Job Title:

Director of Enterprise

Remuneration:

£50-55k gross per annum

Line Manager:

Chief Executive

Role reviewed:

03.12.2025

Direct Reports:
and Operations Manager; Marketing Manager; Visitor Programmes
Coordinator)

4 (Commercial and Retail Manager; Venue Sales

Approximate Budget Responsibility: circa £1.75m

About Birmingham Botanical Gardens

Birmingham  Botanical  Gardens  (BBG)  is  one  of  the  UK’s  most  significant  historic  Botanic
Gardens.  Situated  one  mile  from  the  city  centre,  the  15-acre  Grade  II*  listed  landscape  is
home  to  around  30,000  plants  and  has  served  as  ‘Birmingham’s  Garden’  for  nearly  two
hundred years.

Following  a  successful  funding  award  from  the  National  Lottery  Heritage  Fund,  the
independent charity is embarking upon a transformational £19.45 million project, ‘Growing our
Green  Heritage’,  to  restore  the  Gardens’  glasshouses,  enhance  visitor  infrastructure  and
amenities, improve sustainability and expand public access to education, horticulture, heritage
and nature in a unique green space in the heart of the Midlands’ region. Over the next five
years, this iconic Birmingham green space will safeguard and redisplay its world-class living
collection and deepen the connection between local people and their urban natural heritage.

Key Responsibility

Reporting to the Chief Executive, the Director of Enterprise will be responsible for the delivery
of  key  corporate  objectives  at  both  the  strategic  and  operational  level  to  help  ensure  that
Birmingham Botanical Gardens is consistently operating as a sustainable, efficient, effective
and safe organisation. This will include the following functions:

•  Lead and manage the development of profitability through:

o  Birmingham Botanical Gardens Trading Company retail outlets and any

forthcoming online channels

o  Catering, hospitality and venue hire
o  Retail opportunities
o  Licensing, filming and commercial photography
o  Ticketed public events
o  Admission services (in partnership with Visitor Welcome Team)
o  Marcomms strategy
o  Corporate sponsorship
o  Effective management of digital systems (inc. Spektrix, Vector, YesPlan)

•  Ensure a high-quality and sustainable visitor attraction through maintaining and

improving the Visit England VAQAS accreditation, Green Tourism status and building
a culture centred on optimising the customer experience in retail, catering and
hospitality.

•  Actively lead and manage BBG procurement, including catering contracts and

service level agreements across the Gardens and ensure performance measures
and quality standards are achieved.

•  Develop new income streams through maximising commercial use of the BBG estate

and increase the development and delivery of ticketed public events.

•

Identify commercial sponsorship opportunities and develop a pipeline of corporate
contacts for BBG.

•  Seek opportunities to build a lucrative licensing, filming and commercial photography

proposition.

•  Oversee all Marcomms strategies and associated work to ensure maximum coverage
and support of BBGs work, visitor offer and programme (inc all relevant platforms
and including Travel Trade/Tours).

•

Increase the Trading Company’s contribution to BBG annually.

•  Develop and maintain high quality marketing materials in line with BBG brand
guidelines and grow awareness of the impact of the Gardens activities on
achievement of BBGs mission and vision via social media.

•  Work with the CEO to develop sales and business development reports, business
plans and budgets to feed into the business planning process, and BBG corporate
plans as required.

•  Work closely with colleagues across BBG to ensure that internal and external events
support the wider work of BBG and guarantee a seamless and professional customer
journey from initial sales enquiry to event completion.

•  Liaise with the Development team to ensure collaborative working, shared knowledge
on pipeline and lead generation activities and up to date data on agreed CRM system
solution.

•  Ensure that, within legislation and BBG guidance, all relevant health and safety

documentation/ arrangements are in place as required for events or other activities
which fall within the remit of this role.

•  Ensure the professional development of Enterprise staff including annual workplans,

effective performance appraisals and adoption of a coaching approach.

•  Any other reasonable duties as requested.

As a key member of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT), this role will lead and manage all the
income  and  business  support  operations  and  will  be  responsible  for  ensuring  that  relevant
frameworks for strategic business planning, performance delivery and risk management are
established, implemented, and monitored.

Staff Organogram

NLHF funded roles in purple

Key Objectives:

•  To design, develop and lead the delivery of a comprehensive Commercial Development
Programme...

The Architectural Association

Summer School Unit Leader

Salary:
Location:
Reporting to:
Department:
Starting Date:
Contract Type:
Hours of work:

Role Overview

£4,800/ unit
London – Bedford Square
Summer School Head
Visiting School
6th July 2026
Fixed-term
Full-time; 35 hours Monday to Friday; 10am-6pm - Preparation time &
Full-time (3 weeks teaching) 6th – 25th July 2026

The AA summer school welcomes applications for teaching fellows interested in leading
summer school units. Ideal applicants have basic teaching experience and are ready to
immerse themselves in an intense and creative environment for the month of July. This year,
we are seeking applications from groups of tutors that can operate as a collective both in
relationship to each other but also to run a group project with their students, promoting
collaboration and collective design approaches as well as considering the implications of
shared intellectual ownership.

Learning from London:

London; not a unified vision but a continuum of habits, infrastructures, signs, regulations,
exceptions and compromises. London resists singularity and denies authorship.

Architects learn from anything; they especially learn from looking at the city, paying attention
to both its perks and its inconsistencies. This summer school debunks the myth of the sublime
city and rejects the cult of the isolated architectural object. Instead, we choose to study what
actually shapes the city and its architecture. Scale is of no importance: from the river and the
parks to specific geometrical quirks of Victorian architecture, from heroic buildings gestures to
the relentless accumulation of the ordinary, studying London is about challenging the limits of
architecture as an autonomous discipline.

This summer, we are going to produce multiple Londons as a critical practice of interpretation.
We will align to the lineage of architect travelers who produced projects of observation and
documentation in different forms and shapes: Learning from Las Vegas (Venturi, Scott-Brown
and Izenur), Made in Tokyo and Pet Architecture (Atelier Bow- Wow), Delirious New York
(Rem Koolhaas), One million acres and no zoning: Houston (Lars Lerup), amongst others.

Page 1

Learning from London is not an endorsement of the city as it is. It is a contemporary
experiment that considers architectural education as radical, inclusive, and deeply connected
to the world.

We welcome proposals from groups of tutors linked to the theme of Learning from London in
specific and surprising ways.

-The summer school is a project based programme. It promotes group work and is open to a
variety of media (models, XL-models, drawings, XL-drawings, film making, performance,
photography...). The documentation of the work that takes place during these three weeks is
part of the teaching project and a responsibility of the tutors.
-Tutors and students have full access to all the AA infrastructure (digital labs, model and wood
shop, library, archives) throughout the duration of the summer school.
-Each unit will welcome approximately 15 students (max of 20).
-Each unit will showcase their work at the final Summer School Exhibition on July 24.
-Each unit will organise and host a public event (lecture, party, drink- or combination of all) on
a selected day during the summer school.
-Each unit has a specific budget beyond the teaching fees.
-Each unit is responsible to participate in the promotion of the programme before, during and
after the summer school.

Main Responsibilities

• Lead a summer school unit. The participants will have diverse backgrounds and design skills
so the unit brief should take that into consideration.
• Participate in mid and final reviews. A series of reviews will take place halfway during the
summer school creating conversations across the units. A final review schedule will organise
and culminate the summer school dialogues.
• Curate the unit’s participation in the exhibition. A final exhibition will take place the last
couple of days of the school, units are expected to produce a display/ installation to
showcase their work.

The above list of job duties is not exclusive or exhaustive and the post holder will be required
to undertake such tasks as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the
post.

All staff must:

•  Comply with all legislative and regulatory requirements (e.g. Finance, HR, Health &

Safety)

•  Adhere to the requirements set out in the AA Code of Behavioural Expectations and

other institutional policies.

Page 2

Person Specification

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Basic teaching experience.
• Active professional and /or research activity.
• Interest in participating in the larger project the Summer School aspires to operate as.
• Applications from candidates who are not architects by training and/ or have no teaching
experience are acceptable if there is a strong case to support their relevance to the summer
school’s objectives.

Creative t...

TUTOR CALL 2026

Job Title: Summer School Unit Leader

Salary: £4,800/ unit

Contract Type: Fixed Term

Department: Visiting School

Reports to: Summer School Head

Hours: Preparation time and Full-time (3 weeks teaching) 6-25July 2026

Role Overview:
The AA summer school welcomes applications for teaching fellows interested in leading
summer school units. Ideal applicants have basic teaching experience and are ready to
immerse themselves in an intense and creative environment for the month of July. This
year, we are seeking applications from groups of tutors that can operate as a
collective both in relationship to each other but also to run a group project with
their students, promoting collaboration and collective design approaches as well
as considering the implications of shared intellectual ownership.

Learning from London:
London; not a unified vision but a continuum of habits, infrastructures, signs,
regulations, exceptions and compromises. London resists singularity and denies
authorship.

Architects learn from anything; they especially learn from looking at the city, paying
attention to both its perks and its inconsistencies. This summer school debunks the
myth of the sublime city and rejects the cult of the isolated architectural object. Instead,

1

we choose to study what actually shapes the city and its architecture. Scale is of no
importance: from the river and the parks to specific geometrical quirks of Victorian
architecture, from heroic buildings gestures to the relentless accumulation of the
ordinary, studying London is about challenging the limits of architecture as an
autonomous discipline.

This summer, we are going to produce multiple Londons as a critical practice of
interpretation. We will align to the lineage of architect travelers who produced projects of
observation and documentation in different forms and shapes: Learning from Las Vegas
(Venturi, Scott-Brown and Izenur), Made in Tokyo and Pet Architecture (Atelier Bow-
Wow), Delirious New York (Rem Koolhaas), One million acres and no zoning: Houston
(Lars Lerup), amongst others.

Learning from London is not an endorsement of the city as it is. It is a contemporary
experiment that considers architectural education as radical, inclusive, and deeply
connected to the world.

We welcome proposals from groups of tutors linked to the theme of Learning from
London in specific and surprising ways.

-The summer school is a project based programme. It promotes group work and is open
to a variety of media (models, XL-models, drawings, XL-drawings, film making,
performance, photography...). The documentation of the work that takes place during
these three weeks is part of the teaching project and a responsibility of the tutors.
-Tutors and students have full access to all the AA infrastructure (digital labs, model and
wood shop, library, archives) throughout the duration of the summer school.
-Each unit will welcome approximately 15 students (max of 20).
-Each unit will showcase their work at the final Summer School Exhibition on July 24.
-Each unit will organise and host a public event (lecture, party, drink- or combination of
all) on a selected day during the summer school.
-Each unit has a specific budget beyond the teaching fees.
-Each unit is responsible to participate in the promotion of the programme before, during
and after the summer school.

Main Duties and Responsibilities:
• Lead a summer school unit. The participants will have diverse backgrounds and
design skills so the unit brief should take that into consideration.
• Participate in mid and final reviews. A series of reviews will take place halfway during
the summer school creating conversations across the units. A final review schedule will
organise and culminate the summer school dialogues.

2

• Curate the unit’s participation in the exhibition. A final exhibition will take place the last
couple of days of the school, units are expected to produce a display/ installation to
showcase their work.

Person Specification
Knowledge, Skills and Experience
• Basic teaching experience.
• Active professional and /or research activity.
• Interest in participating in the larger project the Summer School aspires to operate as.
• Applications from candidates who are not architects by training and/ or have no
teaching experience are acceptable if there is a strong case to support their relevance
to the summer school’s objectives.

How to Apply:
Please apply by email by the closing date of 1 February to recruitment@aaschool.ac.uk
with ‘Summer School Unit Leader’ in the subject.

Candidates are asked to send a group unit proposal that includes a response to this
year’s theme of Learning from London, a three-week sample schedule, the agenda of
your collective, list of proposed events, specific output of the unit (detailed description)
as well as individual resumes. Also include a portfolio of relevant work.

The submission should be a single PDF file, maximum 8MB and 10 A4 pages long.
...