Trustees

Birmingham Museums Trust is embarking on a transformative period following the launch of our 2025–2030 Strategic Plan, Laying the Foundations.

Operating as an independent charity caring for one of the UK’s top three civic collections across nine iconic sites, we are shifting our focus from stabilisation to dynamic civic growth.

We are now seeking bold, passionate Trustees to shape the future of UK civic culture in our vibrant city. As a Trustee, you will provide strategic direction, robust governance, and enthusiastic advocacy, holding the executive team to account whilst ensuring our collections and historic sites genuinely serve all of Birmingham’s diverse communities.

If you believe in Birmingham and see the potential to help shape our future – these are your Museums, and we invite you to make your move.

Who we are

Birmingham Museums Trust cares for and makes accessible the city’s museum collections across nine sites. We are a company limited by guarantee and an independent registered charity delivering the museum service on behalf of Birmingham City Council.

As the largest independent charitable trust of museums in the United Kingdom, we oversee nine distinctive museum sites across the city:

• Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery
• Thinktank
• Museum Collection Centre
• Aston Hall
• Blakesley Hall
• Museum of the Jewellery Quarter
• Sarehole Mill
• Soho House
• Weoley Castle

Across these are housed an encyclopaedic collection of over 1 million objects, with most of them designated by Arts Council England; our crowd-pulling collections speak to and of Birmingham and beyond and include the Staffordshire Hoard, a phenomenal pre-Raphaelite collection, and a science collection that reflects the city of a thousand trades.

We are deeply committed to giving voice to our citizens, exemplified by our  Citizens’ Jury, as we strive to bring Birmingham out by shining new light on people’s stories, collections, and creativity.

Birmingham Museums Trust aims to be a boldly progressive organisation, increasingly rooted in and porous to Birmingham’s communities, with the skills and culture to engage with our target audiences and the things that matter to them. Central to this are initiatives to:

Our Purpose & Vision

• Our Mission: Bring Birmingham out by shining new light on people’s stories, collections, and creativity.
• Our Vision: A radical reinvention of the museum as a catalyst of cultural and social change.
• Our Impact: Birmingham is a vibrant, interconnected city where cultural richness thrives, citizens are empowered, communities find joy and belonging, trust is nurtured, inequalities are diminished, and sustainability and equity are central to our society.
• Our Values: Radical inclusion, collective spirit, discovering wonder, and taking care.

As a major cultural pillar in the West Midlands with an annual operating turnover of ~£12 million, the trust manages Birmingham’s vast collection – one of the top three most important civic museum collections in the UK. The rich histories embedded in these objects, which range from science to art, the prehistoric to the contemporary, are a vital resource for learning and creative engagement. By fostering innovative approaches to audience-led contemporary collecting, we bring the museums alive for the communities that shape them. We put the city’s collections at the centre of cultural change, equity and social empowerment.

About the role

We are seeking a number of Trustees to join our Board. As a Trustee, you will hold ultimate legal and strategic responsibility for the Trust, ensuring robust governance, financial sustainability, and the achievement of our charitable objects.

The Board of Trustees share collective responsibility for the strategic leadership and support the executive team; providing challenge and expertise which allow the organisation to deliver against its vision, while continually evolving to meet the needs of their visitors and stakeholders.

Trustees play a key role in:

• Setting the long-term vision and strategic direction of Birmingham Museums Trust whilst upholding the organisation’s charitable purpose and values
• Ensuring effective use of resources and sound financial stewardship.
• Ensuring appropriate oversight of the Museum’s collections.
• Acting as ambassadors for the Museum and its work.
• Helping develop partnerships, networks and opportunities that benefit the organisation.

Throughout all our work BMT’s approach to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion is integral to our organisational ethos and responsibility sits within every part of the organisation.

Who we are looking for

We welcome applications from candidates who are comfortable contributing strategically at Board level, who demonstrate openness to democratic governance models that place community at the heart of decision-making. Following a comprehensive skills audit review, we are in particular looking to strengthen our Board in the following areas:

Property, development and capital delivery
Recent senior experience of property, development or capital project delivery, ideally in the public or cultural sector, able to chair or sit on the Estates Committee.

Museum and heritage sector expertise
Senior museum or heritage sector experience, ideally from an institution that has delivered a long-term capital or transformation programme of the kind BMT is embarking on.

Digital, data and AI
Expert-level digital, data or AI capability, ideally combined with an understanding of how audiences find and consume culture online.

Birmingham representation
Trustees rooted in Birmingham’s diverse communities: we particularly welcome those from Asian communities and in its working-class communities which are less well represented, recruited for capability alongside background.

Time commitment

1-2 days per month

• Main Board Meetings: 4 to 6 formal meetings per year, held in person on Wednesday afternoons (16:00–18:00) at BMT venues across Birmingham.
• Sub-Committee Meetings: Potential additional service on at least one sub-board or committee (e.g. Estates, Health & Safety), meeting quarterly.
• Board Champions: Opportunity to serve as Board level representation on key internal functions, including Safeguarding, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Health, Safety & Wellbeing
• Preparation & Events: Approximately 3–5 hours per month for reviewing board papers, attending annual strategic away days, and attending optional exhibition previews or fundraising events.
• 3-Month Structured Induction: A fully supported onboarding process involving 1-on-1s with leadership, site hosts, and plain-English strategic briefings.