Two Historic England employees standing and talking in the office at the Engine House, Swindon.
© Historic England DP189386
© Historic England DP189386

Historic Environment Advice Assistant Apprentices

We are excited to share with you an inspiring opportunity to complete a Historic Environment Advice Assistant Apprenticeship (HEAA) over the course of 27 months at Historic England. This is a Higher Apprenticeship (Level 4) - the equivalent educational level of a foundation degree.

What will you be doing?

You will be helping to support the Regions teams as they research, visit, and assess the condition of a range of historic places including buildings, landscapes and archaeological remains. You will assist the work of colleagues providing direct advice and recommendations to internal teams, external partners in the public and private sector and members of the public who own, live in and use historic places to protect them for future generations.

Your apprenticeship will be divided between 80% work based training and 20% study with an approved training provider. Your training element is a specially designed programme of learning that will include regular site visits, training sessions and online learning. In addition, you will complete a range of professional courses to enhance your career development.

Apply for an apprenticeship

We are recruiting for one HEAA apprentice in each of our six regional offices to commence September 2019.

Find out more and apply now for one of the following locations:

Closing date for applications is Monday 17 June 2019 at midnight.

You will receive notification of the outcome of your application no later than Wednesday 26 June 2019.

Considering applying for our Historic Environment Advice Assistant Apprenticeship at Historic England, but not clear on what will be involved?

To help you, we've spoken to our teams and put together a guide for you. We want to provide you with the training and support of our skilled colleagues to put you at the centre of our work, to enable you to help protect and provide advice on heritage for the public now, and in the future.

A day in the life

If you are someone who enjoys variety in your work you'll be pleased to know that you’ll be spending your time working with and supporting lots of different teams, there really is no such thing as a typical day.

What’s amazing is dealing with proposals to such a diverse range of buildings and the people who use them. A recent week took me to the depths of Cold War underground bunkers with Ministry of Defence personnel, to an Arts and Crafts country house in splendid isolation amidst the rolling hills of the Vale of Gloucester, to the Victorian industrial heartland of Gloucester’s dock-side warehouses, and finally to the English Heritage-owned medieval tithe barn in Bradford-in-Avon. How’s that for variety!
Samuel

During your time with us you’ll get the chance to:

Support our Partnerships Team in their work protecting Heritage at Risk
This is a meaningful part of your role and your apprenticeship, as you'll learn how grant funding can help to save historic sites for future generations to enjoy, and how projects are monitored and supported. You’ll get the opportunity to don a hard hat and high vis jacket to shadow our Architects as they check on the progress of urgent building repairs, picking up lots of technical knowledge along the way. You will join our Heritage at Risk Project Officers as they advise landowners about protecting buried archaeology from risks including ploughing, brambles and even badgers!

Work alongside our Development Advice Team
We will help you develop the knowledge required to help provide advice to local authorities about how planning applications might affect nearby heritage assets. You’ll learn to analyse application documents including maps, plans and written reports, and you’ll join Inspectors as they visit the application sites, often meeting with site owners and local authority staff as they discuss proposals in person. Back in the office you’ll help pull together case studies to look at the impact of our guidance, and you’ll learn how to carefully craft written advice about how planning applications could be improved to provide better heritage outcomes.

Being an Inspector of Historic Buildings at Historic England gives me privileged access into some of the country’s most historic buildings and areas. We work in regional teams, and over the course of time you build up a huge personal knowledge of your area, its history and traditions. I get deep personal satisfaction from the ability to positively influence change to the outstanding heritage of the area that I live and work in, for wider public benefit.
Simon

Assist our Listing Team
Assessing whether different types of heritage should be given legal protection is an important learning which you will benefit from during your apprenticeship with us. You’ll enjoy having the time to conduct further research to assist you with assessments, and from there have the unique opportunity to shadow Listing Advisers when they conduct site visits to assess and examine the buildings and sites in more detail. You'll capture and use public feedback, and will develop your writing skills to contribute to evidenced recommendation reports, learning how to follow the right approvals process.

Work with our Business Support Team
You will spend some of your time involved in the work Historic England do to champion the National Heritage List for England. The list is the only official, up to date, register of all nationally protected historic buildings and sites in England, including listed buildings, scheduled monuments, protected wrecks, registered parks and gardens and battlefields and is at the heart of the work we do at Historic England. You will assist in processing requests to add new records to the register, and will also log other applications for things like planning permission and scheduled monument consent. You’ll learn how information is recorded and will complete research using a range of sources including the Historic England Archive, aerial photographs and historic maps. Here you'll get a chance to further develop your customer service skills by responding to emails and taking phone call enquires from members of the public.

In the Business Support team we get to have an overview of what happens across the whole region. It’s exciting to understand the range of the different types of heritage, and how Historic England works to protect them.
Our Business Support team

The Historic Environment Advice Assistant Apprenticeship is a unique opportunity to develop a wide ranging knowledge of skills that will enable you to help protect England's historical landscape. We are passionate about our commitment to the historic environment and we want to work with you to support you in your apprentice journey with us.

Driven by the hard work of over 70 employers, training providers and professional bodies from across the heritage sector, The Historic Environment Trailblazer, chaired by Historic England, has led on the development of the Historic Environment Advice Assistant Apprenticeship. The apprenticeship is now approved for delivery for employers and training providers in England from 2019.

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These six apprenticeships have been made possible by the generous support of Allchurches Trust.

Working in partnership with