Science Museum Group Employee Reviews

Overall the museum is a really nice place to work, but struggles with a culture that is not collaborative, uninspired and unaccountable. Colleagues/teams work in silos, and projects are not properly resourced. Management seem disconnected to the realities of the culture of the organisation and the issues with resourcing and retention.

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Stressful

Customer Service Advisor/Administrator (Former Employee) - Bradford - 20 April 2023

Bad management, poor conditions, unfair payments, not given enough time for breaks, you have to work through your break. Stressful working conditions. No lockers to safe guard your belongings, pay for parking your car, unhealthy galleries no access to drinking water, unprofessional managers. Not a nice place to work for, so glad sad days and stressful working hours are over.

Pros

You have to pay for your lunch

Cons

Long hours, short breaks.

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Insights into Science Museum Group

Based on 16 survey responses

What people like

Clear sense of purpose
Inclusive work environment
Supportive environment

Really good for casual work/students!

Visitor Experience Assistant (Former Employee) - Manchester, Greater Manchester - 4 April 2023

Best thing about this job was the flexibility. Incredible if you want to be able to get work when you need it, but not expected to work all the time! People & management were really lovely, inclusive and supportiveTasks a little mundane but that's okay when you like the team and the environment.

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Not a good experience

People assistant (Former Employee) - York, North Yorkshire - 7 January 2023

I worked at the national railway museum for around two months, my whole experience was bad. The training to do the job is basically non-existent, "refer to the book" is their idea of training. Now I am in a great job with thorough training where the company takes care of their employees i now realise how diabolical of a place this was and how useless the training was to do the job, maybe i wasn't good enough myself to do the job,but i offered myself up to extra training, they said they couldn't do that , so you wanted me to do better but can't find the time to have helped me... Maybe if they actually put the time and effort in needed to train people correctly it might not be as bad, very cliquey place, seems to be if your face fits then they'll help you, if not, see you later.

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Collaborative workplace

Assistant Talent Acquisition Partner (Current Employee) - Manchester, Greater Manchester - 28 November 2022

The work environment is supportive and positive. Through the offered THRIVE learning programme I'm able to have an autonomy in upskilling. I have been given many opportunities to expand on my skills, the support and guidance to do my best in my role.The culture at SMG keeps to company values. My team and manager supports me in gaining confidence to bring in new ideas, and suggest improvements. My workload is diverse and engaging.

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My experience working here was mixed

Collections Advisor (Former Employee) - London, Greater London - 18 October 2022

Pay is low and work can get repetitive.The best part of the job is the colleagues and working with the public as part of exhibitions and events.Numerous learning opportunities.Unsupportive management. Restructures affect teams every few years.

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Great team, stressed managers

Visitor Experience Assistant (Former Employee) - South Kensington - 12 August 2022

The Science Museum is a great place to work if you'd like a part-time job along studying and are based in central London. However, the management are fairly stressed (in Visitor Experience) and you are on your feet for a significant amount of time and are rarely recognised for going above and beyond. The visitors make the job enjoyable (especially the children and older visitors who enjoy looking at the planes)... the team are amazing and help out with what can be a stressful and underappreciated job.

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Not so nice

Sales Assistant (Former Employee) - London, Greater London - 29 July 2022

Would not recommend working here at all because it’s a toxic work place and I do not ebeleive any one should work here and especially young adults should not

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Lovely place to work part time

Explainer (Former Employee) - York - 17 July 2022

I worked part time as an explainer and loved the morale of the workers. A fun place to work and managers are kind and understanding. I liked working with different people all the time.

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Not a nice place to work.

Duty Manager (Former Employee) - Bradford - 4 June 2022

Had no support from management. A large amount of workload and enough time to complete tasks.Recently no days was nice to work at the Museum very stressful.

Pros

None

Cons

No support.

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Jobs at Science Museum Group

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Collections Care Assistant

Manchester

17 hours ago

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York

6 days ago

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Great people, terrible pay and upper management

Collections Officer (Former Employee) - London, Greater London - 20 January 2022

The staff at the Science Museum and SMG more broadly are amazing. Thoughtful, helpful, passionate and professional. In Collections, the workplace culture is quite good, with lots of challenging new projects to work on and varied work flow. It can be hectic at times, but this isn't unexpected for the industry. Day to day work is challenging and interesting, although there are few overall perks. However, all these good things are upended by the very poor pay and opaque and tone-deaf upper management. Wage is well below other nationals for all posts. Only met London living wage as a result of strike action.Collections staff largely contract based, very insecure tenureContracts are extended at the very last second (even hours before expiry).Decisons from upper management (re restructing, Covid responce, etc) are opaque and comms are regularly patronizing. No interest in employee retention results in staggering amount of turnover and loss of knowledge.

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Fun workplace

Gallery Assistant (Current Employee) - Bradford, West Yorkshire - 22 December 2021

No day is the same, there’s always something going on! One of the most fun companies I’ve ever worked with. Invigilator and gallery assistant roles are Great for students

Pros

Staff Discount

Cons

None

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Great diverse work environment

Visitor Experience Assistant (Former Employee) - London, Greater London - 5 September 2020

I work in Visitor Experience, and it's pretty enjoyable as front of house roles go. I've worked in much harder jobs for less pay than I'm getting now (currently we get London living wage).The job varies depending on where you are, and they try to make you rotate positions every day to stop it getting boring. Positions could be anything from selling tickets, working info desks, operating flight simulators and stewarding for the IMAX theatre (when open). You really get a mix of standing and sitting, and also roles where you either talk a lot to visitors or not much at all, which keeps things fresh. You have absolutely dead days in the middle of September, or super busy and stressful half-term holidays. Expect visitors from around the world with varying levels of English! Also during school term time there tends to be loads of school groups.The team is quite large diverse in ages and backgrounds which keeps things fresh, and on the whole, people tend to enjoy their job and there's a real sense of camaraderie with each other. People hang out loads outside of work, and even after they've moved onto other jobs.Managers are a bit of a mixed bag, with some being quite efficient, and some aren't as much, but they are quite laid back on the whole. Some of them have been known to show favouritism in a few cases which isn't great, but sadly is quite common for this kind of work environment.But the managers tend to be friendly in general, and don't really mind if you chat to each other for example during quiet periods, as long as it does't stop you from serving customers! If it's -

Pros

Easy and diverse workload, great team culture and environment

Cons

No progression, managers are a mixed bag and communication can sometimes be patchy

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Enjoyed working

Kitchen Assistant and Waitress (Current Employee) - Bradford - 15 August 2020

Friendly place to work.easy parking.. everyone would help each other.. everyday is different.the best one day's are when we have events day's..get to meet lot's of people..

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Quiet, not too busy on my sales desk

Sales Assistant (Former Employee) - York City Centre, North Yorkshire - 10 March 2020

Great managers, very caring and thoughtful of your position, queries and opinions. Job got quite boring at times, and wasn't very busy, but I worked in a new ole that had only started up when I began so they were still trialing so were accepting of any comments and feedback of the role which I appreciated. Not much of a team attitude when it came to other departments, no one really spoke to anyone that wasn't working in the same role which I found quite sad.

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Comfortable environment

Purchase Ledger Clerk (Former Employee) - Manchester - 10 February 2020

Enjoyed working with the team who have been co-operative and helpful. Friendly and warm. Learnt new things at work and the operating system is user friendly.

Pros

Free snacks occasionally

Cons

none

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management sucks

Retail Assistant (Current Employee) - South Kensington - 22 January 2020

Co-workers are great and even though its a busy environment its doable especially with such a large team of people. However, management are very unprofessional and unprepared for their roles. Constantly complain about their workload and are too concerned with rewarding gossip instead of work ethic.

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A Joy To Work

Service Desk Technician (Former Employee) - South Kensington - 31 October 2019

The science museum was a very interesting site especially for an apprentice, i had access to almost every system and this helped improve my knowledge a lot. I dealt with 1st, 2nd and even 3rd line calls during my time there.

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Amazing experience

Visitor Services Assistant (Former Employee) - London, Greater London - 29 October 2019

The Science Museum is a very good place to work, grow, learn. It is a shame that the employees don't enjoy and do nothing but whining, complaining, & moaning all day. It can start with just a few conversations in the staff room, somebody that doesn't want to do their jobs, and spreads widely within the business and it permeates in the culture of the company. Employee negativity can impact not just on the morale of other staff but also on their levels of engagement and performance. Ultimately, if unmanaged it can eventually impact on productivity and therefore the profitability of the business.

Pros

Very chilled environment

Cons

Everybody moaning all the time ruining other people's experience

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Volunteer, fantastic place

Volunteer (Current Employee) - Shildon - 13 October 2019

I've been a volunteer educator at the museum for two years, specially teaching school children about the differences and advantages of electric versus steam locomotives. Due to redundancy, I have ventured more into providing the public with guided tours and cab visits and also now, the workshops, where we restore cosmetically, carriages and locomotives of national and historical importance. There is something for everyone to do, it's fantastic.

Pros

Discount as a Volunteer, great colleagues, regular and thorough communication unlike my former employer.

Cons

No cons whatsoever

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Visitor Experience is a great team and the museum as a whole is very friendly

Visitor Fundraising Team Leader (Former Employee) - York - 30 July 2019

The Railway Museum is a great place to work, especially the Visitor Experience Team. A very fun place to work that gives lots of experience and a fun workplace.

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