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Freelance Curator, The Bradford Police Museum

  •  Yorkshire
  •  Under £10K
  •  Part time
  •  Closes December 15, 2025
  •  Kendra Howard, Interim Museum Director
  •  admin@bradfordpolicemuseum.com
  • #Museums

Description

Job Summary

The Bradford Police Museum is seeking an experienced Freelance Curator to design and structure a series of three volunteer-led curatorial projects, each delivered over a four-month period.

Job Description

Project Delivery Dates:

Full-day sessions: Wednesday 14th January, Thursday 15th January & Friday 16th January

Half-day follow-up sessions: Wednesday 27 May 2026, Wednesday 30 September 2026 & Wednesday 24 February 2027

(Half-day dates may be adjusted by mutual availability)

About the Project

The Bradford Police Museum is seeking an experienced Freelance Curator to design and structure a series of three volunteer-led curatorial projects, each delivered over a four-month period. These projects will strengthen the museum's volunteer programme, build curatorial confidence, and create new public-facing outputs.

This role is supported through the museum's wider programme of developing sustainable, skilled volunteer-led practice. The curator will inject professional expertise at key points while enabling the volunteer team to take ownership of research, interpretation and curatorial decision-making.

This post, and wider project, is being funded through Museum Development North's Creative Professional Development Grant.

Role Overview

Contract: Freelance

Fee: £300/day for 3 days (Full Day Hours - 9am to 6pm)

Additional Guidance Sessions: 3 half days at £150 each (Half Day Hours - 9:30am to 2pm)

Project Duration: 12 months

Reporting To: Museum Manager

Working With: Volunteer Curator Team (approx. 5 weekly volunteers)

The freelance curator will design three structured 4-month projects that volunteers can deliver independently, each including clear learning pathways, research tasks, outputs and evaluation tools. Volunteers meet weekly (Wednesdays, 10am-3pm), providing approx. 85 hours of input per project.

Job Requirements

Person Specification

Essential

  • Demonstrable experience in curating exhibitions, collections projects or digital interpretation
  • Ability to design structured, accessible learning pathways
  • Experience running workshops or working with volunteers
  • Strong written communication skills, including template and guide creation
  • Excellent organisational and project-planning abilities

Desirable

  • Experience working with small or volunteer-run museums
  • Understanding of community-led interpretation
  • Experience designing projects for people with varied curatorial experience
  • Knowledge of inclusive and accessible interpretive practice

Job Responsibilities

Deliverables

  • Volunteer consultation session + findings report
  • Three fully structured 4-month curatorial project frameworks
  • A complete Volunteer Curatorial Toolkit
  • Three half-day guidance sessions across the year

The curator will begin with an in-person volunteer consultation to identify priority skills, collection areas for research or interpretation, and potential public outputs, followed by a short findings report.

They will then design three 4-month volunteer-led projects, each with clear aims, learning opportunities, workflows suited to volunteer hours, expected outputs (e.g., digital or pop-up exhibitions), monitoring tools and a full toolkit including templates, research prompts, object selection guidance and exhibition text frameworks.

Across the year, the curator will also deliver three half-day support sessions, one per project, to review progress, troubleshoot challenges and provide professional guidance, ensuring volunteers remain confident and on track

Useful Links

How to Apply

Please submit:

• A CV outlining relevant experience
• A short supporting statement (max 1 page) explaining your approach to volunteer-led curatorial practice
• One example of a relevant project, toolkit or resource you have developed (if available)

Deadline: Monday 15 December
Interviews: Monday 5 January (online)

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