Development Manager: Heritage
We are excited to offer an excellent opportunity to join the Culture Sheffield team at Sheffield City Council as our lead for Heritage. This pivotal role will support the delivery of our strategic ambitions for heritage across the city, championing Sheffield’s unique historic environment and ensuring it continues to inspire, engage, and enrich our communities for years to come.
The Role
You will lead on delivering city-wide strategies and programmes that celebrate and invest in Sheffield’s diverse heritage. You will play a key part in driving strategic heritage investment, developing significant partnerships, and ensuring alignment across stakeholders and delivery partners. Your work will support long-term sector growth, innovation, and sustainability.
Main Duties & Responsibilities
1. Drive forward Sheffield’s strategic heritage investment plans to facilitate growth and capacity building across the sector.
2. Lead on the planning, development, and delivery of strategic heritage interventions including funding programmes, city-wide initiatives, and heritage/cultural infrastructure frameworks.
3. Develop, manage, and nurture partnerships with heritage organisations, higher education institutions, community groups, funders (including National Lottery Heritage Fund and Historic England), and internal council departments.
4. Champion evidence-based heritage policy and practice by embedding robust evaluation, insight, and impact measurement into all activities.
5. Advise and support heritage institutions, event organisers, and practitioners on areas such as organisational development, fundraising and capital planning.
6. Provide strategic leadership and day-to-day management of heritage programmes, including programme evaluation and performance monitoring.
7. Coordinate sector stakeholders alongside the Sheffield Heritage Partnership Board to deliver the Joined Up Heritage Strategy, ensuring momentum, collaboration, and accountability across the city.
8. Oversee effective risk management and ensure projects are delivered on time, within scope, and to a high standard.
9. Manage and develop team members as appropriate, supporting professional development and high-quality delivery.
About You
We are seeking a dynamic, strategic, and collaborative manager with a passion for the positive impact heritage can have on civic life and local communities.
Essential Experience & Skills
10. Proven experience in leading heritage programmes, policy or sector development, ideally within a local authority or similar context.
11. Strong track record in delivering city-scale heritage strategies and programmes from inception through to completion.
12. Excellent partnership development and stakeholder management skills across public, private, and community sectors.
13. Experience in supporting organisational development, fundraising and capital planning in the heritage or cultural sector.
14. Experience in commissioning heritage organisations, practitioners, and community groups, to deliver heritage projects.
Desirable
15. Understanding of evaluation frameworks, data analysis, and good practice in governance and accountability.
16. Excellent communication and influencing skills, including the ability to prepare reports and present to senior leadership and committees.
This is an excellent opportunity for a creative and ambitious heritage professional to make a significant contribution to Sheffield’s heritage landscape. If you are committed to delivering lasting impact through heritage, we want to hear from you.
We are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all sections of the community. We value diversity and inclusion and are committed to providing flexible working arrangements wherever possible. We are a Disability Confident Employer and we guarantee to interview any disabled applicant who meets the essential criteria for the role.
For questions about the role please email
Please note that interviews will ideally be held on Friday 30th January, we hope to invite shortlisted candidates to interview by Friday 23rd January. However if you are not contacted by then, please do wait to hear from the recruitment panel, as the process may have been delayed.
We are investing in our workforce and are promoting opportunities to our under-represented groups. We value equality, diversity and inclusion and are focused on increasing the diversity of our workforce, particularly the number of Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic, Disabled and LGBTQ+ people, so that our teams reflect the communities in the city we serve. We are also supporting staff with unpaid caring responsibilities to work flexibly.