Salary grade: £6,400 per annum (pro-rata from £32,000 p/a FTE)
Department/ward: Research Department
Archivist – Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability
Job Title: Archivist
Contract Type: Permanent
Department: Research
Salary range: £6,400 per annum (pro-rata from £32,000 p/a FTE)
Hours of work: 1 day / 7.5 hours per week
Location: Putney, Southwest London
Are you passionate about history, stories, and preserving the past for future generations?
We have a rare and rewarding opportunity for an Archivist to join our Research Team at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability (RHN).
At the RHN, we provide compassionate, person-centred care for adults with complex neuro-disabilities—supporting individuals and their families through every stage of the care journey, from post-acute rehabilitation to end-of-life care. Our work is grounded in a strong foundation of research, education, and innovation.
Founded in 1854 as the Royal Hospital for Incurables, the RHN was a trailblazer in offering long-term care for people living with chronic illness or serious injury. Today, our archives are a treasure trove of British medical and social history, featuring hand-written letters from Florence Nightingale, speeches by Charles Dickens, and patient records spanning more than 170 years.
As our new Archivist, you’ll help protect, explore, and share this extraordinary legacy—connecting the past to the present, and shaping how it informs our future.
Person Specification:
1. At least 2 years of experience working as an archivist (Essential).
2. A postgraduate qualification in Archive Administration.
3. Ability to work independently, plan and manage workload.
4. Experience of managing or developing an archive.
5. Knowledge of copyright regulations and the handling of sensitive personal data in accordance with GDPR.
6. Disability awareness and understanding and adherence to equal opportunities, (with understanding and adherence to data protection –
7. Experience of managing and recruiting volunteers. (Desirable)
8. Experience of working with AtoM (Access to Memory) archival description platform, or similar archive online catalogues.
9. Excellent communications skills for working with researchers and the general public involving queries and access to the archive.
10. Organised approach to work – proactive, methodical administrative skills, with good planning and time-management. Ability to prioritise and work well under pressure.
11. Experience of working as part of a team as well as on own initiative.
Interested in applying and hearing from us?
We ask part of their application that applicants send a cover letter through to recruitment at recruitment@rhn.org.uk
Please note we advise you to submit your application as soon as possible as we reserve the right to close this post at any time and will be reviewing applications as they are submitted.
We are proud to be Disability Confident Employer and we are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace. We encourage applications from disabled people and will make reasonable adjustments to support you through the recruitment process and in the workplace. If you require any reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process, please do not hesitate to contact our Resourcing Team at recruitment@rhn.org.uk
Please note, to be eligible to apply for this role, you must have the Right to Work in the UK we are unable to provide sponsorship for this role.
1. Undertake cataloguing work on the collection and updating RHN Archive AtoM online catalogue.
2. Supporting users of the service, including researchers, academics and professional staff to access the archive.
3. To review and update Archive Service policies
4. To supervise and develop a public reading room service and be responsible for the retrieval and safe handling of the archive collection.
5. To catalogue and upload digitised archive records to the RHN AtoM catalogue.
6. To recruit and supervise volunteers to help with preservation, cataloguing and transcription work
7. To review and update the Archive Service policies with the RHN Head of Data Protection and Compliance.
8. To develop and supervise a reading room for the RHN Archive Service
9. To be responsible for the collection care of the archives. Monitoring environmental conditions in the archive store and assessing the conservation needs of the records.
10. To catalogue unlisted archives to ISAD (G) and related standards, and to record and appraise all new accessions.
11. To create and update authority records to ISAAR and related standards in order to enhance discovery and to enable links to be made to other collections.
12. To manage all enquires relating to the archive and provide a reprographic service for researchers.
13. To work effectively with teams across the department on the archives development project and any archives-related exhibitions and events
14. Any other duties that may from time to time be required, as discussed and agreed with the Associate Director of Research.
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