March 27, 2025 (Updated )
The Times and The Sunday Times run a range of graduate trainee schemes — this year they’re all advertised under one application, which is open until April 6. If you’re thinking of applying, you’ve stopped off in the right place — we’ve asked people who’ve successfully completed the process for their top tips and advice.
If you’ve successfully applied to the scheme and want to share your wisdom, please do get in touch. We’re always looking for more insights to help those just starting out and would be eternally grateful for your support.
Otherwise, if you’re looking to start a career with the paper of record, read on. Don’t know what a paper of record is? Neither did we until we edited this article. Here’s what it means. Either way, you’ll find everything you need to know here — and plenty more info on other graduate schemes through our weekly updated list of what’s open and in-depth guides to various other schemes.
The Times & The Sunday Times Graduate Trainee Scheme
Currently, the scheme on offer with The Times and The Sunday Times lasts for two years and in 2025 was listed at a starting salary of £28,000pa. This year, applications appear to fall under just one scheme; in the past, we’ve seen specialisms offered for reporting, video, and sub-editing, so it’s worth thinking about which of these camps you might fall under.
The News Building, where you’ll be based, is often known as the ‘mini-Shard’ and offers impressive views from its terrace and fun designs inside. (Image Credit: Jem Collins / Journo Resources)
The formal programme offers on-the-job training, mentoring, and guidance and, no matter what scheme you join, you’ll get the chance to spend time working across a number of different departments, including reporting, production, and digital. Or, as they put it in the 2025 advert: “You will learn everything we can teach you about how to create content, tell stories, attract, grow, and capture an audience.”
In 2024, trainees were also given formal training from PA Media, spending one day a week working on an NCTJ Diploma. The formal journalism qualification covers media law, ethics, and other essential journalism skills.
If you’re offered a place on the upcoming programme, you’ll join the team in August 2025, primarily based at The News Building in London Bridge.
Fintan Hogan joined The Times’s graduate trainee scheme in 2024 and was sent abroad on a job reporting in Norway and Finland within two months of starting as a trainee. “They really give you a lot of trust and they invest a lot in you,” he explains, “the support of the whole team is incredible, and you have amazing opportunities to prove yourself and to the paper from day one.”
The Application Process
The application process for The Times and The Sunday Times Graduate Trainee Scheme is fairly standard; according to our records, it hasn’t changed much over the past five years. In the first instance, you’ll be asked to provide a cover letter with three examples of your published journalism and a CV. It’s worth stressing here that published journalism can be pieces you’ve written for your student newspaper. Fintan, for example, wrote for ROAR at King’s College, London.
For both this part of the process and beyond, Fintan recommends picking out stories and experience that most fit The Times and The Sunday Times. He explains: “Take what experience you have in the field you’re applying for, whether that’s sub-editing or production or the journalist scheme, and then say how you would apply it to a Times-style story. You can say, ‘here’s my experience, and here’s how I’d apply it to your newsroom.” Ask yourself, for example, how The Times might approach a topic, or the work that goes into a story behind the scenes.
Shortlisted candidates will then be taken through to an interview stage. In 2020, Emma Yeomans, an alumna of the scheme, broke this down into three key elements: a mixture of interviews, a news test, and some story-based exercises. From our interviews in 2025, the process broadly still seems to follow the same format.
Sophia Crothall is a video production trainee who joined the team in 2025. As she was applying for a video-based role, she was instead asked for three videos she had produced, alongside her cover letter and CV. She was later asked to prepare a five-minute presentation on how she would approach producing a video news story for The Times.
Her advice, however, is relevant to any applicant. “I looked at and researched what the target audience was forThe Times, and what kind of platforms they might be using. Is it going to be social media, or is it going to be something more long-form, like the website or YouTube? And then I researched what is being reported on, and packaged that together,” Sophia told Journo Resources.
“I pulled out the story arc for the video that I would follow, how long it would be, and justified everything that I’d chosen.”
While she wasn’t asked to present in her interview, which was conducted by both the head of video and deputy head of video, Sophia was asked about her CV and cover letter plus video-specific questions about what editing software she had used previously, and “if you had the opportunity to produce [a documentary], what would you do?”
Due to the time between applying and interviewing, Sophia suggests keeping a copy of your CV and cover letter that you submitted in your application. She also recommends taking the time to “really understand who The Times are, the kind of news angles that they take, and who their target audience is.” “Because,” she adds, “if, for instance, they asked if you could pitch something, it’s good to know if that would actually get covered by The Times in the first place.”
We also spoke to Kimberly Long, now an editor for The Banker, who also interviewed for the scheme several years ago. She recalls being asked to send suggestions for improving The Times‘s coverage ahead of the interview, with a note stressing people shouldn’t “waste space paying compliments, we are interested in faults you can identify.”
“The main thing I remember about it was I got the interview because I wrote the most ridiculous cover letter,” she tells Journo Resources. “I basically said: ‘Here’s my CV for academic information and here’s a list of facts about me we can discuss at the interview. I included stuff like the fact that I loved baking and might bring treats to the office, and that I lived in Japan for a year before my MA.
“I also wrote in that my parents had left school before their GCSEs and that I wanted to become a journalist to give people a voice. At the interview, they explicitly asked me who had told me to write a letter like that because they’d never had anything like it before.”
She also remembers being asked practical questions, for example, how to deal with doorstepping, and stressed that it wasn’t an intimidating experience.
Fintan echoes the importance of showing your capability, but emphasises that no one is trying to catch you out at the interview stage.
“I would say it’s not throwing curveballs at you or anything. They’re very kind and nice, and they give you the opportunity to talk about yourself and your own achievements as well. There was nothing surprising. It was all very much ‘tell us about what your strengths are’.”
What Are They Looking For In Applications?
While we can’t tell you for sure what The Times and The Sunday Times teams are looking for in applications, Emma does have some reflections from her own application process. Overall, they’re looking for good reporters, she says. “Beyond that, showing that you’re adaptable and hard-working is helpful, and don’t neglect writing skills. They’re very important.”
Journo Resources was also lucky enough to sit down with The Times editor Tony Gallagher at #JournoFest 2025. More broadly, his top tips for those looking to break into journalism were: “If you want to be a journalist, the first thing you need to have is a huge amount of curiosity. The second thing you need to have is determination and persistence, because it’s not a linear career. It’s not like joining law or joining accountancy.” So, it’s worth thinking about how you can show these skills in your application.
He adds that the people who are currently on the graduate scheme “are already committed to the job and they can show evidence of that. They’ve probably done some journalism at university and they may have done some work experience in various places.”
Tony also stresses that the team focus on the skills you have, rather than your academic background: “They’ve got a CV that shows they’ve got an aptitude for the task [of journalism] and, I’ll be candid, we very rarely look at their degree, or their A Levels, or their GCSEs, because whatever university you went to, it doesn’t matter. It takes all types to make a great journalist.”