Recruiter: NATIONAL TRUST
Location: Swindon, Wiltshire
Salary: Circa £65,000
Closing Date: 16th Feb
Interview Date: 4th March
2nd Interviews: 11th March
The National Trust is Europe’s biggest conservation and heritage charity. We offer a breadth and quality of work, experience and opportunity unparalleled in the UK. This year we are celebrating our 125th year but our mission now is more important than ever and our commitment to conservation has never been stronger.
Conservation is a critical part of our strategy and everything that we do, but we also continually look for ways to make our collections and interiors as accessible as possible. This balance needs careful management, brilliant advice and innovative thinking.
We think long term and this role offers an exciting opportunity to help us develop the right approaches, practices and policies to guide our collections conservation work over the next decade.
What you’ll be doing
We are looking for a Head Conservator to provide supportive and inspirational leadership to the professional communities of preventive and remedial conservation staff, a team of national specialists for conservation, and volunteers. You will maintain and enhance the Trust’s external reputation for collections and interiors conservation and support our properties to re-develop and meet conservation standards as appropriate.
You will take forward an existing review of conservation standards and conservation commissioning processes. Developing collaborative plans for conservation research, taking the lead on CPD for the conservation community and support the Curatorial and Collections Director in the development and delivery of a ten-year collections care plan.
Who we’re looking for
To be successful in this role you will need;
- Relevant professional qualification in preventive and remedial conservation (PACR Accreditation)
- Extensive in-depth knowledge and experience of conservation and display of collections
- Creativity and innovation, sharing learning and ideas, line management and facilitation skills
- Broad knowledge and significant experience of the application of conservation principles in heritage settings
- Experience of writing papers and publishing articles in professional journals
- High standards of consulting skills: understanding people, communicating clearly, explaining benefits and changing practice and behaviour
- To build mutually effective relationships with related professionals internally and externally, at all levels
