News Editor, Nigeria Language Services

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: News Editor, Nigeria Language Services

Job Requisition ID: 48250
Location: Lagos
Employment Type: Full-time

Purpose of the Role

• The Nigeria Languages Editor will set the strategic direction across three language services, lead a shared on-demand production hub and drive a digital-first approach that deepens the BBC's reach and relevance — particularly among young women, who represent our most underserved and fastest-growing audience segment - while maintaining the highest editorial standards.

Your Key Responsibilities and Impact

• Provide strategic leadership and line management to three Assistant Editors and a Senior Journalist Team Manager, driving performance, editorial quality, talent development and succession planning.
• Drive audience growth and engagement, with targeted strategies to expand reach among young audiences, women, and diaspora communities across West Africa.
• Lead the On-Demand Production Hub and Social Media Studio, ensuring consistent, high-quality video output and positioning the hub as a centre of excellence for innovation and collaboration.
• Own and execute a digital-first, video-led content strategy, delivering platform-specific growth across YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, WhatsApp and BBC digital ecosystems.
• Lead a multi-country, multilingual editorial workforce, fostering a unified culture of excellence while preserving the unique identity, voice and audience connection of each service.
• Set and deliver the editorial vision for Nigeria Language Services, translating BBC World Service priorities into a clear, ambitious and executable regional strategy aligned across all language teams.
• Commission and oversee high-impact journalism, including investigations, documentaries, data-led storytelling and long- and mid-form video, enabling ambitious cross-service projects that would not be possible individually.

Your Skills and Experience
Essential Criteria:

• Proven track record of developing and implementing successful data-led video strategies that delivered measurable digital growth.
• Demonstrated success in breaking down organisational silos and building collaborative cultures.
• Deep knowledge of the Nigeria media market and its audiences, particularly politics, societies and languages.
• Strong communication skills in English, and one of the three Nigerian hub languages, both written and verbal, with the ability to represent the BBC effectively in senior internal forums.
• Proven track record of editorial leadership at a senior level in journalism, with a strong record of producing ambitious, high-impact journalism in complex political environments.
• Experience of leading teams through significant organisational change, with the interpersonal skill and emotional intelligence to do so with transparency and care.
• Experience of driving audience growth specifically among young and female audiences, including through digital-first and video-led content strategies.

Why Join the Team

• The BBC’s editorial independence remains central to the trust audiences place in its output.
• These services reach audiences across West Africa and a highly engaged global diaspora, delivering independent and impartial journalism to predominantly young audiences navigating political uncertainty, disinformation, and challenges to democracy and governance.
• BBC World Service is establishing a new Nigeria Languages Services Unit in Lagos, bringing together BBC Pidgin, BBC Yoruba and BBC Igbo under a single editorial leadership for the first time.