Label Manager
Music is Universal
It’s the passionate and dedicated team at Universal Music who help make us the world’s leading music company. From A&R to finance, legal to digital, sales to marketing, Universal Music is the place to grow and develop your career within a truly commercial and innovative business that leads in everything it does.
Everyone is welcome to apply for our roles, and we are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment because of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, religion, belief, age, marital status, background, pregnancy, or caring responsibilities. We also recognise the importance of diversity of thought within our teams and are fully committed to embracing the talents of people with autism, dyslexia, ADHD, and other forms of neurocognitive variation.
We will always seek to make appropriate adjustments to recruitment, workplaces, and work processes to be fully inclusive to people with different needs and working styles. If you need us to make any reasonable adjustments for you from application onwards, including alternatives to the online form or to disclose a neurocognitive condition, please email [email protected].
The A Side: The Collective
In October 2024, Universal Music UK brought together two iconic music labels, Island and EMI Records, to create Island EMI Label Group. The new powerhouse label group is designed to help deliver our strategy to support artists from the wider Universal family.
Within Island-EMI is The Collective; an incubator for the next generation of musical entrepreneurs. The Collective is a dynamic new start-up division of the business, it brings together a group of A&R-led labels including POSITIVA, The Cross, Adventure Recordings, 40 Miles, Up Ya Archives, and EMI North.
The Collective team provides creative, strategic, and operational support to these labels, helping them grow and develop their artists while acting as a key link between the Island, EMI, and Virgin teams.
The B Side: The Role
The Label Manager will manage the relationships with assigned label partners in The Collective, acting as the day-to-day point of contact to the label and representing their labels' interests internally
Working with the MD, on-board the labels to The Collective and vice versa, brief and introduce all internal teams to the labels
Liaise with labels on all frontline-signed artist campaigns, working with the MD to put teams in place internally and externally
Work with assigned Virgin Artist & Label Services Label Manager to ensure the labels are on-boarded onto all the relevant systems and follow best practice for all their Virgin releases, and helping to support on, and resolve, any issues
Ensure labels circulate regular commercial / campaign updates on all artist campaigns, and updates are shared with the correct teams in each instance
Implement regular in-person meetings with labels
On-board labels to all UMG resources and tools available to them
As required, create and/or commission tools to manage the day-to-day admin of The Collective as it continues to grow
Working with the MD:
Advise and guide on development strategies for the labels and their artists, ensuring labels achieve their goals
Manage budget approvals, and tracking of spend and approvals
Implement regular and effective Collective-to-label comms
Manage The Collective social media, events, internal comms and PR strategy
Person Specification
Passion for music across a broad range of genres.
Proven experience of project managing artist campaigns
Ideally have experience working within a record label or distribution service
Proven authoritative knowledge of charts, trends, and artists
A broad network of contacts
A creative and critical thinker who can take ideas from ideation to fruition
Have strong knowledge of marketing and commercial operations, processes, systems and tools
Experience of working with acts of various sizes and budget
Excellent relationship-building and relationship-management skills with the ability to deal with difficult situations with tact and diplomacy
Exceptional communication skills, written and verbal
Just So You Know…
The company presents this job description as a guide to the major areas and duties for which the jobholder is accountable. However, the business operates in an environment that demands change and the jobholder's specific responsibilities and activities will vary and develop. Therefore, the job description should be seen as indicative and not as a permanent, definitive, and exhaustive statement.