Fashion & Lifestyle – Production
Fashion and lifestyle businesses ask Encore Recruitment to help them hire production professionals.
Fashion and lifestyle professionals ask us to help them find production opportunities.
We find, assess and recommend people they’d want to work with.
Key Takeaways
- Production recruitment across fashion and lifestyle: We recruit from Production Assistant to Head of Production roles for brands, retailers, suppliers and importers across fashion, accessories, footwear, beauty and homeware.
- Understand, find and filter: We understand what you’re trying to achieve, find people who could help, and filter what we find through that understanding.
- Assess, qualify and recommend: We assess and qualify who remains before deciding who we’re prepared to recommend. We make the recommendation. You decide what happens next.
Production Recruitment Starts for Different Reasons
Businesses may need greater control across production volumes and suppliers. Production professionals may want more responsibility or earlier influence in the product lifecycle.
What if Production Volumes Are Becoming Harder to Manage?
As product ranges grow, supplier numbers increase and delivery schedules become more demanding, production activity can become increasingly complex to coordinate.
You may be looking for someone who can bring greater visibility across production timelines, manage supplier communication, monitor critical paths and help products move through production to delivery with fewer disruptions.
What if Supplier Relationships Need Greater Oversight?
Production teams often sit at the centre of factory communication, delivery planning and issue resolution.
You may need someone who can coordinate suppliers, manage expectations, challenge delays and maintain momentum across multiple production schedules.
What if You're Ready to Take More On?
Taking more on in production can mean managing larger production volumes, working with additional sourcing regions, taking responsibility for supplier relationships or stepping into leadership.
What if You Want to Influence Decisions Earlier?
Some production professionals want greater involvement in sourcing, development and planning conversations rather than becoming involved once decisions have already been made.
A move may provide the opportunity to contribute earlier, work more closely with development and technical teams or gain broader visibility across the product lifecycle.
Production Careers, Responsibilities and Salaries
The Same Production Title Can Mean Different Things
Production professionals can sit between sourcing, product development, suppliers, logistics and commercial teams.
Depending on the organisation, responsibilities may include supplier communication, production tracking, factory liaison, delivery planning, critical path management, cost control, shipment coordination and issue resolution.
Retailers, brands, suppliers and importers organise these responsibilities differently. A supplier may need someone coordinating multiple customer requirements across several production schedules. A retailer may place greater emphasis on delivery performance and supplier management. A brand may focus more heavily on product development, sourcing partnerships and production planning.
The same title can therefore lead to different conversations depending on where responsibility sits within the organisation.
Production Responsibilities Change as Careers Progress
Production careers can develop through the following stages:
- Production Assistant
- Production Coordinator
- Production Executive
- Production Manager
- Senior Production Manager
- Head of Production
As careers progress, responsibility can expand beyond administration and production tracking into supplier management, production ownership, leadership, cost control and wider operational influence.
Production Salaries Reflect Responsibility, Experience and Market Demand
Salary expectations are influenced by supplier responsibility, production complexity, business size, location and market demand.
Typical salary ranges across parts of the UK fashion and lifestyle sector include:
- Production Assistant: £25,000–£28,000
- Production Coordinator: £28,000–£35,000
- Production Executive: £32,000–£40,000
- Production Manager: £40,000–£55,000
- Senior Production Manager: £55,000–£70,000
- Head of Production: £70,000+
Salary ranges updated August 2026
Salary ranges are indicative. Any salary offered must reflect contracted hours, the applicable age band and UK National Minimum Wage requirements.
How We Approach Production Recruitment
Understanding What You're Looking For
For a business, we start with why you're recruiting and what the production professional needs to contribute: supplier structures, sourcing models, production challenges, reporting lines, delivery expectations and the complexity of the production activity they will manage.
For a professional, we explore what you're doing now and what you want next: career ambitions, supplier exposure, sourcing regions, production responsibility, leadership goals and the type of environment in which you want to contribute.
A job title or CV gives us information. The conversation gives us the context needed to use it.
Finding Production Professionals and Opportunities Worth Exploring
For clients, what we learn helps us identify production professionals whose experience gives us a reason to have a conversation.
Because production responsibilities differ between businesses, we consider experience in the context of supplier responsibility, sourcing model, production complexity and where responsibility sits within the organisation rather than relying on title alone.
For professionals, it helps us identify opportunities that may support what you're looking for next.
Not every person identified leads to a conversation. Not every opportunity discussed leads to representation.
Discover how we approach our Process.
Before We Make a Recommendation
Finding a production professional is not the same as recommending one.
Every recommendation is shaped by conversations, questions and assessment completed throughout our process. Recommendations reflect what we learn about the position, the organisation, the individual and the circumstances surrounding the decision.
The opportunity is discussed with the candidate first. We don't represent someone for a role until they have agreed that they want us to do so.
Read the guidelines behind our Recommendation Standard.
Clients and Candidates Decide What Happens Next
We don't decide who gets hired or who accepts an offer. We make a recommendation. Clients and candidates decide what happens next.
A client may want to interview, ask questions or not proceed. A candidate may continue, need more information or decide the opportunity isn't for them.
Where both sides continue, we support interviews, feedback and offer discussions through to the start.
If either side doesn't want to proceed, we understand why and agree what happens next.
FAQ
What Does a Production Professional Do?
Production professionals help coordinate supplier activity, production schedules, delivery timelines and communication across the journey from product development through to delivery.
Responsibilities vary according to the organisation and level of production ownership.
Do Production Professionals Work Directly with Suppliers and Factories?
Many positions involve regular communication with suppliers, factories, sourcing offices and logistics partners to coordinate production activity, manage updates, resolve issues and support delivery.
What Helps Production Professionals Progress into Senior Positions?
Progression can involve greater supplier responsibility, production ownership, commercial awareness, leadership and responsibility for increasingly complex production activity, sourcing relationships or teams.
Hiring a Production Professional?
Start a conversation about what you’re looking for. You can either Submit a Vacancy→ or Contact Us→
Considering Your Next Production Opportunity?
Start a conversation about where you’d like to go. You can either View Jobs→ or Contact Us→