Business Development & Partnerships Manager, Biodiversity Intactness Index

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.

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 is seeking a highly skilled Business Development & Partnerships Manager to grow the reach, impact, and sustainability of its Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII).

BII is a scientifically robust metric developed by the Natural History Museum that measures how much of a region’s original biodiversity remains, enabling organisations to assess and manage their impact on nature. It translates complex ecological data into a clear, decision-ready indicator, now increasingly integrated into financial data aggregators and nature risk assessment tools to inform investment and risk analysis.

The role centres on identifying, shaping, and securing income-generating opportunities—through commercial partnerships, licensing, consultancy, and grant-funded collaborations—while serving as the primary interface with external clients and stakeholders.

Working across both the Innovation Unit and the Biodiversity Futures Lab (BFL), the postholder will bridge commercial opportunity development with the scientific and data expertise behind BII. You will help align partnership and funding strategies across the teams and ensure that external market needs and user feedback are clearly fed into the Lab’s development priorities, supporting BII’s ongoing relevance as a trusted, policy- and market-facing biodiversity metric.

You're a natural relationship-builder who thrives at the intersection of science, sustainability and commercial impact. Whether you're developing strategic partnerships, identifying new market opportunities, or translating complex technical concepts into compelling client conversations, you're energised by turning great ideas into meaningful outcomes.

You bring experience in business development, partnerships, client management or commercial growth, ideally within a science, data, technology or sustainability-focused environment. You know how to spot opportunities, build trust with stakeholders, and convert interest into lasting partnerships that deliver value for everyone involved.

Commercially astute and highly organised, you're comfortable developing proposals, shaping partnership models, negotiating commercial terms, and managing a diverse pipeline of opportunities. You enjoy balancing big-picture strategy with hands-on delivery and can confidently juggle competing priorities in a fast-moving environment.

You are equally comfortable speaking with scientists, investors, policymakers, sustainability leaders and corporate decision-makers. A skilled communicator, you can quickly grasp complex concepts and translate them into clear, engaging value propositions that resonate with different audiences.

Most importantly, you're motivated by purpose. You understand the growing importance of biodiversity, sustainability and nature-related decision making, and want to play a leading role in helping organisations better understand and manage their impact on the natural world.

Experience within ESG, sustainability, environmental data, biodiversity metrics, nature finance, or related sectors would be highly valuable. Familiarity with frameworks such as TNFD or CSRD, product-led organisations, or mission-driven environments would be an advantage, but we're equally interested in curious, ambitious individuals who are excited by the opportunity to help scale one of the world's leading biodiversity data products.

If you're excited by the challenge of growing partnerships, securing investment, and helping cutting-edge science influence decisions at a global scale, we'd love to hear from you.

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

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.

For this particular role, the requirement is 2/3 days in the office.

Occasional travel to other locations in the UK or overseas may be required.

If this sounds like you, please apply below 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: 31 August 2026 on 23:59

Interviews expected: w/c 14th September and w/c 21st September

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.