A senior editorial chief has expressed his sadness at leaving a regional publisher after 17 years of service.

Reach plc YouTube editor Tom Canning has announced he will be saying farewell to the group at the end of this month.

Tom, pictured, has also held other senior roles at Reach and its forerunners during his career including content development analyst and head of content development.

Reach has declined to confirm whether Tom’s role will be replaced once he has left or whether his departure is linked to its recent rounds of redundancies.

In a LinkedIn post announcing his departure, Tom wrote: “After 17 years and about two weeks, sadly I am leaving Reach plc at the end of the month.

“It’s been a week as they say, and it’s going to take some getting used to, but I’m very much looking at it as an opportunity to a) take some time out to take stock, figure out what’s next and b) finally build that bar.

“Joking aside I have an awful lot of people to thank for my longevity at Reach, for teaching me so much, helping me go from spotty student to a guy that achieved a dream of being an ‘editor’.

“I’ve worked with some incredibly talented people in more newsrooms than I can remember, I’ve worked on projects as diverse as CMS rollouts, SEO training, video and commenting projects as well as a lot of analytics, I’ve built relationships with people that will last a long long time, I’ve been able to travel the country and I’ve learned and experienced an incredible amount of things in that time.  I’m really going to miss it.”

Tom’s LinkedIn post made clear he is leaving without a new job to go.

He added: “With all that in mind, if anyone needs, or knows anyone that needs an experienced, knowledgeable, reliable, hard-working, beer festival organising, football blogging and podcasting fella with 17 years of experience in just about every aspect of digital publishing, drop me a line.”

Tom began his career in 2006 as a digital media executive at Surrey & Berkshire Media, moving to become digital product manager at Trinity Mirror Southern two years later.

In 2012, he became a junior product manager and then became a digital content producer 18 months later, based in Reading.

He spent five years as a content development analyst from 2016 to 2021 and was then made head of content development, prior to taking on his current role at the start of this year.

Away from Reach, Tom is also the co-founder of independent local sports news website Football in Berkshire.

Speaking to HTFP, Tom added: “Reach has been my life for 17 years, pretty much since the day I left University in 2006 and I am very sad to be leaving.

“I’ve had so many opportunities working for Reach, done a huge amount of different things across Digital Publishing – from writing and editing, podcasting to leading the rollout of websites and CMS systems, I’ve travelled the UK and Ireland and I’ve loved every minute of it.

“I’ve also met some incredible people in my time at Reach, it’s previous guise as Trinity Mirror and where I started with the Guardian Media Group, thank you to all my colleagues over the years but in particular I wanted to thank David Higgerson and Ed Walker for the trust and opportunity to do all those different things, and to Alison Gow most recently who gave me the opportunity to do something completely different in my YouTube Editor role. It’s been a blast.

“I’m looking forward to a break and seeing what comes next.”

Reach engagement editor Daniel Russell said: “Over the years Tom has contributed massively to teams across Reach.

“He has been a key part in our digital transformation helping to implement new systems and ways of working in one way or another at almost every title we have. We wish Tom the best of luck for the future.”