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Historic Royal Palaces (HRP) is the independent charity responsible for the management of six royal palaces and their associated content and landscapes. 

As custodian of some of Britain’s most iconic historic buildings, HRP is responsible for the care, preservation, and presentation to the public of: 

• The Tower of London 

• Hampton Court Palace 

• Kensington Palace 

• The Banqueting House at Whitehall 

• Kew Palace with its Royal Kitchens, Queen Charlotte’s Cottage and The Great Pagoda 

• Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland 

For the last 27 years, since we became a charity, we’ve been committed to helping everyone explore stories and stir spirits. We tell stories about the historic figures you know and the lives you don’t. We let people explore and we set minds racing. 

But today, still, not everyone can visit us in person, or access our content online.  

To be for everyone, everywhere, we will need to significantly extend our reach and deliver meaningful work that has a real impact on people’s lives. 

 Although our palaces have existed for hundreds of years, society and people’s interests shift constantly. We’ll always love and look after the palaces in our care. We’ll always open them to the public. We’ll always need to generate the money to make our plans possible. And we’ll always achieve our goals through the hard work and dedication of our team.  

However, we also need to change and our new strategy ‘A Charity for Everyone’ sets out how we will extend our reach, mean more and act for the future.    

Our Apprenticeship programmes will play a huge part in being ‘A Charity for Everyone’.  

Working closely with the Early Careers Manager, the departments and HRP colleagues, our apprentices will ensure we bring new, exciting, diverse talent into the heritage sector as well as fresh ideas whilst developing the knowledge, skills, and behaviours to build careers for themselves. 

Whatever their role, everyone who works at HRP has a passion for what they do and it takes a huge team of people with wide-ranging skills to look after and manage our magnificent palaces. For that to continue into the future, we want to encourage fresh, passionate new talent into the charity and our apprenticeship scheme is central to that.  

All departments across the organisation support the apprentices through their journey with us. Apprentices at HRP will get an authentic workplace experience in their specialist field and are fully integrated into the professional teams working in our iconic buildings. 

We’re looking for a spark of potential. Don’t worry if you don’t think you have it – we’re good at spotting it! 

We are committed to increasing the diversity and socio-economic inclusivity of our team and would particularly welcome applications that would help us achieve this aim.  

HOW OUR APPRENTICESHIPS WORK  

• Historic Royal Palaces’ Apprentices are placed in a department relevant to their apprenticeship. They work as part of those teams across a working week that is regulated by the line manager in the department.  
• Each Apprentice will be given an induction by their department as well as an organisation-wide induction as part of the apprentice cohort. 
• Each position is assigned a training provider that will support the qualification learning and a percentage of the working week of an apprentice is assigned for college work and study. This is either on day release, block release or remote learning.  
• Your training provider time may be day or block release, but we allow you time in your working week to fit this in. 
• Apprentice reviews will regularly take place to ensure of progress. 
• Apprentices are also supported by the Apprenticeship Programmes Manager to ensure each apprentice is happy in their placement and keep them on track throughout.  
• The apprentices also support one another as a peer group; there will be regular opportunities to meet throughout the apprenticeships and to work together.  
• As part of the Apprentice cohort, you will join with other apprentices from Historic Royal Palaces taking part in events, training opportunities and activities to bring you together as a community, including a residential week where the whole cohort attend to develop their team working, communication and leadership skills. 
• Our Apprentices will be ambassadors for HRP and for Early careers, with that all will be given the opportunity to promote HRP as an employer to future apprentices, through attendance at careers events and through social media. 
• We are committed to celebrating our apprentices and will where possible enter into apprenticeship awards and highlight the great work they are doing internally as well as externally. 
• You will be assigned a mentor in your department who can manage your work and progress.  
• You will have regular pastoral sessions with the Apprenticeship Programmes Manager who also manage any practical needs of your qualification or employment. 
• The Apprenticeships Programme Manager regularly meets with your training provider to ensure you are on track.