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 Human Skeletal Biologist.

This is a maternity cover contract.

The location of this role is Portsmouth, 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

In this role, you will support the Senior Human Skeletal biologist in providing strategic and casework advice regarding the treatment of human remains within Historic England and to external clients. An important part of your role will be to undertake innovative heritage science research in support of the Historic England Strategic Plan. You will actively engage in increasing the public value of research on human remains by initiating and taking part in public engagement activities. You will facilitate access to external users of our human remains collections and contribute to their curation. You will work closely with and will liaise with the Senior Human Skeletal Biologist and the Collections Access Manager in the performance of these duties.

Who we are looking for

• A post-graduate qualification in Osteoarchaeology or equivalent experience.

• Proven expertise in the identification, and study of human skeletal remains from archaeological sites.

• Able to take personal responsibility for their own work and see things through.

• Confident and adaptable communication style, able to work constructively with a wide range of internal and external partners.

• Proven qualities as a team player including willingness to learn new skills and contribute to the achievement of team objectives.

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. We do not use CV application for the majority of our hiring processes. You will answer a selection of questions that allow our hiring teams to test your skills and suitability for the role.

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: week commencing 27th July 2026

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

https://historicengland.org.uk/media/44plrnut/human-skeletal-biologist.odt