We are a world-class visitor attraction and leading science research centre. We use the Museum's unique collections and our unrivalled expertise to tackle the biggest challenges facing the world today. We care for more than 80 million objects spanning billions of years and welcome more than five million visitors annually and 16 million visits to our website.
Today the Museum is more relevant and influential than ever. By attracting people from a range of backgrounds to work for us, we can continue to look at the world with fresh eyes and find new ways of doing things.
We employ 1100 staff in a variety of roles, all united by our vision of a future where people and planet thrive. We need everyone to have the passion and drive to help us with our mission to create advocates for our planet and inspire millions to care about the natural world.
Our vision is of a future where both people and the planet thrive. Diversity is one of our core values and we strive to build a workplace where everyone feels a sense of belonging. All new staff who join us learn about the importance of diversity and inclusion to the Museum and how to contribute to creating an inclusive environment.
We know we have more to do, but we are committed to ensuring that everyone who works at the Museum feels they can thrive and feel valued and respected.
This role is responsible for enabling the effective operation, governance and coordinated delivery of a busy, growing and strategically important DDI function. The postholder will work closely with the Head of DDI, the DDI Executive Team and programme leads to translate departmental priorities into clear plans, establish effective governance and reporting arrangements, and ensure teams have the information, processes and coordination needed to deliver at pace. Working across areas such as digitisation, data platforms, AI-enabled research and the Museum’s digital infrastructure, the role will provide structure, operational oversight and practical leadership to strengthen how DDI plans, prioritises and delivers its work.
The DDI Operations & Governance Lead will also lead more consistent approaches to people-related planning across the department, including workforce planning, recruitment coordination and staff development activity. This will support DDI to build the skills, capacity and ways of working needed to meet current and future priorities, including DiSSCo UK, the Planetary Knowledge Base (PKB), and other major initiatives.
The successful candidate will be an experienced, organised and collaborative operations professional with a strong track record of managing activity across complex teams, programmes or portfolios. They will be confident working with senior colleagues, synthesising information from different areas, exercising sound judgement, and turning priorities into practical plans and action.
We are proud to work at the Museum and have identified the qualities we all need to embody to reach our shared ambition. This sits alongside the Museum’s values and forms the framework for the way we work.
- 27.5 days holiday plus 8 bank holidays (full time equivalent)
- Generous defined contribution Natural History Museum Pension Scheme (employer contribution 4 - 10%)
- Season ticket, bicycle and rental loan
- Life insurance
- Free admission to our exhibitions and many other paid exhibitions at museums, galleries and institutions across London and the UK.
- Staff discount at our Museum shops and cafes
- We offer a wide variety of training initiatives and opportunities to build skills. Investing in staff development is important to us, and we are ambitious about helping staff to grow and fulfil their potential.
- Affordable membership to the Civil Service Sports Council which offers a range of benefits including an extensive list of special offers and reduced entry fees at a selection of cinema chains, theme parks, theatres, retailers and supermarkets. It also provides entry to up to 300 English Heritage sites and other national treasures. For more details, visit https://www.cssc.co.uk
- Membership to our Sports and Social Association (for a small fee), which includes access to our in-house gym and clubs such as football, softball, table tennis and tennis and classes in Middle Eastern dance, yoga and Tai Chi
We are working towards a vision where both people and planet thrive, and nothing gives a greater connection with this, than seeing first-hand, the visitors, scientific research and collections that all of our work is inspired by and working side by side with the teams delivering the visitor experience and events. We also recognise the benefits and flexibility that hybrid working brings. We operate a hybrid working model that requires regular, weekly attendance for this role, with the precise pattern of days on site and worked from home to be agreed with your manager.
