The Science Museum Group, the UK's family of five science and industry museums in London, Manchester, York, Shildon and Bradford, plus a collections site at Wroughton.
The Science Museum Group looks after the UK's national collection of science, technology, engineering and medicine objects, and shows it at five museums: the Science Museum in London, the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, the National Railway Museum in York, Locomotion in Shildon, County Durham, and the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford. A sixth site, the Science and Innovation Park at Wroughton in Wiltshire, houses its collection-care facilities rather than a museum. The group had slightly over four million visits in 2024 to 2025, though the Bradford museum was closed for most of that year.
The group's annual report describes its mission as "Inspiring Futures", which it calls its "North Star" for the creative exploration of science. Its vision is "a society that celebrates science, technology and engineering and their impact on our lives, now and in the future". The report names Sir Tim Laurence as Chair of the Board of Trustees and Sir Ian Blatchford as Group Director, with other directors in charge of science, communications and each museum. Those roles are as named in the 2024 to 2025 report and may have changed.
What makes this group distinctive among London-centred cultural bodies is how much of it is outside the capital. Manchester, York, Shildon, Bradford and Wroughton are all in other regions of England. Its learning work in 2024 to 2025 included 469,000 school and group education visits, a live show, Science Museum Live, that played 50 venues and sold 22,000 tickets, and an off-site programme from the Bradford museum that reached over 15,000 people. A programme called Bradford Digital Creatives worked with 1,596 young people in 95 workshops.
The group also relies on volunteers. The report says volunteering was 14 per cent lower than the year before, but that 40 per cent of volunteers at Bradford, Shildon and Manchester come from areas of high relative deprivation, and that volunteers at Locomotion have given over 217,000 hours in 20 years. Its Academy ran 61 training courses, including one that 124 early years teachers attended. This tells you the group cares about its local communities, though these are its own figures and we have not seen a description of everyday working culture.
A group of this kind employs curators, collections managers and conservators who care for objects such as locomotives and cameras; engineers and technicians who keep the museums running; learning and engagement teams who work with schools and families; gallery explainers and visitor-experience staff; and people in events, retail, marketing, digital, fundraising, finance and people. If you like science, engineering or history and want a job outside London, five of the six sites are elsewhere. The group's website lists current vacancies.
Website: www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk
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