Alasdair Reeve.
Started this newsletter in February 2026, twenty-eight years after I started the first one. I think it has taken me that long to know what to leave out.
I spent the first half of my working life as a journalist and the second half as an editor of professional-development writing. I have edited four trade weeklies, a quarterly, a Saturday supplement and one moderately successful book about chairs. I have a doctorate in Scottish poetry which I have never used at work and which has nonetheless been useful at work every day.
The thing I wanted, and could never find, was a weekly that took the questions senior professional people actually have, and treated those questions the way the FT Weekend treats its long reads. Not a leadership podcast. Not a productivity newsletter. Not a course. A weekly editorial publication that came out on Monday morning, was read with a coffee, and was finished by half past eight.
What this is
Twelve editions a quarter. Each edition has four sections. The Question is something a reader wrote in about last week, edited for length and anonymised. The Answer is a considered response from one of our six contributing practitioners. The Margin is a footnote from a second contributor, sometimes agreeing, sometimes pulling at a thread. The Week is a short scan: three things that were useful to read, watch, or pay attention to.
It is written in British English. There are no em dashes. The voice is steady. The tone is slightly dry and slightly warm, and where those two come into conflict, warmth wins.
What this is not
This is not a content marketing exercise. We do not have sponsors. We will not have sponsors. We do not sell courses or coaching, and we do not list the contributors’ books with affiliate links. If a contributor recommends a book in The Week, we link to a library catalogue or to the publisher direct.
It is not on social media. We do not post on LinkedIn, we do not have a Twitter account, and we do not write threads. The newsletter goes out by email on Monday morning and that is the only place it appears. Subscribers occasionally forward editions on to colleagues and that is the only growth mechanism we have. We are fine with it.
How it is paid for
Quarterly subscription, £72 per quarter. The first quarter is free. Cancel before the second quarter is invoiced and you owe nothing. Most subscribers are senior leaders in mid-sized organisations, with a steady minority of academics, civil servants and clinicians.
The newsletter pays the six contributors a flat per-edition fee that is the same regardless of seniority or word count. It also pays for the editor (me), the production work, and the small studio in Bloomsbury where Monday morning sub-editing happens. Anything above that goes into commissioning. We are not aiming to scale.
The first conversation
If you are thinking about subscribing and would like to read a sample edition first, write to me at editor@lastweekonofficehours.com. I read every message myself, usually on a Tuesday or Wednesday. I reply within a working week.