Summary

Historic England is the public organisation that brings new life to heritage to build a better future for every place and everyone.

Historic England has a fantastic opportunity for you to join us as our Head of Commercial Development.

This is a full time, fixed-term contract until August 2028.

The location of this role is either York, Manchester, Newcastle, Birmingham, Cambridge, Swindon, Bristol, Portsmouth or London, inclusive with hybrid working.

We offer a wide benefits package including a competitive defined benefit pension scheme to which we make 28.97% employer contributions, a generous 28 days holiday, corporate discounts, free entry into English Heritage sites across the country and development opportunities to ensure you achieve your goals.

To view our full range of benefits please follow the link here.

What you will be doing

This role plays a key part in strengthening Historic England’s commercial capability and supporting sustainable income growth. It has significant cross-organisational reach, influencing how income generation is approached and delivered while ensuring alignment with the organisation’s mission and public responsibilities.

The Head of Commercial Development is a new, senior leadership role within Historic England, responsible for leading the implementation and ongoing evolution of the organisation’s income generation strategy.

In the role, you will bring demonstrable commercial expertise and a strong track record of achieving measurable commercial success to help Historic England translate strategic intent into structured, deliverable programmes that grow and diversify non‑government income. Working across the organisation, you will shape compelling commercial offers, support senior leaders to embed consistent approaches to income generation, drive, evaluate and celebrate the achievement of ambitious growth targets, and ensure activity aligns with Historic England’s public purpose and values.

Leading the Income Development team, you will establish and embed a clear, repeatable approach to developing and scaling products and services, working collaboratively with senior stakeholders to deliver sustainable income growth.

The role sits within the Philanthropy & Income Development Department and contributes to organisational performance, innovation and continuous improvement.  The role is recruited on an initial two year fixed term basis, with the option of it becoming permanent subject to evaluation.

Who we are looking for

• Significant experience in commercial development, business development or income generation

• Demonstrable track-record of achieving measurable revenue growth in a commercial setting

• Experience of implementing strategy into delivery, translating high-level objectives into practical, scalable activity

• Experience of managing external partnerships, suppliers or commercial relationships, including involvement in negotiations

• Skilled in building and evaluating business cases, value propositions and commercial propositions

• Excellent communication and influencing skills, with the ability to engage a wide range of stakeholders

Please note your application will be scored and assessed against the above criteria.

We are an equal opportunity employer which values diversity and inclusion. If you have a disability or neurodiversity, we would be happy to discuss reasonable adjustments to the job with you. Having won the Gold Award from MIND for workplace wellbeing in seven consecutive years, we also recognise the importance of a healthy work-life balance.

We are an inclusive employer and believe that flexible working options are for everyone. We want to make sure our working arrangements don’t prevent anyone from joining us because of their personal circumstances. We also want to provide you with the best balance in your home and work life that we can.

We are open to considering options including job sharing, part-time working, compressed hours working and different working locations, including hybrid working. Please visit our jobs pages or contact us to find out more.

Why work for Historic England

We are committed to promoting equality of opportunity for everyone. Diversity helps us to perform better and attract more people to support our work. We welcome and encourage job applications from people of all backgrounds.

We particularly encourage applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates and candidates with disabilities as they are underrepresented within Historic England at this level.

Historic England wants all of our candidates to shine in the recruitment process. Please tell us what we can do to make sure you can show us your very best self. You can contact us by email at recruitmentTeam@Historicengland.org.uk if you have any recruitment queries. 

At Historic England we use a hiring system called Applied. Applied is a behavioural science-backed recruitment platform that reduces bias, improves quality of hire and increases diversity.

For this application process, we ask that you upload your CV and answer the two application questions.

At Historic England, we value the expertise and individuality each candidate brings and want to hear about this in your own words. If you require the use or AI tools or other resources to support your application, we ask that all information is factually accurate, original, and reflects your own experience. To best represent yourself, we encourage you to write in your own words and use AI-generated content only as inspiration—not as direct input.

Provisional interview dates: 21st and 22nd September 2026

Please follow the link for a full copy of the Job Description –

https://historicengland.org.uk/media/sl0ixcjc/ce-head-of-commercial-development-jd-jun-2026.odt