May 2026
Museum Manager – East Grinstead Museum
East Grinstead Museum is seeking an enthusiastic and experienced Museum Manager to lead the delivery and development of our unique local museum. The museum tells the story of East Grinstead and the surrounding historic High Weald landscape. It also has a permanent display telling the story of the pioneering plastic surgery team based at the local hospital and the WW2 airmen they treated who collectively became known as the ‘Guinea Pig Club’.
We are looking for someone with a good first degree in a relevant subject e.g. museum studies, archaeology, heritage management) or an equivalent relevant professional qualification plus prior experience of working in a museum.
This is an exciting opportunity for a motivated individual to oversee the day-to-day management of the museum, ensuring high standards across collections care and development, visitor and stakeholder engagement, volunteer management and operations and buildings management. The successful candidate will work closely with volunteers, trustees and external partners to develop the museum in line with its Purpose and Aim. Good interpersonal and teamworking skills will be vital to enable you to work effectively with our visitors and this wide range of stakeholders.
The Museum Manager will also play an important role in strategic planning, fundraising, budgeting and promoting the museum to wider audiences. This is the only employed role at the museum so you will have an opportunity to get involved in every area of running the operation. As well as your core museum (or closely related) experience and qualifications, aptitudes such as adaptability, strong communication skills, confidence and the ability to work on your own initiative will be real assets in this varied role.
This permanent role is part-time, 3 days (0.6FTE or 22.5 hours) a week and based predominantly at East Grinstead, Museum, West Sussex with occasional travel. 20 days Annual Leave per annum plus Public Holidays. The salary range is £36,000 to £38,000 (pro-rata) dependent on skills and experience; plus auto-enrolment in a NEST pension.
The Job Description (JD) for the role is linked below.
Application should be submitted in the form of a CV of no more than 3 A4 pages focused particularly on the key requirements summarised above as well as taking account of ‘essential’ requirements in the JD. A short covering letter, no more than, one page of A4 in length should highlight the 2/3 qualifications/skill/aptitudes that you believe make you a strong candidate for the role.
If you wish to discuss the role or have any questions, please contact the Museum Chair, Andy Bliss – chair@eastgrinsteadmuseum.org.uk
Applications should be sent by email to Andy Bliss by 5pm on Monday 15th June. Interviews are expected to take place during the week commencing Monday 29th June.
(Photo by Eric Prouzet on Unsplash)