Icon Internship in Care of Collections & Historic interiors

This internship is hosted by the National Trust for Scotland, supported by the Trust’s Bute Memorial Fund and managed in partnership with Icon.

The Bute/Icon internship is an exceptional opportunity for an emerging conservation professional. The Trust has an extensive portfolio of built heritage sites, from castles and country houses to cottages, working historic environments and modern museum facilities. Material culture collections are on open display at more than 50 of these properties, their care a collaborative approach rooted in strategy, preventive conservation principles and practice informed and guided by the Trust’s Collections and Curatorial Teams.

Since 2008, the NTS has supported eleven Icon interns, nine of whom were funded through the Bute Memorial Fund. Through their time at NTS, they have all been given an outstanding opportunity to develop skills in preventive conservation and the care of collections and historic interiors, including understanding collection management procedures that support preventive and remedial conservation whilst building on the theory and experience of prior formal training.

The 2024/25 Bute/ICON internship aims to provide a recent graduate of a conservation or collections ca­­­re course with an initial year’s experience in aspects of the care of collections, preventive conservation practices, Axiell and recording of Condition Assessments and Treatments within the historic interiors of the Trust’s properties, with a further six months to embed training and contribute to conservation programmes within the Collections Conservation & Management Team.

The intern, supervised by the Trust’s Edinburgh and East Regional Conservator, working with Regional Conservators West and North and colleagues from the Collections Team will get to experience a wide range of conservation and collections care issues relating to the preventive and remedial conservation of collections and interiors within a historic building environment across the Trust working to a mutually agreed work plan. As the locations of Trust properties require travelling overnight stays throughout Scotland should be anticipated, which will be separately funded by the Trust.

The intern will have the opportunity to network and gain an understanding of conservation practices in Scotland as well as attend conferences and talks relating to conservation practices. The intern will be expected to promote their work and the conservation practices at the Trust to a wider audience through social media, property-based demonstrations of conservation in action or delivery of a conservation training event; virtual or live, for Trust staff, member groups and volunteers.

You can read more about the first day experience of one of our recent interns.

Applicant Requirements

• Must have completed a recognised conservation qualification in remedial or preventive conservation
• Actively pursuing a career in a conservation related field
• Be able to demonstrate the benefits of the internship to their professional development
• Willing to promote conservation for the benefit of education and public interest
• Highly motivated, reliable and resourceful individual with strong interpersonal skills
• Good time management skills in order to prioritise workloads and meet deadlines
• Ability to work at heights if required
• Preferably have a full UK / EU driving licence, and access to car/own transport
• The right to work in the UK
• Strong computer skills

Closing date 9am 20^th May 2024.  

Interviews are proposed to be in person at National Trust for Scotland Head Quarters, Hermiston Quay, 5 Cutlins Road, Edinburgh EH11 4DF, the interview date to be confirmed in due course.

Please apply using the application form on the Icon website only.