About the role
It’s tending to gardens that thousands will admire
It’s taking every opportunity to make your mark. And it’s the pride in joining a team at the heart of a world famous institution. This is what makes working for the Royal Household exceptional.
Our dedicated Gardens team maintains and showcases the 39 acres of Buckingham Palace Garden to the highest standard.
Key responsibilities
* From day one, you’ll take ownership of delivering the annual plan of maintenance and work across the garden.
* Leading a small team, you’ll organise and allocate daily tasks, as well carrying out work yourself, from all important lawn maintenance, to caring for shrub, herbaceous and rose borders.
* Helping to shape the future of the gardens, you'll have creative input into planting new shrubberies, bulbs and seasonal flower displays.
* You’ll also grow your management skills, monitoring Health & Safety and training records, as well as guiding the performance and development of the team and contractors.
And overall you'll take great pride in your work, delivering beautiful results in all you do.
About you
Essential Criteria
* With a passion for horticulture, backed up with a relevant qualification (such as HND, ND / NVQ 3 or RHS Level 3 or even a Botanic Diploma in Horticulture), you’re exactly who we’re looking for.
* A full UK driving license.
* You’ll have previous experience carrying out cyclical maintenance for a high quality landscape garden, ideally within a historic environment. This means you have excellent knowledge of lawn maintenance, and cultivating a broad range of trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants.
* Able to demonstrate a range of horticultural craft skills, you’ll be well equipped to use the wide range of garden machinery we have here, including rotary machines and large mowers.
* It’s a busy environment, so your excellent time management and organisation will be an asset to the team.
* Working closely with colleagues will be important to you, and you'll have an adaptable communication style and a collaborative approach to work. You’ll also have some supervisory experience and will be keen to develop your skills to effectively lead a small team.
* With lots of initiative and a creative eye, you'll also be keen to contribute new ideas for developing the gardens and grounds.
Benefits
We know that to deliver our best work; we need to feel at our best. That’s why at the Royal Household we offer a generous benefits package designed to support your wellbeing and life priorities.
Our excellent non-contributory pension plan (we’ll contribute 15% and you can contribute more if you wish) is highly valued by our employees, as is complimentary lunch on-site to keep you fuelled throughout the day.
We also offer a range of leave options to support your life priorities, such as parental pay and leave and volunteering days, as well as benefits to support your physical and mental wellbeing.
Other perks include 20% off at our Royal Collection Trust Shops and complimentary admission tickets across all our locations, along with many more exclusive employee discounts.