Gardens & Parks Consultant

Can you provide specialist support, advice and inspiration to our property teams to make our places and plant collections the best they can be? Are you eager to respond to the climate and biodiversity crisis by supporting some of the UKs most special places? If so, we'd love to hear from you.

Starting salary of £26,699 is for a part-time 22.5 hr/wk.

Interviews will be in York on Friday 20th September 2024.

What it's like to work here

You'll be a member of the Trust's national consultancy, joining a network of Gardens & Parklands Consultants and specialists from every field of our work. You'll share skills and experience across departments and boundaries, offering our properties outstanding advice and support. You'll deliver alongside two other colleagues in the North.

Covering mainly the North West, you'll be based at either our Manchester or Altrincham hub, with the opportunity to work from properties and home some of the time. You'll have regular travel to gardens throughout the region and sometimes attend meetings and training elsewhere in the UK. Our hybrid working policy means you can balance office and home working with site visits and meetings at other National Trust places. We'll talk about this in more detail at interview, but you should expect to be at a National Trust site for 40-60% of your working week.

What you'll be doing

You'll work closely with curators, visitor experience and outdoor teams to ensure great access, visitor enjoyment and conservation.

• An established broad and deep knowledge of horticulture, gardens, garden history and plants, with a recognised higher-level horticultural qualification or equivalent experience.


• Extensive experience as a Head Gardener, Garden Manager or Horticultural specialist with an up-to-date approach, with the latest trends and developments in horticulture.


• Real passion for horticulture, a can-do attitude and enthusing all you meet to create great visitor experiences.


• A skilled communicator, who can build strong relationships within diverse teams, both internally and externally.


• Knowledge of Conservation Management Plans and/or Site Masterplans and their implementation, with experience of writing reports and preparing findings for different audiences.


• A flexible thinker and problem-solver, skilled at negotiating and building productive networks, and confident in using your expertise to influence decisions


• Proactive and organised, with experience of managing projects and a talent for multi-tasking and getting things done, strongly focused on detail, quality, cost and time.


• A leader for inclusion and always thinking everyone welcome