Pay: £22,230.00 per year
Hours: 30 hours per week
Location: Shepton Mallet Prison
Role Purpose
You will be responsible for leading the delivery of guided tours, educational visits and heritage interpretation across the attraction.
You will ensure engaging, accurate and immersive experiences for a wide range of audiences, maintaining high standards of storytelling, learning outcomes and visitor engagement.
You will play a key role in the quality, consistency and ongoing development of tours, education programmes and interpretation across the site.
The Role
Within your remit of managing Heritage & Education, you will lead the delivery of guided tours, educational visits, and heritage interpretation across the attraction.
This includes heritage tours, ghost tours, seasonal tours and structured educational sessions for school and group visitors, ensuring all experiences are engaging, accurate and consistently delivered to a high standard.
You will be responsible for developing and maintaining interpretation standards across the attraction, ensuring historical content is delivered in a compelling, accurate and engaging way.
You will collaborate closely with other Team Leaders, the Attraction Lead and central department heads across Cove Group.
You will directly line manage the Heritage & Education team, overseeing recruitment, training, development and performance.
The role requires flexibility, including regular weekend, evening and bank holiday working.
Key Responsibilities
This section outlines the key areas of accountability for the role and the standards expected in each area.
Strategy & Delivery
Heritage & Education Delivery:
- Develop and oversee guided tours, education and interpretation programmes, ensuring engaging, accurate and immersive visitor experiences.
- Deliver heritage tours, ghost tours, seasonal tours and structured educational sessions in line with agreed operational standards.
- Ensure educational programmes align with learning objectives and best practice for school and group visits.
- Maintain high standards of historical interpretation, ensuring content is engaging, accurate and consistently delivered.
- Support the ongoing development of interpretation content, storytelling and visitor engagement across the attraction.
- Ensure all supporting materials, resources and documentation are available and maintained.
Heritage Preservation:
- Support the Attraction Lead with the development of heritage and interpretation strategies.
- Assist in the preservation and presentation of the historic site and its artefacts.
- Ensure all interpretive content reflects historical accuracy and engaging storytelling standards.
Staff Training & Development:
- Recruit, train, develop and supervise the Heritage & Education team.
- Provide leadership, feedback and coaching to support a high-performing team.
- Deliver regular training sessions and performance reviews to enhance team capability.
- Maintain accurate staff records, including attendance and rostering.
Experience & Engagement
Visitor Experience:
- Deliver high-quality guided tours and educational experiences that engage a wide range of audiences.
- Maintain consistent standards of presentation, delivery, storytelling and interpretation across all experiences.
- Ensure tours and education sessions are engaging, accessible and professionally delivered.
- Collect visitor and group feedback and implement improvements where appropriate.
- Support team members through coaching and live feedback to enhance delivery and engagement.
Effective Communication:
- Ensure clear and consistent communication across the team, Attraction Lead and wider departments.
Customer and Stakeholder Satisfaction:
- Ensure visitors, educational groups and stakeholders receive high-quality, engaging and well-delivered experiences that exceed expectations.
Operational Management & Compliance
Shift Management:
- Act as Duty Manager when required, taking responsibility for operational decision-making and incident response.
- Oversee day-to-day operations across heritage and education delivery.
- Provide on-shift leadership, supervision and support to ensure consistent service delivery.
- Manage team performance, conduct and wellbeing.
- Lead and motivate staff to maintain a positive and professional working environment.
- Ensure compliance with health and safety procedures across all tours and educational activity.
- Maintain flexibility to support operational delivery during periods of absence or reduced staffing.
Decision Making:
- Taking confident operational decisions during live tours, education sessions and day-to-day operations.
- Responding effectively to operational issues to maintain smooth visitor experiences.
Problem Solving:
- Identifying and resolving operational and visitor experience challenges across heritage and education, implementing practical solutions to maintain high-quality delivery.
Financial & Commercial Performance
Cost Control & Budget Management:
- Support the Attraction Lead in achieving departmental budget targets.
- Manage expenditure within agreed limits.
- Monitor performance and analyse trends using reports and operational data.
- Support visitor growth by delivering high-quality tours and education experiences that enhance satisfaction, repeat visitation and positive reviews.
Collaboration & Communication
Achieve Organisational Objectives:
- Contribute to the overall success and performance of Cove Attractions.
- Collaborate with central departments and teams to develop and promote heritage, tours and education.
Key Performance Indicators
Performance in this role will be measured through a combination of quantitative and qualitative indicators aligned to the Cove Group’s PDR framework.
These include:
- Deliver guided tours, educational visits and interpretation sessions in line with agreed standards.
- Maintain high-quality visitor and educational group experiences across all tours and sessions.
- Ensure safe, consistent and efficient delivery of all heritage and education activities.
- Maintain strong visitor and group leader feedback.
- Ensure historical interpretation is accurate, engaging and consistently delivered.
- Support the successful implementation and development of education programmes and interpretation content.
- Maintain compliance with operational, health & safety and procedural standards.
- Support continuous improvement in storytelling, interpretation and visitor engagement.
- Lead and support team performance, training and development.
- Promote a positive, collaborative team culture aligned with Cove Group values.
About You
We are looking for a confident and engaging leader with a passion for heritage, storytelling and education, who can deliver memorable experiences for diverse audiences.
Essential Skills & Experience
- Minimum 1 year experience in tourism, heritage, education or visitor attraction environment.
- Experience in people management and team development.
- Experience in leadership within a customer-facing environment.
- Strong customer service and communication skills.
- Experience delivering guided tours, education sessions or visitor experiences.
- Good working knowledge of Microsoft Office applications.
Desirable
- Budget management experience.
- Knowledge or interest in prison history and heritage sites.
Personal Attributes
- Highly motivated and committed to delivering excellence.
- Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to engage diverse audiences.
- Energetic, enthusiastic and passionate about storytelling and education.
- Proactive, organised and able to manage multiple priorities.
- Resilient and effective under pressure.
- Detail-oriented with a focus on quality and accuracy.
- Passionate about history, learning and visitor engagement.
- Committed to high standards, teamwork and continuous improvement.
The Reward
This is a challenging and rewarding role offering the opportunity to play a key part in delivering high-quality tours, education programmes and heritage interpretation at our attraction.
You will have the opportunity to lead and shape engaging visitor experiences that bring history to life for thousands of visitors, school groups and educational audiences each year.
The role offers genuine variety, responsibility and the chance to make a visible impact within a fast-paced and evolving attraction environment. In return, we offer competitive remuneration, a supportive team culture and opportunities for professional growth and development across Cove Group.
What We Offer
At Cove Group, we believe work should be something you look forward to. We’re building a culture where people feel valued, growth is constant, and purpose drives everything we do. You’ll be part of a team that’s passionate, collaborative, and proud of the difference we make every day.
As part of our culture promise, we offer:
- A collaborative, supportive, and values-driven environment.
- Fair pay, regular recognition, and genuine appreciation for your work.
- Opportunities for professional growth, learning, and development across Cove Group.
- Clear expectations, honest feedback, and leadership that lifts others.
- A positive, purpose-driven workplace where you can grow, thrive, and make an impact.
Here, you won’t just do great work, you’ll help shape a culture we can all be proud of.
Pay: £14.25 per hour
Benefits:
Experience:
- People Management and Team Development: 1 year (preferred)
- Leadership within a customer-facing environment: 1 year (preferred)
- Heritage, Education or Visitor Attraction environment: 1 year (preferred)
Work Location: In person
