Archive Assistant

Interested in developing your career in archives management? 

Keen to contribute to delivering a high quality service to archive users, and a great communicator? 

The Sedgwick Museum has a vacancy for an Archive Assistant to join the Museum team. This new role provides an exciting opportunity to work alongside the Museum Archivist, and contribute to the development and promotion of the Museum's archive as an international focus for collections research. Duties include documentation, contributing to the care of the archives, assisting with collections enquiries, and enabling researchers to access and use the archives and promoting their use.   

The Sedgwick Museum's collections comprise more than two million fossils, rocks, minerals representing 300 years of collecting. The archive comprises over 2000 boxes of irreplaceable records from 17th century drawings of fossils to unique historic geological field notebooks, sketches, maps, and an extensive fieldwork photographic archive. The archive includes papers charting the history and development of the Museum, the papers of Woodwardian professors including the field notebooks of Adam Sedgwick, the Sedgwick Club Archive and the Cambridge Svalbard Exploration Archive.  The Museum welcomes more than 90,000 public visitors a year and delivers popular public programmes and outreach. The Museum's priorities include supporting world-leading research, welcoming and inspiring our public visitors, supporting and enriching student learning and skills development, and working collaboratively with museums, universities and communities locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.

Applicants should have an understanding of the role and activities of an archive, and a demonstrable commitment to a career in archives management. They should be familiar with standards for care and handling of archive materials, and ideally an interest in or knowledge of geology, geography, fieldwork and/or the history of science. They should have clear and confident written and oral communication skills and the ability to communicate with a wide variety of specialist and non-specialist users. Excellent IT skills, including the ability to use and work with databases in an archive, museum or heritage context and good planning and organisation skills are all essential.

Limited funding: The funds for this post are available until 30 September 2029 in the first instance.

We particularly welcome applications from candidates from a BME background for this vacancy as they are currently under-represented at this level in our department.

To apply online for this vacancy and to view further information about the role, please click the 'Apply' button above. 

Interview dates: We anticipate interviews will be carried out in person during w/c 27 October 2025 but can accommodate interviews by Zoom if necessary.

Please quote reference LB46910 on your application and in any correspondence about this vacancy.

The University actively supports equality, diversity and inclusion and encourages applications from all sections of society.

The University has a responsibility to ensure that all employees are eligible to live and work in the UK.

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