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Job opportunities

There are currently no roles available.

Volunteering opportunities

If you love plants and learning and want to gain experience supporting us then check out our volunteer opportunities below. If you are interested in volunteering and aren’t already registered, please fill in and return our Volunteer Application Form. In most cases enthusiasm and commitment are more important than experience! If you have any questions or trouble completing the form please contact megan.akerman@slbi.org.uk 

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Informal Learning

The Institute runs a busy programme of events throughout the year, all of which depend on the help of volunteers. Opportunities for involvement range from supporting open days and group visits, giving horticultural advice at the annual plant sale, and supporting workshops and lectures at the Institute. See Events for upcoming activities where we will need help!

Formal Learning

We run a range of curriculum based school workshops, mainly for primary level, but also for secondary schools and higher education. These sessions take place on Mondays and Tuesdays. If you love plants and learning and have or want to gain experience supporting children and student’s learning this is a perfect opportunity.

Herbarium 

Volunteers can assist the cataloguing of the collections in the herbarium collections through the Vice-counties project and the George Baron Lichen project. Volunteers will be introduced to handling and arranging herbarium specimens.

Vice-counties 

This involves cataloguing the collection with the vice-counties system to better locate the geographic coverage of a particular species. Over the last year we have developed this session in dialogue with our volunteers. Volunteers can undertake some of this species-level research to support these sessions. Sessions run fortnightly and last for 2 hours. We run three different sessions – a weekday afternoon, a weekday evening (less frequently) and a weekend session (that will correspond with open days).

The George Baron Lichen Project

George Baron, author of Understanding Lichens (1999) and contributor to British Wildlife magazine, played a key role in introducing many people to the importance of lichens in environmental conservation. His personal collection is a rich resource – but it now needs some careful consolidation and reorganisation to ensure it can be more easily accessed and researched.
Sessions will begin again in Spring 2026.
See Herbarium for more information.

Library

Starting in Spring 2026: Volunteers assist in a variety of tasks, including arranging subject sections and updating our catalogue to reflect changing interests and new acquisitions. See Library for more information.

Garden

The garden provides opportunities for volunteers to be involved in the care of many rare and unusual plants. Tasks tend to focus on the practical maintenance – sweeping, pruning etc and some propagation. All plants are labelled and most volunteers widen their knowledge through working with species new to them. See Garden for more information.