Research Assistant, PREDICTS Database Assistant

About Us

We are a world-class visitor attraction and leading science research centre. We use the Museum's unique collections and our unrivalled expertise to tackle the biggest challenges facing the world today. We care for more than 80 million objects spanning billions of years and welcome more than five million visitors annually and 16 million visits to our website.  

Today the Museum is more relevant and influential than ever. By attracting people from a range of backgrounds to work for us, we can continue to look at the world with fresh eyes and find new ways of doing things.

We employ 1100 staff in a variety of roles, all united by our vision of a future where people and planet thrive. We need everyone to have the passion and drive to help us with our mission to create advocates for our planet and inspire millions to care about the natural world.

Diversity and inclusion matter to us.

Our vision is of a future where both people and the planet thrive. Diversity is one of our core values and we strive to build a workplace where everyone feels a sense of belonging. All new staff who join us learn about the importance of diversity and inclusion to the Museum and how to contribute to creating an inclusive environment.

We know we have more to do, but we are committed to ensuring that everyone who works at the Museum feels they can thrive and feel valued and respected.

About the role

The Natural History Museum maintains the PREDICTS (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems) database; the world’s largest global database describing how local terrestrial biodiversity response to land use and related human pressures. The database underpins high-impact academic research and applied work with policy and business partners, and its value depends critically on the quality, completeness and traceability of the underlying data.

We are seeking a Research Assistant, ideally with an MSc-level background in ecology, biodiversity, environmental science or a related discipline, to support the ongoing expansion and curation of the PREDICTS database. The postholder will work closely with members of the PREDICTS team to identify relevant scientific studies, obtain raw data from papers or from corresponding with their authors, and curate those data into the PREDICTS database following established protocols. This exciting role in a rapidly-growing field is ideal for someone who enjoys careful, detail-oriented work with scientific data, is comfortable engaging directly with the academic literature and research community and can manage complex information streams in a systematic and organised way.

The postholder will be based within a collaborative and inclusive research environment within the Biodiversity Futures Lab, led by Professor Andy Purvis and Dr Adriana De Palma. They will work alongside a diverse group of researchers spanning ecology, biodiversity modelling, data science and geospatial analysis. In addition to their core data-curation responsibilities, there will be opportunities to engage in wider ongoing work in the lab, depending on interests and capacity. The postholder will also have opportunities for informal training and skills development, including to areas such as AI-assisted literature discovery, coding in the R language for data manipulation, statistical modelling and geospatial analysis.

About you

You're passionate about biodiversity science and love working with data that can make a real difference in how the world understands and protects nature. Curious, organised and highly detail-oriented, you enjoy digging into scientific literature, uncovering valuable insights and transforming complex information into robust, high-quality datasets. Whether you've recently completed an MSc or have equivalent experience, you bring a strong foundation in ecology, biodiversity, environmental science or a related field. You're comfortable reading and interpreting scientific papers, thinking critically about research methods and results, and engaging confidently with the academic community. You thrive when working with large volumes of information, keeping track of multiple projects, datasets and communications without losing sight of the details. Accuracy matters to you, and you take pride in producing work that is thorough, reproducible and trusted by others.

A proactive self-starter, you're equally happy working independently or collaborating as part of a multidisciplinary research team. You enjoy solving problems, improving processes and finding better ways to manage and curate scientific data. Experience with ecological datasets, evidence synthesis, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, R, or emerging AI-assisted research tools would be a bonus. But above all, we're looking for someone with intellectual curiosity, a passion for biodiversity research, and a desire to contribute to one of the world's most influential environmental data resources.

You'll be joining the team behind PREDICTS, the world's largest database of how terrestrial biodiversity responds to human pressures. Working within the Natural History Museum's Biodiversity Futures Lab, you'll collaborate with leading researchers in ecology, biodiversity modelling, data science and geospatial analysis, while developing valuable skills in data curation, scientific synthesis, coding, AI-assisted research, and biodiversity assessment.

If you're excited by the idea of helping build the evidence base that informs biodiversity science, policy and decision-making worldwide, we'd love to hear from you.

Thriving at the Museum: the way we work

We are proud to work at the Museum and have identified the qualities we all need to embody to reach our shared ambition. This sits alongside the Museum’s values and forms the framework for the way we work.

Find out more here

What we offer

• 27.5 days holiday plus 8 bank holidays (full time equivalent)
• Generous defined contribution Natural History Museum Pension Scheme (employer contribution 4 - 10%)
• Season ticket, bicycle and rental loan
• Life insurance
• Free admission to our exhibitions and many other paid exhibitions at museums, galleries and institutions across London and the UK.
• Staff discount at our Museum shops and cafes
• We offer a wide variety of training initiatives and opportunities to build skills. Investing in staff development is important to us, and we are ambitious about helping staff to grow and fulfil their potential.
• Affordable membership to the Civil Service Sports Council which offers a range of benefits including an extensive list of special offers and reduced entry fees at a selection of cinema chains, theme parks, theatres, retailers and supermarkets. It also provides entry to up to 300 English Heritage sites and other national treasures. For more details, visit https://www.cssc.co.uk
• Membership to our Sports and Social Association (for a small fee), which includes access to our in-house gym and clubs such as football, softball, table tennis and tennis and classes in Middle Eastern dance, yoga and Tai Chi

Hybrid working

We are working towards a vision where both people and planet thrive, and nothing gives a greater connection with this, than seeing first-hand, the visitors, scientific research and collections that all of our work is inspired by and working side by side with the teams delivering the visitor experience and events.  We also recognise the benefits and flexibility that hybrid working brings. We operate a hybrid working model that requires regular, weekly attendance for this role, with the precise pattern of days on site and worked from home to be agreed with your manager.

How to apply

If this sounds like you, please apply by clicking on the 'Apply' button above.

Please note that as part of our commitment to anonymised shortlisting, panels do not view CVs during the recruitment process. If you choose to upload your CV, our system will automatically pull information from your CV into our application form. We advise you to double-check your application form data before submitting as the tool may interpret CVs differently.

Closing date: 31st August 2026 at 23:59

Interviews expected: between 10th - 15th September 2026

Please note that this role does not qualify for Museum sponsorship so the successful postholder will need to have a valid right to work in the UK at the point of offer.