Overview
Role Summary
Private Secretary: Briefings and Correspondence
Governance (Director’s Office)
41 hours per week (including one hour paid lunch break).
Permanent
£43,317 per annum
Application Deadline: 12pm (midday) on 25 August 2025
About the role:
The Director’s Office is a high-profile and fast-paced private office at the heart of the UK’s most visited museum. The office, a team of five, supports the Director to drive forward his vision and public message, manages his diary and the smooth running of events, and coordinates his engagement with key stakeholders, including major donors and supports, local and national government, and Parliament. The office also provides secretariat to the Museum’s senior leadership team and the Museum’s Chair and Board of Trustees.
We are seeking a highly organised and strategic individual to join the Director’s Office in an exciting new role. In this role, you will work across the Museum and with external stakeholders to ensure that the Director is prepared for all meetings and engagements, supported with written and verbal public communications, and work with colleagues internally to ensure that key Museum events are delivered effectively and in support of the Museum’s strategic goals and objectives.
Key areas of responsibility:
- Applying a strategic approach – Ensuring that briefings and papers are prepared for every engagement and aligned with institutional priorities.
- Managing correspondence – Logging, triaging and actioning the Director’s incoming correspondence, and advising on outgoing correspondence.
- Advising on stakeholder engagement – Ensuring that engagements with key stakeholders, including government ministers, major donors and supports, are supportive of the Museum’s objectives and priorities.
- Drafting remarks – Supporting colleagues to research and draft high-impact remarks, ensuring a joined-up approach.
- Supporting with major events – Helping to prepare for key institutional moments like Trustee meetings, galas, and more.
What you’ll bring to the team:
You will have proven experience in diary management, executive support, or stakeholder coordination in a high-pressure environment. Exceptionally organised, you will have a meticulous attention to detail and an ability to think ahead.
Possessing excellent written and verbal communication skills, you will use tact and judgement to interact with a wide range of stakeholders and apply a diplomatic and proactive approach to navigating competing priorities and making informed decisions.
If you have a genuine interest in museums, culture, or the arts, and a commitment to supporting our mission at a national and international level, we warmly welcome your application.
About the British Museum:
Founded in 1753, the British Museum’s remarkable collection spans over two million years of human history and culture. The Museum is a leading visitor attraction, and its world-famous collection includes the Rosetta Stone, Egyptian mummies, the Sutton-Hoo finds, and the Lewis Chessmen. The Museum also holds an extensive collection of prints and drawings spanning 600 years, including works by the greatest graphic artists such as Dürer, Michelangelo and Rembrandt.
The Museum offers a competitive benefits package including:
- Generous annual leave allowance of 25 days (rising to 30 days after 10 years’ service) plus 2.5 privilege days and plus bank holidays.
- Membership of the civil service defined benefit pension scheme (find out here what benefits a civil service pension provides).
- Free entry to a wide range of museums and exhibitions.
- Participation in private and public Museum activities, including talks by leading curators from around the world and behind-the-scenes opportunities to learn how museums care for and manage their extraordinary collections.
- Interest-free travel, bicycle, and rental deposit loans.
- Professional and personal development opportunities.
- Employee Assistance Programme.
- Discounts on food and gift shop purchases.
Additional details:
Please note that due to the nature of the role, you will be expected to work in the office full-time with working from home permitted by exception. For more information about this role, please see the job description on our candidate portal.
We anticipate that interviews for this role will be held in the week commencing 1 September.
If you have any additional needs that we should be aware of to support you with your application, please provide details to bmrecruit@britishmuseum.org.
We have a legal responsibility to ensure that employees have the right to work in the UK. If you currently do not hold the right to work in the UK, we can only sponsor a limited number of roles that meet eligibility criteria. To offer a sponsorship, the job role you apply needs to be in the list of eligible occupations: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-visa-eligible-occupations. Additionally (with some limited exceptions), the role will need to meet the new minimum salary threshold of £41,700 or the going rate for the job, whichever is the highest. You can find more information here: https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa/your-job.
The British Museum is committed to promoting equality of opportunity for all staff and job applicants. We aim to create a working environment in which all individuals can make best use of their skills, free from unlawful discrimination or harassment. We value the benefits that a diverse workforce brings to a museum which represents world culture. The Museum is committed to ensuring that no job applicant suffers unlawful discrimination because of any protected characteristics. Our recruitment procedures aim to ensure that individuals are treated in line with their relevant knowledge, skills, and experience.
We specifically encourage applications from candidates from ethnic minority groups who are underrepresented within our senior roles.
The Museum also adheres to the HMG Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) for pre-employment screening of Civil Servants.
IMPORTANT: Before applying for this role, please make sure you have the right to work in the country where the role is based. Unless it clearly stipulates within in the job advert above that the hiring company is looking to or able to sponsor applicants it is deemed that the hiring employer will only consider applications from those able to comply with and work in the country where the role is based.
