Head of UK Production (Printing & Framing) Job at City of London Full Time

The work that leaves our studio ends up on the walls of galleries, museums and homes — looked at every day for the rest of someone’s life. We are the last pair of hands before it gets there perfectly. That is the job.

theprintspace is Europe’s leading fine art and photographic printer. Since 2007 we’ve earned the trust of artists, galleries and the world’s best photographers — 4.9 out of 5 from more than 10,000 reviews, production centres in London, Brooklyn and Düsseldorf, and printing and framing produced for some of the biggest artists and institutions in the world. 

We’re hiring a Head of UK Production (Printing & Framing) to own everything that comes out of our London studio: printing, bespoke framing and mounting, and dispatch. You’ll report to our Global Production Director and run the UK the way a world-class operation should run — to process and data, not to memory, habit or last-minute heroics.

This role is for you if…

• You see a problem before it lands — and you’d rather flag it three days early than explain it after the fact.
• You have true ownership, owning production from end to end.
• A redo rate, SLA, and gross margin target that reads as a scoreboard, not a stick. You like being measured.
• “That’s not my job” isn’t in your vocabulary. No problem feels too big to take apart and solve.
• You hold the standard whether or not anyone is watching — and you make the people around you better at holding it too.
• You think craft and discipline are the same thing, not opposites.

It’s probably not for you if you prefer to react rather than plan, you’re uncomfortable being held to numbers, or you’d rather do the hands-on work yourself than build a team and a system that delivers it reliably without you.

What you’ll own…

• The whole UK production engine. Print, frame, mount, dispatch — its quality, consistency and efficiency, end to end.
• Three numbers that say you’re winning. Redo rate, SLA, gross margin.
• The workflow itself. Scheduling, materials, equipment, supply chain, and the layout of the floor.
• High profile client projects. Fine art framing for international distribution to our US and German sites — archival standards, packed and crated to survive the journey.
• The team. Train, cross-skill and stretch a permanent and freelance workforce, and build a pool of people who are genuinely match-fit, not just available.
• The system. The documentation, automations, QC methods and escalation routes that mean the department runs on a process — not on you.

What success looks like in your first year…

• No order is ever discovered to have a problem on the day it’s due.
• Every risk is visible to your director days before it becomes a miss.
• Defects are caught before dispatch — never by the customer.
• The floor runs the same whether you’re in the building or not, because the process is in charge, not the person.

Who we think you are…

You’ve run a production, manufacturing or finishing operation to a genuinely high bar. You’re fluent in quality systems and comfortable with the technical end of premium finishing — Diasec, acrylic face-mount, archival mounting, CNC-routed substrates. But the deciding factor isn’t your CV. It’s temperament: proactive, rigorous, calm under load, and quietly relentless about getting it right.

What we offer…

• Real ownership, and a director who wants you to run the UK like it’s yours.
• A craft worth caring about, for clients who notice the difference between excellent and almost.
• A profitable, internationally scaling business with production centres on two continents.
• Competitive salary 
• Carbon-neutral 

How to apply:

Skip the generic cover letter. Send us a 5 minute video telling us why you are applying for this role, and tell us about a complex production problem, and exactly what you did about it. 

Apply by sending your CV and video to