Are you a leader in the museums, heritage of academic sector? Do you have strong people management experience, able to lead a talented Collections team in creating world-class content for an ambitious public programme of exhibitions and galleries?
About us
At the Science Museum, the home of human ingenuity, we are dedicated to inspiring our 3.3 million visitors with stories that reveal wonder and ignite curiosity around our unique Collections.
We are looking for a Head of Collections & Principal Curator to join us on a permanent basis based at the Science Museum in London. In this role, you will provide strategic leadership to our curatorial, research, library and archive teams.
About the role
Working to the Deputy Director of the Science Museum, the Head of Collections and Principal Curator will promote curatorial and research excellence for our ambitious public programme. They will also drive focused collections development and review, identify and secure high profile acquisitions, and lead strategic thinking around the development of a group wide Research Strategy across the 5 museums in our Science Museum Group. They will inspire and lead the team to work closely with the Exec and other key department leads including in Exhibitions, Digital, Design, Registration, Communications, Enterprise and Masterplan teams to ensure the seamless delivery of outstanding world class galleries, temporary exhibitions, digitisation, publications, and research.
About you
Joining us, you will hold significant experience of strategic leadership in the museums, heritage or academic sector, including a thorough knowledge of all aspects of curatorial practice and ideally, the delivery of major permanent gallery, temporary and touring exhibition projects. You will be open to inspiring our audiences with the stories around the history of science and revealing wonder around the science itself related to the objects in our collection and those we loan. As a leader, you will have a collaborative and credible approach, along with experience of building, growing, inspiring, and leading a multidisciplinary talented team, to create a strong team culture encompassing excellence, innovation, openness, a positive can-do attitude, ambition and promoting a culture of support and wellbeing.
This position is mainly based at the Science Museum in London but requires some flexibility for work to be carried out across our five museums in the UK and our collections site in Wiltshire. There is also some flexibility for hybrid working.
View the Vacancy Information Pack listed under ‘Attachments’ on the vacancy listing on our website for more details about the role and the application process or click ‘Apply Online’ to submit an application.
What we offer
Joining us as an employee, you will have the opportunity to develop your career in a world-class museum group. We know work/life balance and wellbeing is crucial to our colleagues, so we offer up to 27 days annual leave in addition to bank holidays; support with personal and professional development; an employee assistance programme and enhanced support for things that happen in life such as parental and adoption leave, sickness and career breaks.
‘Open for All’ is one of the Science Museum Group’s five core values and sets out our important aspiration to be a place for everyone. As a national museum group, we have an ability to reach a wide and diverse population of audiences, colleagues and partners through our geography and scale.
We are working hard to understand our organisation better and to foster a culture that recognises and values different backgrounds, mindsets, skills, experience, knowledge and expertise. By having greater diversity, we believe that we will be a stronger and better organisation and ultimately will be able to inspire more futures. We therefore welcome applications from those who bring difference.