Vacancies

The Head of Communications & Public Affairs is a pivotal role at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) promoting our world-leading work in science, conservation, horticulture, and education.

Working as an active member of the Senior Leadership Team, this role will lead the organisation’s approach to strategic communications, seeking opportunities to engage external audiences, disseminate key messages, and raise RBGE’s profile on a national and international stage through press and media engagement.

With oversight of the communications and publishing functions, this role will also provide key support to the Regius Keeper and the Executive Team in shaping engagement and communication strategies with political stakeholders across the Scottish and UK governments.

This is an exciting opportunity to make a real impact in the next phase of RBGE’s corporate strategy, strengthening key policy relationships and promoting RBGE’s expertise to deliver real impact in the fight against the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change.

Closing date:                         09:00am (BST) on Monday 20 July 2026        
First interview date:               30 July 2026
Second interview date:          5 August 2026

Recruitment information: 

Further details on the job description, person specification, and how to apply can be found in the candidate pack for the role on our website here: Head of Communications and Public Affairs Candidate Pack

Fixed term for 12 months, working up to 5 days out of 7 including weekends

Starting salary - £27,366 plus civil service pension, generous holiday entitlement and other benefits

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is one of the world’s top four botanic gardens based on quality, breadth and depth of our science, plant collections, public engagement and education. We now have an opportunity to join our Visitor Welcome Team as we re-open our magnificent newly restored Victorian Palm House to the public later this year.

The primary focus of these roles is to ensure that visitors receive a first-class welcome and have all the information they need to create a memorable visit. You will play a key role in welcoming and supporting visitors, along with responsibility for promoting and selling tickets, garden maps, guidebooks and daily garden walks, and encouraging donations. 

The team remit also includes working with the events and exhibitions team to provide access and information to various public exhibitions and events. You will also be responsible for ensuring the protection of the Living Collection, as well as opening, closing and security of various garden buildings, all in line with our established procedures and policies. 

Applicants should have previous experience of working in a visitor or customer service environment. You will need to be proactive and take responsibility for your own workload, as well as able to prioritise to meet the conflicting demands of a busy attraction. A can-do attitude, excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to communicate with people at all levels will also be essential. You will need to be flexible and adaptable to meet the needs of an ever-changing environment. 

Although we see these as full-time roles we would be happy to receive applications from individuals looking to work with us on a part-time basis. If you would like to apply on that basis, please let us know how many hours you would be looking to work. Our full-time working week is 35 hours.

To apply please email recruitment@rbge.org.uk with:

• your CV
• a covering letter outlining the skills, knowledge and experience you’d bring to the post
• a completed equal opportunities questionnaire: EOQ form

All applicants will need to demonstrate the right to work in the UK. We are unable to sponsor applicants for work visas for these posts.

Closing date:                                  12pm (midday) on 27th July

Interview date:                               11th and 12th August 2026.           

Recruitment Information:            Job description and person specification

If you have not heard from us within 2 weeks of the closing date, please assume that your application has not been shortlisted. No recruitment agencies please.

Part-time (28 hours), fixed term to end of March 2028, based in Edinburgh
Salary £49,204 per annum (pro-rata £39,363) plus generous holiday entitlement, Civil Service pension and other benefits

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is an internationally renowned centre for plant science and conservation. Our collections are at the heart of our mission to explore, explain and conserve plant diversity, and include a living collection maintained across our four sites, Herbarium of 3 million preserved specimens, the nation’s botanical Library, and Archive. Our vibrant digitisation programme is helping to improve the accessibility of our collections.

We are now recruiting talented people for a major programme to digitise natural science collections throughout Scotland.

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and National Museums of Scotland are establishing a national hub and network of partners for specimen digitisation in Scotland as part of DiSSCo-UK. One of the most ambitious research and digital infrastructure programmes ever undertaken in the cultural or environmental sectors, DiSSCo UK is a £155 million, 10 -year national mission to digitise the UK’s natural science collections and transform how they fuel world-class research, innovation and public value. The programme is coordinated by the Natural History Museum (NHM) in partnership with UKRI, and will unlock tens of millions of specimens as open digital assets, establishing a sovereign national information resource that underpins UK leadership in tackling biodiversity loss, climate change, biosecurity and sustainable development.

We are looking for a National Project Manager to join the Scotland national hub team. Working closely with project leadership at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and National Museums of Scotland, the National Project Manager will coordinate project activity, governance and reporting, and communication within the project team, and line manage a project business support assistant. The role interfaces with a network of partner institutes in Scotland and the DiSSCo-UK coordinators at the NHM and UKRI, helping to communicate updates and share deliverables as necessary.

With a track record of project management success, excellent organisational and communication skills, the post holder this an ideal role for individual will be joining the team at the dawn of an exciting new era for the natural science collections in Scotland.

To apply, please email recruitment@rbge.org.uk with the following:

• Your CV
• A covering letter outlining the skills, knowledge and experience you would bring to the post

Please also electronically complete and submit an equal opportunities questionnaire using the following link: EOQ form. This form should not be included with your email application.

All applicants will need to demonstrate the right to work in the UK. We are unable to sponsor applicants for work visas for this post.

Closing date:                                           5pm (BST) on Wednesday 29 July 2026 
Interview date:                                       Wednesday 13 or Thursday 14 August 2026
Recruitment information:                   Job description and person specification

If you haven’t heard from us within 2 weeks of the closing date, please assume your application hasn’t been successful on this occasion. No recruitment agencies please.

Full-time (35 hours), fixed term to end of March 2028, based in Edinburgh
Salary £49,204 per annum plus generous holiday entitlement, Civil Service pension and other benefits

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is an internationally renowned centre for plant science and conservation. Our collections are at the heart of our mission to explore, explain and conserve plant diversity, and include a living collection maintained across our four sites, a Herbarium of 3 million preserved specimens, the nation’s botanical Library, and Archive. Our vibrant digitisation programme is helping to improve the accessibility of our collections. 

We are now recruiting talented people for a major programme to digitise natural science collections throughout Scotland. 

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and National Museums of Scotland are establishing a national hub and network of partners for specimen digitisation in Scotland as part of DiSSCo-UK. One of the most ambitious research and digital infrastructure programmes ever undertaken in the cultural or environmental sectors, DiSSCo UK is a £155 million, 10 -year national mission to digitise the UK’s natural science collections and transform how they fuel world-class research, innovation and public value. The programme is coordinated by the Natural History Museum (NHM) in partnership with UKRI, and will unlock tens of millions of specimens as open digital assets, establishing a sovereign national information resource that underpins UK leadership in tackling biodiversity loss, climate change, biosecurity and sustainable development.

We are looking for a National Data Manager to join the Scotland national hub team. Working closely with project leadership at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and National Museums of Scotland, the National Data Manager will be responsible for data management to support delivery of digitised specimens to the DiSSCo-UK portal.

Reporting to the Deputy Director of Science (Collections) and working closely with the Keeper of Natural Science Collections at the National Museums of Scotland, you will ensure consistent, efficient and accurate sharing of digital specimen images and metadata from multiple natural science collections in Scotland to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). 

You will be involved on a daily basis in decision making and technical support within expert teams of curators at the national hub collections. You will collaborate with the relevant technical teams to embed robust data infrastructure and management procedures that support long-term preservation of digital specimens. You will also design and implement a robust approach to inform data management, sharing and preservation at diverse partner institutes, ranging from council-owned museums to historic University collections.

This role provides strategic and technical leadership focused on delivery: leading on data management, developing and coordinating data sharing pipelines, monitoring data quality, resolving issues, and supporting institutions to meet agreed data standards and schedules.  

With a track record of successful design and implementation of data management protocols, you will play a key role in establishing and maintaining a reliable, unified national dataset for Scotland that meets FAIR principles.  

To apply, please email recruitment@rbge.org.uk with the following:

• Your CV
• A covering letter outlining the skills, knowledge and experience you would bring to the post

Please also electronically complete and submit an equal opportunities questionnaire using the following link: EOQ form. This form should not be included with your email application.

All applicants will need to demonstrate the right to work in the UK. We are unable to sponsor applicants for work visas for this post.

Closing date:                                           5pm (BST) on Wednesday 29 July 2026 
Interview date:                                       Wednesday 13 or Thursday 14 August 2026
Recruitment information:                   Job description and person specification

If you haven’t heard from us within 2 weeks of the closing date, please assume your application hasn’t been successful on this occasion. No recruitment agencies please.