Museum/gallery curator : Employers and vacancy sources

There are numerous galleries and museums throughout the United Kingdom, some with specialist collections, others displaying a more diverse range of artefacts and exhibits.

Large national institutions, such as The British Museum , the National Gallery , the National Museums Scotland  and the National Galleries of Scotland , employ hundreds of people in a variety of specialist roles, while some local galleries and museums may only have one professional member of staff and rely heavily on the support of volunteers.

More than 300 universities have galleries and museums, and these include some major public institutions such as the Ashmolean Museum  in Oxford and the The Hunterian  in Glasgow.

Staff based in local authority museums are often employed by the leisure or education department. The collections held by these museums tend to reflect the history, industrial heritage or landscape of the locality.

Nationwide, there are over 1,500 independent museums and most of these are run as charitable concerns. They range from very small organisations set up by individual enthusiasts and run by volunteers, to large, regional and national establishments. See the Association of Independent Museums (AIM)  website for more information.

The sector also includes the Armed Forces, who have national museums with professional staff as well as regimental museums, usually run by former officers.

There are also opportunities to work in specialist museums, sometimes run by commercial organisations, and also with private collections.

Sources of vacancies

• Search graduate jobs on this site.
• ArtsHub
• artsjobsonline
• Global Museum
• Guardian Jobs
• Jobs.ac.uk
• Leicester University School of Museum Studies Jobs Desk
• Museums Association (MA)
• Museum Jobs
• Museums Journal
• National Museum Directors' Conference (NMDC) jobs website
• Times Educational Supplement (TES)

Also, look at education supplements, especially for education, research and technical appointments as well as leisure publications, such as Leisure Management .

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