SS Great Britain Trust

Who we are

The SS Great Britain Trust is a Bristol-based dedicated education charity that cares for Brunel’s SS Great Britain and the National Brunel collection. The Trust has a particular focus on inspiring people, using the legacy of Brunel, with contemporary science, creativity and engineering.

In the 54 years since the SS Great Britain returned to Bristol, the SS Great Britian Trust has taken forward the work of the pioneering volunteers who saved the ship, transforming a rusting hulk into one of the city’s leading visitor attractions and a groundbreaking story of maritime history and conservation.  We are rated as one of the top 10 museums in the UK, with over 80 staff, more than 150 volunteers and approximately 140,000 visitors per year.

Our culture and values

Our core values are Surprise, Authenticity, Fascination, Excellence, and Relevance and they are expressed in everything we do.

Surprise There’s always something new to delight and inspire. Our job is often to bring out hidden and unexpected stories from the archives and records that survive in the Brunel Institute. It is always a joy to find new stories of new people that we can bring into the light of day for every visitor to examine and enjoy.

Authenticity Uncover the evidence for the real stories of the ship and collections as they actually were. The SS Great Britain Trust and the staff and volunteers of the Brunel Institute continually researches into the stories of the lives of everyone affected or involved with the SS Great Britain and Isambard Kingdom Brunel. In that task we uphold our core value of Authenticity at all times in all communications and displays by the staff and volunteers that serve the Trust. 

Fascination There’s always a wealth of rich content and collections to explore and delve deeper into that encourages learning and builds knowledge. The reality is often more fascinating than the myth. New stories are added to the familiar, and our understanding changes all the time. Finding out new things and relating stories new and old to new audiences of all backgrounds is alluring and attractive to the storyteller and to the listener/viewer/participant.

Excellence Everything from the SS Great Britain Trust is built on relentless standards of quality, integrity, and research. The Trust has built on this value inexorably, and all the staff and volunteers have contributed to the bringing to the charity over 50 regional, national and international awards and prizes for the quality of everything that the Trust delivers. 

Relevance Feel part of the story, and understand the importance of the past for the present and the future. As a contemporary charity and museum with a clear educational role and purpose the Trust strives to bring the stories it tells into a modern context. 

Equality, diversity and inclusion policy

Vacancies with the SS Great Britain Trust are wide-ranging, including positions in front of house, the cafés, conferences and events, museums and collections, education, fundraising, marketing, administration and finance departments. 

The Trust pays the Real Living Wage as it believes its staff deserve a wage which meets everyday needs.  We offer family friendly policies and flexible working patterns.  We are a fully accessible site for wheelchair users. 

We welcome candidates from diverse backgrounds and levels of ability and mobility, and will put the necessary reasonable adjustments in place for candidates to attend interview, give support during the interview and will continue this support when a candidate comes to work with us at the Trust.  We apply the Rooney Rule to vacancies, offering interviews to ethnic minority candidates and those who declare they have a disability, if they meet the minimum criteria for the role. 

We are working to be diverse and inclusive but know we still have more to do. As a start, we have removed, where possible, the need for qualifications from our job descriptions, as we feel everyone has skills and life experiences that we can utilise here at the Trust, so why not give us a go and apply today.