Head of Museums – Portsmouth City Council

Reference: OCT20228104
Salary £60,140 – £66,263 Per Annum

Portsmouth City Council

Portsmouth has a thriving visitor economy, a world class waterfront and internationally renowned museums such as the Mary Rose and events such as the Victorious Festival and international commemorations of D-Day. Home to Portsmouth International Port, a growing University and with a thriving creative sector and a wealth of heritage, Portsmouth also has a long literary heritage as the birthplace of Charles Dickens and the place where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the first Sherlock Holmes novel.

Portsmouth also has significant social and economic complexities, and some neighbourhoods have acute levels of deprivation. We know that heritage and culture have a vital role to play in engaging with people and helping to address the challenges that our communities face. Throughout Portsmouth’s long history and our finest and darkest moments, our biggest asset has always been our people and their stories.

Portsmouth Museums operate six accredited museums – Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery, the award-winning D-Day Story (home to the Overlord Embroidery and Landing Craft Tank 7074), Charles Dickens’ Birthplace, Southsea Castle, Cumberland House Natural History Museum and the Eastney Engines.  Entry is free apart from to The D-Day Story and Charles Dickens’ Birthplace. The service cares for a wide range of collections, including social, military and natural history, archaeology and art. The service also cares for the Richard Lancelyn Bequest Conan Doyle collection. The service is currently awaiting the outcome of an application to be part of Arts Council England’s National Portfolio Organisation programme.                              

At Portsmouth City Council we’re all about developing our staff, because we want to build a bigger and better city but we need the best employees to do so.

With a little over 207,000 residents and 7,000 businesses throughout this city, this unitary authority’s main goal is to ensure the best care and development of all those within the city. From customer service to multi-million pound projects, our residents are at the heart of everything we do.

Your New Role

Although Portsmouth is home to world class and award winning museums, we see the role of our museums service as engaging local residents and communities with their heritage and working with them to tell their stories.

You will be responsible for the management of Portsmouth City Council’s museums service, its sites, collections and staff. This will include management of budgets and maintaining the service’s accreditation with Arts Council England.

You will collaborate with our partners to ensure that museums play a key role in delivering towards the city’s vision for 2040, Imagine Portsmouth, and to support placemaking as part of the regeneration of the city. You will also work with relevant partners to deliver against key priorities such as health and wellbeing and climate and the environment.

This role will include leading the service, its staff and stakeholders through a period a significant change and a shift to a more people-focused approach. You will develop the service’s approach to advocacy and relationship building, income generation and fundraising, and you will lead the development of a new Friends Group.

We are also working towards the 80th Anniversary of D-Day in 2024, with The D-Day Story playing a leading role as part of the commemorations.

What you’ll need to succeed

You will have excellent leadership skills and an ability to think and work strategically.  You will be able to build and develop a team and an organisational culture.  You will also have a track record of supporting and developing people and have experience of guiding a team through organisational change.

You will be able to advocate for what museums can deliver with partners, stakeholders and funders. You will work collaboratively and build relationships with partners, communities and stakeholders.  You will develop engagement, particularly among under-represented communities.

You will have excellent communication skills, both verbal and written.  You will have experience of management in a museum, heritage or cultural setting and you will develop the service’s approach to fundraising and income generation.  You will have an awareness of Accreditation and other Museum standards.

What you’ll get in return

As well as highly competitive pay you’ll receive all the benefits of working within a local authority organisation, which ranges from flexible working hours to a generous pension scheme which allows you the opportunity to pay in more for that greater return. We wish to support all our staff’s development throughout, if that’s progression planning or involvement within the on-the-job apprenticeship scheme we will work together to drive your career. For those with families we have family friendly policies as well as discounts via the Rewards Scheme with local businesses which can be enjoyed by all.

You will receive an annual leave entitlement of 26 days per year rising to 30 days per year, (excluding public holidays), free access to the employee assistance programme and a full range of commuting and business travel discounts and initiatives.

For more information and to apply, please click here>>

Closing date: 9 November 2022.