Salary: £46,324.62 per annum for 42.5 hours per week
Permanent position
Based in: Covent Garden, London
Prior to commencing your application, please review our application guide here.
To ensure a fair process, late applications will not be considered under any circumstances.
The Royal Ballet and Opera continues to lead the way in opera, ballet, music and dance both live on stage and through multiple digital platforms, from live streaming to worldwide cinema screenings. Our Covent Garden theatre has been at the heart of London and British cultural life for three centuries. We are home to two world-class Companies: The Royal Ballet and The Royal Opera.
The Royal Opera House describes the place we work, not who we are. The whole is always more than the sum of its parts – we may be a House, but three quarters of our audiences experience what we do outside this building. While our Covent Garden theatre is the nerve centre, the impact and influence of the organisation can be felt in every corner of the country, and around the world.
Our Costume Performance team provides costume support to the artists of The Royal Ballet, the Royal Opera and visiting companies. We are seeking to recruit a Senior Technician to join our Costume Performance Team to work across both Opera and Ballet.
Our team of Technicians make sure that costumes are maintained, pristine and set for all rehearsals and performances. As an individual, you will manage a small team of Dressers and work alongside Technicians to ensure that all dressing aspects are executed to the highest of standards and following the Designer’s vision. As we are a rep house, you will often be juggling two or more productions at a time.
What are we looking for?
- A varied background in costume and large-scale show running
- Great sewing techniques, particularly repairs
- An exceptional knowledge of backstage costume work and dressing techniques
- An understanding of fabrics, fibres and the various laundering methods associated with them
- The motivation to work alone but the sociability to be a great team player and a desire to share your knowledge with others
- Good MS Office experience
- A desire to learn the nuances surrounding costumes for opera and ballet
The Royal Ballet and Opera is a unique and exciting place to work. As such, we have a unique and exciting Costume Performance Team structure and terminology to match. To add familiar context for any wider theatre colleagues wishing to join us and to help place your skills in the appropriate role, this role sits as an equivalent to a Wardrobe Assistant, with Construction and Supervising capabilities.
If you can see yourself as a member of the Costume Performance team, head to the application form and tell us more!
The Royal Ballet and Opera is one of the UK’s leading arts organisations and our aim is to inspire imagination, ignite emotion and make the extraordinary for everyone. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion underpin all that we do. We want our people to be representative of the diversity in the UK. We understand the creativity and innovation that diversity can bring and strive to create an inclusive environment in which everyone can thrive.
We encourage applications from people with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences and skills to join our teams. We particularly welcome applications from those who are from a global majority background and/or those who are disabled, as they are under-represented within our organisation.
We are a Disability Confident Employer, which means that we are actively working to ensure that candidates with disabilities and long-term health conditions feel supported, engaged and able to fulfil their potential in the workplace. We will endeavour to offer an interview to candidates who tell us they wish to participate in the scheme and who demonstrate in their application that they meet the essential criteria for the role, though sometimes due to the volume of qualified candidates with declarations this is not possible.
The RBO is also committed to safeguarding and protecting all children, young people, and adults and we implement robust safer recruitment practices. Due to our safeguarding promise, certain roles will be subject to a DBS check before commencing employment with us, which will be indicated in the advertising.
A full job description can be found here.
A job pack for Costume performance, containing information about the wider RBO, can be found here
For a list of potential reasonable adjustments, please review this guidance document.
If you have any access requirements for your application, please contact the RBO Recruitment Team on
[email protected]
If you are applying as an internal candidate, you might find this guidance document helpful.
Closing date for applications: 11:59pm, Wednesday 5th August 2026
First stage interviews will be held 26th-27th August 2026.
Second stage interviews will be on 2nd September 2026.
Applicants must have work authorisation for the UK. No agencies.
