botify, SEMRush, Sisitrix, News Dashboard)

• Liaise with different departments to ensure strategic SEO needs and objectives are met

• Ensure, through training and monitoring, that SEO best practice is adhered to

• Monitor algorithmic changes and developments, and help recommend actions to relevant teams

• Collaborate with developers to implement SEO best practices, including site architecture, Core Web Vitals optimisation, page speed optimisation, structured data, etc

• Perform competitor analysis and identify opportunities to improve and overtake in key markets

• Communicating content plans around key events, such as Love Island, to the wider newsroom

• Support content migrations and post-migration analysis & recovery

• Keep up to date on the latest SEO developments and news.

What we’re looking for from you: 

• Organised and a good problem-solver, able to eliminate obstacles through creative and adaptive approaches

• Experience working collaboratively with multidisciplinary teams

• Can demonstrate an understanding of The Sun brands

• Newsroom experience essential

• Sound technical SEO understanding

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:

• Private medical insurance including coverage for pre-existing conditions

• Discounted gym memberships, free ClassPass at Home, weekly in person/ virtual exercise classes

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

• Up to 60% discount on Harper Collins books

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

• 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%

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

Next Step:

Please CLICK HERE to see this role on our own website, and apply.

Closing date: 16th November 2025.