Lead Preventive Conservator

Location: St Pancras
Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full time (36 hours)
Grade: A
Salary: £42,179 per annum

About the role
The British Library is seeking a Lead Preventive Conservator to provide leadership and advocacy in preventive conservation and disaster preparedness across the St Pancras site, London.

Embedded within the conservation department, the role manages a small Preventive Conservation team, delivering a work programme using risk mitigation for collection storage, transit, display and use, in all St Pancras spaces. By promoting the adoption of a preventive conservation culture within the library, the role is an important liaison and advisor for a wide reach of stakeholders to enable access to collection material.

The role works closely with the Sustainability Manager continually developing collection care practices that support the BL Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy. The Preventive Team also provide an effective interface between the aligned Conservation departments in St Pancras and Boston Spa, Yorkshire.

The post holder will have a degree or equivalent experience in Preventive Conservation or similar discipline. You will have experience of working in a relevant heritage context using risk management and with knowledge of designing and implementing policy, processes and procedures. Good communication skills are essential.

About us
We are the national library of the UK and we are here for everyone. Our shelves hold over 170 million items – a living collection that gets bigger every day. Although our roots extend back centuries, we aim to collect everything published in the UK today, tomorrow and far into the future. Our trusted experts care for this collection and open it up for everyone to spark new discoveries, ideas and to help people do incredible things.

What we can offer you
- A competitive salary.
- A fantastic pension scheme with minimum employer contributions of 28.97% (this may be higher dependent on grade).
- Flexible working hours, with the ability to take up to 5 days flexi leave in a 3-month period.
- 25 days holiday.
- Full details of employee benefits can be found on our Careers: Benefits

Things you need to know
- We are unable to provide sponsorship under the UK Skilled Worker visa for this role.
- Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check (DBS check).
- Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn.
- We particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian, Mixed Race and other ethnically diverse candidates and disabled candidates. Creating an inclusive workplace is the core of our business and a way to engage the diversity of thought that is essential to achieve our aims.

Closing date: 11 January 2026

If you have any questions, please contact [email protected]