Inspector of Historic Buildings and Areas

DiverseJobsMatter; Birmingham; Hybrid; GBP 35,000 - 50,000; Full time

Job summary

Historic England is seeking an Inspector of Historic Buildings and Areas to join the Development Advice Team, based in Birmingham. This full-time position focuses on providing expert advice for managing change to historic buildings and areas while promoting constructive conservation principles. The role offers a strong benefits package, including a competitive pension and generous holiday allowance.

Benefits

28 days holiday

Corporate discounts

Free entry to English Heritage sites

Development opportunities

Qualifications

• Broad and extensive experience of managing change to historic buildings.
• Thorough knowledge of legislation and planning policy in England.
• Knowledge of secular and ecclesiastical architectural history.

Responsibilities

• Provide Historic England’s advice on proposals for change in the historic environment.
• Collaborate with local planning authorities and stakeholders.
• Undertake pre-application discussions with potential applicants.

Skills

Negotiation

Communication

Influencing

Education

Degree in a relevant subject

Job description

Job Description

Summary

We are the public body that looks after England’s historic environment. We champion historic places, helping people understand, value and care for them.

Historic England have a fantastic opportunity for you to join us as our Inspector of Historic Buildings and Areas.

This is a full time, permanent post based in Birmingham with Hybrid working.

We offer a wide benefits package including a competitive pension scheme starting at 28.97% employer contributions, a generous 28 days holiday, corporate discounts, free entry into English Heritage sites across the country and development opportunities to ensure you achieve your goals.

What you will be doing

The Development Advice Teams provide Historic England’s statutory and non-statutory advice to our customers, engaging where we add most value to decision-making through our distinctive contribution as national experts. The Development Advice Teams will also work closely with other teams to support communities in looking after historic places and in the advancement of Historic England’s objectives.

As part of the Development Advice Team, you will will take delegated responsibility for the delivery of Historic England’s advice on proposals for change in the historic environment that fall within their area of competence. Applying the ethos of ‘constructive conservation’ and making effective use of Conservation Principles in all your advisory work, you will provide advice to owners, local authorities and others, to proactively work towards the sustainable management of the historic environment. You will also contribute to specific projects where your expertise would add value, for example as part of the Historic England Places strategy.

We need you to take responsibility for providing Historic England’s formal planning and management advice in relation to buildings (both secular and ecclesiastical), and historic areas including assessing proposals, deciding upon that advice (unless the case is more appropriately escalated), and delivering it to agreed timescales and to excellent customer service standards.A key part of this involves working collaboratively with colleagues across teams and where necessary drawing on advice from regional and national specialists.

You will undertake pre-application discussion with potential applicants, including Extended Pre-application advice where appropriate, applying the ethos of ‘constructive conservation’ to negotiate creative solutions to problems so that proposed changes are sustainable.

You will assist local planning authorities and others with the interpretation of the law and national planning policy with regard to listed buildings and conservation areas including influencing elected council members and senior officers to make use of the powers available to them to safeguard heritage assets.

Who we are looking for

• Educated to degree level or equivalent in a relevant subject

• Broad and extensive experience of managing change to historic buildings and areas, including detailed knowledge of the planning system

• Thorough knowledge of secular and ecclesiastical architectural history and the morphology of historic places in England

• Thorough knowledge of legislation and planning policy in England, relating to secular and ecclesiastical buildings, historic places and infrastructure

• Skills, including written, oral & communication

• Adept at negotiation and influencing

Please note your application will be scored and assessed against the above criteria.

Please note:

The role requires regular travel to sites not serviced by public transport.

The role requires visiting/inspecting sites which is likely to require climbing scaffolding and negotiating confined spaces (e.g. church roofs).

The role may require occasional attendance at community or planning meetings which are usually held at evenings or weekends.

We are an equal opportunity employer which values diversity and inclusion. If you have a disability or neurodiversity, we would be happy to discuss reasonable adjustments to the job with you. Having just won the Gold Award from MIND, we also recognise the importance of a healthy work-life balance.

We are an inclusive employer and believe that flexible working options are for everyone. We want to make sure our working arrangements don’t prevent anyone from joining us because of their personal circumstances. We also want to provide you with the best balance in your home and work life that we can.

We are open to considering options including job sharing, part-time working, compressed hours working and different working locations, including hybrid working. Please visit our jobs pages or contact us to find out more.

Why work for Historic England

We are committed to promoting equality of opportunity for everyone. Diversity helps us to perform better and attract more people to support our work. We welcome and encourage job applications from people of all backgrounds.

We particularly encourage applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates and candidates with disabilities as they are underrepresented within Historic England at this level.

At Historic England we use a hiring system called Applied. Applied is a behavioural science-backed recruitment platform that reduces bias, improves quality of hire and increases diversity. We do not use CV application for the majority of our hiring processes. You will answer a selection of questions that allow our hiring teams to test your skills and suitability for the role.

To ensure a fair and inclusive recruitment process for everyone the use of AI or automated tools is not permitted.

Provisional interview dates: Week commencing 07th July 2025