Birmingham Queer Archive – Assistant Interviewers x 2

Birmingham LGBT delivers a range of services to the LGBTQ+ community in Birmingham and the West Midlands, including trans services, wellbeing support, counselling, sexual health promotion, youth work, older people’s support, arts and domestic violence (IDVA) services. We are based at Birmingham LGBT Centre, the first LGBT Health and Wellbeing Centre in England and Wales.

The Birmingham Queer Archive will tell the story of Birmingham’s LGBTQ+ heritage from the 1960s to the present day, paying particular emphasis to the previously overlooked accounts of women, Global Majority, trans and non-binary voices. We will present new and refreshed oral histories alongside ephemera and images from Birmingham’s queer social history, presenting the new collection through an accessible and intersectional lens, hosted on an online interactive archive which will be explored through expert talks and a long-term public exhibition. Birmingham Queer Archive actively encourages applications from people under-represented in the heritage, cultural, and creative sector. This includes people who are racialised, those who identify as, (d)Deaf, disabled and/or neurodiverse, trans and non-binary, and those who are care experienced.

We are looking for two assistant oral histories interviewers to support LGBTQ+ people from a diverse range of backgrounds to share their stories.

Responsibilities include:

• Operational
  • Record oral history interviews with a range of people from diverse backgrounds, ensuring a comfortable and supportive environment for participants.
  • Assist and shadow the Lead Interviewer in key complex interviews.
  • Summarise and, where appropriate, note, key metadata and transcribe excerpts of recordings ready for cataloguing, tagging and archiving.
  • Record interviews to a high standard, taking the lead on both recording processes and content to ensure the quality of both.
  • Guide conversations to ensure interviews contain engaging and relevant content suitable for use in the project.
  • Provide emotional support to participants, ensuring they are aware of available resources if the interview process is triggering.
• Communication
  • Regular reporting to the Lead Interviewer to fulfil the administrative needs of the project, including arranging interview times and locations.
  • Communicate with the Project Producer to fulfil monitoring, evaluation and reporting requirements, including data collection and regular progress updates.
  • Tracking relevant project expenses as agreed with Project Producer.
• Training & Compliance
  • Attend two training sessions to cover an introduction to oral history and data protection legislation, as well as mental health first-aider training.
  • Work to agreed Oral History Society guidelines.
  • Maintain high standards of data protection and digital security.
  • Manage documentation and permissions to ensure compliant recordings.
  • Adhere to relevant policies (Safeguarding, Health & Safety, Data Privacy and Equality, Diversity & Inclusion).
  • After a period of training and shadowing, independently record and process approximately 15 short (30-minute) oral history interviews to contribute to the archive.

Person Specification

• Strong communication and interpersonal skills.
• Able to make people from a range of different backgrounds feel comfortable and confident being recorded and sharing their experiences.
• Be familiar with Birmingham’s LGBTQ+ communities.
• Be based in Birmingham or willing to travel regularly to Birmingham to record the majority of interviews in the Birmingham area.
• Be patient, attentive to details, and caring towards participants.
• Be able to maintain confidentiality and handle sensitive information with care.
• Have basic computer skills, including some familiarity with audio recording equipment.
• Be empathetic and sensitive to issues around gender, sexuality, mental health and discrimination.
• Experience of recording interviews to be shared publicly e.g. oral histories, podcasts, radio interviews.
• Be confident in the use of professional-standard audio recording equipment.

How To Apply

Send an up-to-date CV (this can be in the form of a link to a website or Linked In if it saves you time), a covering letter of no longer than two sides of A4 or video/voice note of no longer than 5 minutes and the completed Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form from the Pack below to shoutfestival@blgbt.org. You must submit all three documents for your application to be considered. The closing date is 10am on Monday 6 April 2026. We will not penalise applications that are a few minutes late but please be respectful of other applicants by not submitting applications hours or days later. We expect to interview short-listed candidates between 20 and 24 April 2026. We will be sending interview questions in advance.