General Manager

National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty; Bushmills; Hybrid; GBP 65,000 - 85,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Substantial pension up to 10%

Free entry to National Trust places

Season ticket loan

EV car lease scheme

Perks at work discounts

Holiday allowance up to 32 days

Job summary

The National Trust is seeking an exceptional General Manager to lead the NI North Coast property group, including Giant’s Causeway, Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge and Mussenden Temple & Downhill Demense. You will turn strategy into reality, delivering sustainable visitor growth while upholding conservation and community engagement.

As the key leader, you’ll inspire teams, manage a diversified portfolio, and represent the Trust with partners across the island of Ireland.

Qualifications

• Experience leading large teams in leisure, hospitality, heritage or tourism.
• Proven track record delivering customer-focused service in visitor environments.
• Ability to balance strategy with day-to-day operations and financial stewardship.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Property Leadership Team and drive excellence across the NI North Coast places.
• Translate strategy into actionable plans and funding for conservation and visitor growth.
• Represent National Trust externally to partners, communities and tourism networks.
• Foster an inclusive culture and strong risk management across operations.

Skills

Commercial leadership

People leadership

Operational risk management

Stakeholder engagement

Inclusion leadership

Strategic execution

Job description

We’re looking for an exceptional General Manager to lead our Northern Ireland North Coast property group which includes Giant’s Causeway, Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge and Mussenden Temple & Downhill Demense. This is a rare and exciting opportunity to shape the future of some of Ireland's most iconic and most visited locations, and Northern Ireland's only natural UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In this role, you’ll be turning strategy into reality, and delivering sustainable visitor growth. You'll be confident in understanding our audiences and what motivates them to visit, and you'll lead the team to deliver memorable experiences worthy of a world class visitor attraction. As the key leadership position within the property group, you’ll operate with significant autonomy — inspiring your team, translating strategy into action, and delivering excellence across a wide range of operational areas. You’ll help foster an inclusive, positive culture where everyone feels valued and able to thrive. And you’ll be doing it all for an organisation you can truly believe in, as we continue caring for special places for everyone, for ever.

What it's like to work here

The NI North Coast group has a sizeable team with a range of disciplines and expertise, focussed on delivering an amazing visitor experience, in a way which supports conservation, climate and community. Find out more about what it's like to work here in the Information Pack attached to this vacancy.

Your contractual place of work will be the National Trust office at Giant’s Causeway. Our hybrid working policy means you can balance office and home working with site visits and meetings at other National Trust places. We’ll talk about this in more detail at interview, but you should expect to be at a National Trust site for 40-60% of your working week.

What you'll be doing

This is a role where no two days or weeks will be the same. As well as having an eye on the day to day, you'll have a plan for the future, aligned to the national and country strategy, so that we continue to develop and invest in our places and in our visitor offer.

As part of a successful wider General Manager team across Northern Ireland, you’ll work with our internal Specialist Delivery teams and external partners to achieve our goals, grow our business and champion our cause message.

You’ll manage a Property Leadership Team, each with their own specialty, using your motivational style to inspire them to deliver outstanding results across all areas of the property group, generating the funds to invest back into further conservation and development. Alongside General Management, represent the National Trust externally, engaging with local partners and communities, and with key tourism partners across the island of Ireland and beyond.

Who we're looking for

You must be able to drive and direct change across a diverse remit. The scale of this role means you'll need to be brilliant with operations, people and projects. You’ll need to know when to delegate, and when to take ownership. Everything you do will be in harmony with our values and ambitions, but it will also make great commercial and financial sense.

With a wide range of skills in your toolkit, you'll need to demonstrate the following skills and experience:

• Commercial leadership experience ideally gained in the leisure, hospitality, retail or heritage sector – or strong evidence you can adapt
• Experienced in achieving results through driving consistently excellent service in a customer or visitor facing environment
• Experienced in leading varied operational teams and managing for performance and growth
• A skilled communicator, who can build strong relationships, both internally and externally
• A leader for inclusion, who finds ways to create an inclusive culture.
• Confident in managing operational risk, understanding the fundamental need for compliance and knowing what it means to hold others to account
• Can demonstrate the importance of aligning heritage conservation, visitor growth and climate adaptation – making decisions which are right for now and for the future

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

Giant's Causeway, 60 Causeway Road, Bushmills, BT57 8SU

Documents

• General Manager - Grade 4.pdf
• NT North Coast GM Recruitment pack Sept 2026.pdf

Requirements

Compliance.Eligibility to Work in the UK

Additional information

Closing Date: 11 October 2026

Interview Date: 21/22 October 2026 (remote)

05/06 November 2026 (assessment centre)

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.