Academic Copy Editor

Freelance Academic Editors, Proofreaders and Substantive Editors
Lex Academic, London (remote; freelance)
Lex Academic is a premium academic and legal editing, indexing and translation firm based in Chelsea, London. We work with academics, doctoral candidates and university presses worldwide, supporting monographs, edited volumes, journal articles, theses and grant applications through to publication.
We are an AI-free company. Every manuscript we handle is read, edited and checked by a human specialist in the relevant field, and we are amongst the few academic editing, indexing and translation firms still offering genuinely researcher-led author services. Our clients come to us because they want their work read by someone who understands the discipline, the argument and the conventions of scholarly publishing, and we intend to keep it that way.
We are now looking to expand our pool of freelance editors across the humanities and social sciences. We welcome applications for the following roles:
Proofreaders, who carry out a final, meticulous check of typeset or near-final text for errors in spelling, punctuation, consistency and layout.
Copy editors, who work at sentence level on grammar, clarity, style, consistency and adherence to house style and referencing conventions.
Substantive editors, who engage with structure, argument and presentation, advising authors on how best to shape their work for examiners, reviewers and publishers.
In order to be considered, applicants should hold a PhD in a humanities or social science discipline and be able to edit to a high standard in academic English. We would also expect experience of scholarly writing and publishing, whether as an author, editor or reviewer; a confident command of the major referencing systems (Chicago, APA, MLA, Harvard, OSCOLA and the like); and the rigour and discretion appropriate to handling unpublished research. Experience of editing for university presses, familiarity with a second language, or expertise in indexing would be welcome but is not required.
As for what we offer, work is freelance and fully remote, allocated according to your discipline, expertise and availability. You would be joining a small, exacting team that takes scholarship seriously and matches manuscripts to editors who know the field.
Eligible applicants will be sent our set of editing exams, which assess proofreading, copy-editing and substantive editing in turn. To apply, please send a CV and a short cover letter stating your discipline, areas of specialism and the roles in which you are interested to applications@lexacademic.com with the subject line "Freelance Editor Application".
Please do not use AI in your application. We will not respond to AI-written emails.

Work arrangement
Yes