Careers in Museums
What kinds of jobs are there?
There are many different kinds of museum and many different types of jobs in museums. Some museums are very small and might be run only by volunteers or by one or two staff who do everything from running the shop to putting on exhibitions. Other museums, like the big national museums (e.g. the British Museum and the Science Museum) have hundreds of staff who will often be very specialist in one area, like curating early European archaeology, or conserving prints and drawings.
What each museum needs varies enormously, but here are some of the more common types of roles often found in museums:
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Front of house
- Tour guide
- Live interpretation (i.e. acting as a character from the past)
- Marketing Manager
- Education Officer
- Curator
- Conservator
- IT specialist and web design
- Exhibitions designer
- Graphic design
- Photographer
- Object handler
- Carpenter
- Documentation specialist
- Outreach worker
