Gallery Supervisor

ASVA: Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions; City of Edinburgh; On-site; GBP 29,000 - 33,000; Full time

Job summary

A prominent cultural institution in Edinburgh is seeking a Gallery Supervisor to inspire and lead a team in enhancing visitor experiences. You will motivate Gallery Attendants, manage day-to-day operations, and play a crucial role in ensuring visitors have a memorable time. The ideal candidate will have supervisory experience in customer-facing roles and excellent organizational and communication skills. This is a full-time, permanent position with a salary of £29,888 to £32,602 per annum and additional benefits.

Benefits

Generous benefits package

Qualifications

• Previous experience supervising teams in visitor attractions, retail, or customer service.
• Strong communication skills and a calm demeanor.
• High degree of IT skills, especially in MS Office.

Responsibilities

• Lead and motivate Gallery Attendants to enhance visitor experiences.
• Act as Duty Manager for safety and visitor care.
• Support team with queries and complaints effectively.

Skills

Leadership

Excellent communication

Interpersonal skills

Organizational skills

Tools

MS Office

Job description

Organisation: National Galleries of Scotland

Location: Edinburgh

Full-time and Permanent

Salary £29,888 – £32,602 per annum (pay award pending)

Plus generous benefits package

On site

About the role

Join us as a Gallery Supervisor. Inspire, lead, and help make art work for everyone!

Every day we create connections with our visitors and our colleagues. From world class art to extraordinary buildings, we have plenty to inspire people at our galleries – the National, Portrait, and Modern. In this role, you’ll be at the heart of making every visit memorable.

We’re looking for people-focused Supervisors with a knack for leadership and a calm, professional approach to unexpected situations. If you’ve led and supervised teams in visitor attractions, retail, hospitality, or customer service, this is your chance to make a real impact.

With excellent communication skills and a collaborative approach, you’ll be comfortable supporting and motivating a team of Gallery Attendants to deliver exceptional visitor experiences while keeping our people, galleries, and art safe and secure. You’ll act as a visible and approachable leader, coaching and developing your team, ensuring they feel confident and empowered in their roles.

You’ll also play a key part in our day-to-day gallery operations, helping to manage visitor engagement, responding effectively to queries or issues, and maintaining smooth, safe running of our spaces. Passionate about creating welcoming, inclusive experiences, you’ll help every visitor leave inspired and eager to discover more.

The difference you’ll make

Our Vision

National Galleries of Scotland Security and Visitor Services Team provide an exceptional visitor experience and service. The team embodies our strategy ‘We make art work for everyone’, in protecting our people, art, and our buildings and ensuring an inclusive welcome for all.

Our Mission

National Galleries of Scotland Security and Visitor Services team exists to enable our visitors to explore, experience and enjoy our artwork safely and securely at our various Galleries. We have three key areas of responsibility:

• Visitor Engagement: aiming to deliver an exceptional experience to all our visitors in a welcoming, inclusive, and informative environment.
• Security: endeavouring to keep people, our buildings and works of art safe, responding effectively to risk.
• Income generation: encouraging donations, selling tickets for paying exhibitions, and signing up visitors to our Friends scheme.

Working with Operations Managers

Working with Operations Managers across our galleries, you’ll focus on operations management, visitor engagement, and team leadership. Your responsibilities will include:

• Leading, motivating and coaching Gallery Attendants to deliver exceptional visitor and artwork care, safety, security and building presentation.
• Acting as Duty Manager on a rota basis, ensuring public and asset safety and security along with visitor care during opening hours.
• Communicating clearly and proactively across departments, sharing information with other visitor-facing colleagues.
• Assisting in the safe evacuation of our buildings during any incidents or emergencies.
• Supporting visitor-facing colleagues to respond to and deal effectively with visitor queries or complaints, taking prompt and appropriate action to resolve any issues.
• Keeping up-to-date and knowledgeable with the exhibitions, displays and events. Coaching and developing your team to gain and use their expertise to enhance our visitor experience.
• Recruiting, training, and developing Gallery Attendants, supporting their performance and growth.
• Promoting best practice in health, safety, and wellbeing across your team.
• Working collaboratively and supporting the Security Supervisors.

Who we are looking for

To succeed in this role, you’ll need the following range of knowledge, skills, and experience:

• While an interest in art would be great it’s not essential. However, you must have previous experience of successfully supervising teams within a visitor experience, Retail and or customer service organisation.
• With experience of managing performance, you’ll be interested in people and be confident in engaging with staff to provide motivation and inspiration to deliver information.
• A creative and pragmatic approach to problem solving, you will work well in a busy environment with strong organisational skills.
• Ability to prioritise your own and the team’s workload.
• Excellent communicator with outstanding interpersonal and written skills.
• Ability to respond to any unexpected situation in a calm and professional manner.
• High degree of IT skills, proficient in MS Office.
• A fair, consistent, and helpful approach in dealing with staff and public.

It would also be great if you have

• First Aid qualification, or willingness to undertake training to obtain.
• Knowledge of another language (e.g. Gaelic) is desirable but not essential.

Please apply directly via our careers portal. Applications via email will not be accepted.

The closing date for applications is 12 noon on Friday, 30 January 2026.