UCL East – Community Engagement and Public Arts Assistant (STEP)
Salary
£27,205 per annum
Hours
36.5 hours per week
Location
London
Closing Date
03 August 2025
Position Type
Full Time
Advert expires on
03 August 2025
Main Duties
This role will work with UCL Cultural and Community Engagement. This is an opportunity to develop event and exhibitions planning and delivery, communication and design skills as well as learn more deeply about the role of public art and community engagement with an experienced and dynamic team in east London.
On the Bloomsbury and UCL East campuses you will work with a wide team to develop skills and understanding in the delivery of exhibitions, public events, and community engagement projects. This is a dynamic and exciting role in a busy team and the traineeship will enable you to develop a range of knowledge and skills in the delivery of cultural and public programmes, and community engagement work that will be readily transferable.
The main purpose of the job is to support the design and delivery of community engagement, public art and cultural programmes in east London. Working with us on a broad range of activities from artist-researcher collaborations, supporting exhibitions, east London school engagement activities and helping us to explore and create content to share the story of our work across the university and beyond.
You will report directly to a dedicated staffing team and will be invited to join our online workspace to help you manage your schedule and keep abreast of company activity to inform your work.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Communications:
• Production of Newsletters: Gather content for regular newsletters to share latest community engagement and public art news, supported by the community engagement manager.
• Production of Case Studies: Support the community engagement team, to gather monitoring evaluation reports and turn this into engaging case studies which share the story of what UCL is doing in east London.
• Support the creation and development of Social Media Content: Including website, Twitter, and YouTube (where appropriate).
Exhibitions
• Exhibition Planning: Support the Exhibitions Manager, Director of Public Art and associated staff to plan exhibitions which showcase partnership work of UCL and local communities. • Exhibition support will include Words Matter, a public art exhibition exploring UCL’s historic role in Eugenics.
• Exhibition Programming: Work with the Head of Public Art and associated exhibitions of staff to schedule, design and hang various exhibitions.
• Be part of a project team, to prioritise, schedule workloads and plan deadlines.
• Projects will include Cosmic Debris, a public exhibition by artist Sarah Fortais for World Space Week.
Community Engament and Public Art Programming:
• Planning and delivery of programmes: Support the delivery of various programmes which connect UCL researchers with east London communities, including funding schemes and networking events. Among others, this will include:
– Arranging venue hire and catering
– Liaising with participants
– Note-taking and supporting follow up activities • Delivery of events and public programmes: Support the planning and creation of public programming activity around UCL East.
• Assisting the team to create good links with various local community groups, through marketing, attending events and meeting key local community professionals.
Personal Responsibilities:
• Prioritise activities and workload.
• Communicate effectively with the team.
• Punctuality.
• Effective use of Outlook, emails, calendar and other digital planning tools. Support will be given to achieve these goals.
Skills and Experience Required
About STEP
To apply for the STEP programme you must be:
- Aged 18 to 30
• Resident of Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest
• Priority will be given to those that have attended school or college in these boroughs.
Through STEP, you’ll get paid London Living Wage over a 12-month training programme to develop a range
of skills and creative approaches and build on your network across different organisations or departments. You’ll complete a work-based placement, grow as part of a peer network, take part in regular professional development workshops, and get a budget to produce a collaborative project. We’ll also connect you with a specialist industry mentor, provide careers coaching and continue to offer support as part of our community after the programme.
Skills and Experience
Essential skills:
• A degree or relevant experience in community engagement, public art or creative / public programming. This could be in a range of settings and needn’t be an academic qualification.
• Some working knowledge of Microsoft Office applications, including Word, Excel and Outlook, or similar software.
• Excellent team working skills, and the ability to work effectively as part of a multi-disciplinary team.
• Ability to plan, prioritise and manage a demanding and varied workload.
• Good communication skills, both spoken and written, and the ability to work with a diverse range of audiences.
• Good interpersonal skills, and ability to develop good working relationships with a range of colleagues and external partners (including public and voluntary sector agencies).
• Demonstrable enthusiasm and aptitude for a role in cultural engagement.
Desirable experience:
• A good understanding of east London, and the communities that work and live there.
• Ability to work creatively and innovatively to support the delivery of engagement activities.
• Experience of volunteer roles within cultural or voluntary sector organisations.