The Edinburgh International Book Festival runs 15–30 August 2026 at the Edinburgh Futures Institute. Seasonal staff are paid £14.30 per hour (Real Living Wage), with most contracts running mid-June to the end of August. The Festival is an equal opportunities employer and Disability Confident Committed.
What the Book Festival hires for
The Book Festival takes on around fifty seasonal staff for its Audience Services team alone each summer, plus smaller teams across other departments. Specific roles vary year to year, but the recurring titles are:
Box Office Assistants and Supervisors
Selling and exchanging tickets in person and by phone, handling enquiries, and managing the busiest moments around author events. Supervisor roles run a small team and start a few weeks earlier.
Front of House staff
Greeting audiences, scanning tickets, seating crowds, and keeping events running on time across the Festival's tented and indoor venues.
Booksellers (Festival Bookshop)
Running the on-site bookshop — recommending titles tied to the day's events, processing sales, and managing stock during peak signing queues.
Authors' Area / Green Room staff
Looking after authors before and after their events: hospitality, briefing, and making sure people get to the right venue at the right time. A more behind-the-scenes role.
Access Stewards
Supporting audience members with access requirements — wheelchair seating, BSL events, audio-described sessions, and quiet routes through the site.
Digital Events Chat Moderators
Moderating the live chat for online and hybrid events: surfacing audience questions for the chair, keeping the conversation civil, and flagging tech issues.
Programme Production Assistants
Supporting the programme team in the build-up to the Festival — author logistics, scheduling, and event prep. Contracts often start in June.
Marketing, press, and development
Year-round and longer-contract roles, posted earlier in the year. Includes communications, media liaison, fundraising, and audience development.
What the work is actually like
The atmosphere is calmer than the Fringe. Daytime hours, author green rooms, and tented venues rather than 2am bar shifts and high-volume crowds. The audience is a literary one — people who've booked specific events weeks in advance — so the dynamic is closer to a busy theatre or arts centre than a Fringe nightclub.
The Festival moved from Charlotte Square Gardens to the Edinburgh Futures Institute in recent years, which means most events are in fixed indoor and adjacent outdoor spaces rather than a sprawling tented village. That's worth knowing if you're picturing the old Charlotte Square setup — the site is now more compact and weather-resilient.
Hours are 35 per week in June and July, ramping to 42 per week during the festival itself. Expect six-day weeks during the run, with two days off scheduled and rotas issued in advance. If you've worked Fringe venue jobs before, the trade-off is straightforward: less intensity per shift, fewer late nights, and a more predictable rota — in exchange for slightly longer total hours and a less party-driven atmosphere.
When applications open
The Book Festival's hiring cycle runs from the start of the year through to early summer.
January–April
Permanent and year-round roles: marketing, press, development, programme staff, and senior production positions. These get the longest application windows and the most thorough recruitment processes.
March–May
Seasonal hiring opens: box office, front of house, booksellers, authors' area, access stewards, digital chat moderators, and programme production assistants. Most contracts run mid-June to the end of August.
June
Last-minute roles and replacements occasionally appear. By this point most teams are confirmed, so anything posted now tends to fill quickly. Apply on the day if you can.
Pay and conditions
Seasonal pay
- Hourly rate
- £14.30/hour
- Payment
- Weekly in arrears, by bank transfer
- Holiday pay
- Paid in addition to the hourly rate
- Living Wage status
- Real Living Wage employer
Practical info
- No accommodation provided — applicants from outside Edinburgh need to arrange their own. August rentals fill up early and run expensive.
- Equal opportunities employer.
- Disability Confident Committed.
- Rotas issued in advance during the festival run.
- Two days off scheduled per week during the run.
Where to apply
The Book Festival posts its current vacancies on its own jobs page, and cross-posts the same roles to a few sector-specific boards. Apply directly on the employer's site where you can — it's the most reliable way to make sure you're seeing every active role.
- Primary: edbookfest.co.uk/about-us/jobs — the Book Festival's own recruitment page.
- Goodmoves — Scotland's third-sector jobs board. Useful if you also want to see roles at other charities.
- Publishing Scotland — the trade body's jobs board, where Book Festival roles are often cross-listed alongside other publishing-sector vacancies.
- Edinburgh Festival City jobs page — aggregates roles from across the eleven Edinburgh festivals.
For a full directory of every active festival recruitment page in Edinburgh, see who's hiring at the Edinburgh festivals in 2026.
