Collections & House Manager

National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty; Warminster; On-site; GBP 45,000 - 55,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Substantial pension up to 10%

Free entry for you and your guests (18

Season ticket loan

EV car lease scheme

Perks at work discounts

Holiday allowance up to 32 days

Job summary

National Trust is seeking a Collections and House Manager at Stourhead, Warwickshire/Warminster area, to lead a team of collections staff and volunteers. You will work closely with the Curator and Conservator, sharing duty management and delivering the Conservation Management Plan through visitor journeys that bring stories to life.

You will translate priorities into actions, ensuring access, conservation, and storytelling are integrated.

Qualifications

• Experience in achieving high standards of presentation, customer care, compliance and collections management in a historic setting.
• Aware of current developments and practices in the heritage sector in visitor engagement, innovation and access.
• Keen to promote inclusivity and diversity in the interpretation and presentation of history.
• Experience managing people and achieving goals through others.

Responsibilities

• Lead your own team of collections staff and volunteers, and work with the Curator and Conservator.
• Share duty management and property-wide leadership with peers, under the General Manager.
• Translate conservation priorities into visitor journeys, deciding which stories to tell and which spaces to open.
• Set and manage operational and conservation budgets and identify risks to the house, collection, staff and visitors.

Skills

Presentation standards

Customer care

Collections management

Visitor engagement

Access & inclusion

People management

Collaboration

Job description

We’re looking for someone who cares deeply about achieving high standards, and helping to make beauty and history accessible to all, to join us as a Collections and House Manager at the iconic Stourhead.

The working pattern for this role is Sunday to Thursday, reflecting the rhythm of a busy visitor attraction and ensuring strong leadership presence across our peak visitor days.

Provisional interview date: 25 September 2026.

What it's like to work here

Stourhead is an 18th-century Palladian mansion set in a world-famous landscape garden that already draws around 400,000 daytime visitors a year. It is one of the National Trust's busiest and best-loved places, home to nationally significant interiors and a highly fragile collection of remarkable range and depth.

You’ll join a close-knit leadership team at a moment of real ambition. Over the next decade Stourhead aims to become one of the most welcoming, culturally vibrant and ecologically resilient historic landscapes in Britain – a place where people from every background feel they truly belong. Success here depends on genuine collaboration: you’ll lead your own team of collections staff and volunteers, work closely with the Curator and Conservator. You’ll also work alongside your peers, including the Visitor Experience Manager, Visitor Operations Manager and Garden and Landscapes Manager. Under the oversight of the General Manager, you’ll share duty management and property-wide leadership as a unified team.

This is a role for someone who wants the Conservation Management Plan to be an evolving working document rather than a document on a shelf. You’ll use it, alongside the audience plan, to tie everything together, making the case for what we do and why, and turning conservation priorities into visitor moments that genuinely land. You’ll make sure access, conservation and storytelling are never traded off against each other, but planned as one, making Stourhead's house and collection unforgettable.

Working closely with the Curator, Conservator and Visitor Experience teams, you’ll translate conservation priorities into the visitor journey, choosing which stories to tell, which spaces to open up, and which hidden histories deserve the spotlight, so that every intervention in the collection becomes an opportunity to deepen how people connect with it.

As a leader, you’ll recruit, coach and develop a team of staff and volunteers, driving performance through clear objectives and regular feedback, and playing an active part in growing volunteering at Stourhead. It's through this team that the plan gets delivered: preventive and remedial conservation, recording of collection condition, commissioning specialist contractors where needed, and carry out long‑term conservation. You’ll be responsible for meeting Museum Accreditation (Spectrum) documentation standards, developing and delivering documentation plans, and keeping the collections database accurate and useful. You’ll also manage the annual cycle of collection checks, loans and movements, and use the audience plan to shape how the collection is reviewed and developed to keep bringing new stories to new audiences.

You’ll set and manage operational and conservation budgets, identify and manage risk to the house, collection, staff and visitors, and take on wider property leadership responsibilities and duty management alongside your peers.

Who we're looking for

We’d love to hear from you if you’re:

• experienced in achieving high standards of presentation, customer care, compliance and collections management in a historic setting
• aware of current developments and approved practices in the heritage sector in the field of visitor engagement, innovation and access
• keen to promote inclusivity and diversity in the interpretation and presentation of history
• someone who can remain resilient and positive while managing colleagues, changes and challenges
• able to build strong and effective working relationships with diverse people
• experienced in managing people and achieving goals through others.

The package

The National Trust has the motto ’For everyone, for ever’ at its heart. We’re working hard to create an inclusive culture, where everyone feels they belong. It’s important that our people reflect and represent the diversity of the communities and audiences we serve. We welcome and value difference, so when we say we’re for everyone, we want everyone to be welcome in our teams too.

• Substantial pension scheme of up to 10% basic salary
• Free entry to National Trust places for you, a guest and your children (under 18)
• Season ticket loan
• EV car lease scheme (for roles that meet the salary criteria)
• Perks at work discounts such as gym memberships, shopping discount codes, cinema discounts
• Holiday allowance up to 32 days relating to length of service, plus holiday purchase scheme, subject to meeting minimum criteria.

National Trust place

Stourhead, Stourton, Warminster, BA12 6QD

Documents

Collections & House Manager - Grade 7 - Jan 2023.pdf

Requirements

Compliance.Eligibility to Work in the UK

Additional information

Closing Date: 20 September 2026

Equal Opportunities Statement

The National Trust celebrates diversity and is committed to creating a fair and equal society, free from discrimination. You can read more about our commitment to inclusion and diversity here .

Safeguarding Statement

The National Trust is committed to a safe recruitment processes to help the organisation attract and appoint the right staff/volunteer for the role and responsibilities as set out in the vacancy advert. We will not accept applicants who are not suitable to work with children, young people or adults at risk. If you have any questions around your suitability for this vacancy, please contact the people service centre.