60 Seconds With Our Emerging Talent Placements

I'm based in the London office working with the partnerships team on the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs. Although they’re not just dinosaurs only a few of them are dinosaurs, and actually most of them are prehistoric mammals or animals of different kinds. Historic England goal for the dinosaurs is to bring them into a state of stability because they're really old. Some of them are rusting and some of them have been vandalised and they're in a pretty sorry state. So, it's thinking about listing them and how to list them to best preserve them and working with the Council and other stakeholders to figure out who's going to do what. As bits of fallen off and bits have gotten lost, it's trying to find all the different fragments and bring them together so that when they are listed it is in their entirety that they're listed. I've also been working on public engagement. We put on an event to introduce the public to what we're doing, in collaboration with Crystal Palace Park Trust, who are managing the park now.

So, for me it was a combination of chance and opportunity. When I was studying architecture and wanted to work in architecture, I signed up to Blueprint for All’s programme and I still get emails from them and one of them was about this and I felt really lucky because I've been moving into heritage. I've been trying to find lots of different experiences that can help me with that. I was actually a bit torn between the dinosaur role and the heritage at risk role because this one I think was really good for cataloguing and public engagement, which I think are really direct skills for a cultural role. But then also research is really important and the heritage at risk role would have really helped me develop my research skills. So that that's why applied I just really wanted to develop my skills in practice.

I used to do architecture and I stopped doing that as a job last year and then after a few volunteering experiences, I've started to get my first paid roles this year. I did an internship at the V&A museum, working with their learning team, where I was working with the learning department families team helping them to run and plan their program. After that I did two months at a charity called Art Explora, working on a really exciting project with the British Museum called Time Odyssey that was about bringing children into the museum in a really cost-effective way for schools.

It's definitely been the event that we had. It was really rewarding to see how meaningful the dinosaurs were to so many people. We had our stall and there was a constant stream of people coming through that were so eager to talk about the dinosaurs or learn about them, or even just touch the fragments. One person came with her child and she was talking about how she used to come as a child brought by her parents. She talked about how the work that's being done by Historic England and others is important because it means that her child and her children's children will be able to see the dinosaurs and enjoy them.

I've really developed my skills with public engagement. I’ve had to think through how to engage people at an event and doing that under my own steam rather than other people's steam. Another is communication, I would get anxious about sending off an email and because so much of what I've been doing has been coordination, I've had to get comfortable firing off emails all the time and that's been really helpful for me. And then the last one, which was unexpected and really meaningful is the autonomy that I've been awarded because I think I've been treated really well here and I've gotten to decide how I approached the tasks that I've done and that isn't really a situation I've been in before.

The advice I would give to people is to use this as an opportunity to consider what they want out of the working environment first. There are so many people that have had huge and really interesting careers and I would recommend talking to them asking how they got where they are, what they enjoy. I think another really big aspect of working life is the actual environment that you are in, so I'd say come into the office, feel it out. Do you like working in a big space? Would you prefer to be somewhere busier or quieter? More people or less people? Would you rather be on your feet all day? Historic England is a really great place to ask oneself those questions because you do have people that go out on site visits all the time and you do have people that have more desk based jobs.

To attract more people, there are lots of courses that the placements could lead into, so I wonder about maybe reaching out to universities directly, not just architecture students, but heritage students, museum students, archaeology students. I think direct marketing to schools for people that do want to get a step into the field would be really helpful.

I am based in the York office but work one day a week at the Bradford Council offices too. My placement is as a Heritage Action Zone Assistant, working with various Heritage Action Zone and High Street Heritage Action Zone teams in the North, and with conservation and culture teams at Bradford Council. Bradford is currently in the development phase of submitting their Heritage Action Zone bid, so by communicating between the two offices, I’m learning about what everyone is working on and helping to lay the groundwork for the upcoming scheme.

I studied History at Leeds and I was born and raised in the Bradford district, so I'm always popping in for community events or to meet friends and family. So, when this opportunity came up that blended history and heritage with public engagement in Bradford, it appealed directly to both my personal and academic interests. I thought it would be a good way to network and build relationships to understand how the heritage sector works. Even though I've been interested in heritage and have studied History, I've never actually worked in the sector. So, it's familiar in some ways but a whole new world in others.

I was working for a human rights organisation straight out of university, which I graduated from two years ago. It was an organisation that I was already volunteering with, and then went into a paid role after graduating. I have kept that role whilst working part-time at my placement, but I have enjoyed my work with Historic England even more than I thought I would, so have recently accepted a Step Up placement at Historic England.

I would say meeting so many different people, I was really surprised by the scope of Historic England as an organisation. When I was speaking to people in York, one week it would be archaeologists, the next week it would be architects, then there’s the aerial survey team who get to fly aeroplanes and take pictures using lasers and all sorts of other high-tech equipment. The highlight was the breadth of knowledge and expertise that's available. Everybody's an expert in their field and has a common interest in heritage. Before I started, I thought Historic England was just about listing buildings and that's all, but now I know how interactive it is as an organisation and how much it engages with the public. It's been a highlight because that's exactly what I'm interested in, public engagement and how people interact with the heritage rather than just the heritage itself, sitting abandoned.

It’s improved my communication, organisation and admin skills. My manager has encouraged me to organise meetings and make connections myself. I’ve coordinated meetings between the Historic England office and Bradford Council office, making sure everybody's available, making sure everybody is up to date and checking in with them. My previous role was entirely remote, and I was essentially working by myself, so this role has been more hands on, working directly with the people involved and I've got a lot better at working in a team.

Something that I learned in the first couple of weeks was to just go for it, send a message or send an email and set up a meeting. Everybody's quite open to having a chat and letting you know about what they're working on, and the more I did that, it expanded my knowledge of Historic England. In York we have Brews ‘N’ News, Walk ‘N’ Talk and Bring ‘N’ Share social events every week. In the first week or so I was a little shy, but these social events are quite informal and fun, and an easy way to meet everyone in one go.

To attract more people, make them aware of the scope of work that Historic England does. Before I started, I wasn’t sure if I’d fit in, I thought ‘I don't know anything about listing buildings!’. But if people knew about the fun and engaging work Historic England does, the opportunities would be snapped up.