Craft Gardener

The Homestead Park has been cherished by communities for 120 years since it was gifted to the people of York by social reformer Seebohm Rowntree (son of Joseph Rowntree) so that all individuals, regardless of class or income, could enjoy time in nature.

At JRF, we’re honouring this heritage and turning the leaves of a new chapter in the story of the Homestead Park. Seebohm’s gift represents a tradition of giving back to the community and ensuring that public spaces remain accessible to all. We want to uphold this tradition and not only preserve a piece of history, but also reaffirm our dedication to creating a park and pavilion community space that serves the needs and interests of the people it belongs to.

You will be part of the transformation of Homestead Park as it strives to become a radically inclusive place. Your work will help to connect people with nature and create an environment for strengthening connections and community resilience.

As a senior member of the team, you will be working as a highly skilled gardener, mentoring and coaching colleagues and volunteers, passing on your wealth of knowledge and experience and providing technical advice to the wider team as required. Alongside this, you will support and enable work with the Blueberry Academy, Thrive Outside and other community groups as they work in the park and co-create new spaces.

This position is a development opportunity to support career progression and as such, you will line manage up to two Apprentice Gardeners or General Assistants. This will involve typical management functions such as conducting one to ones and solving disciplinary issues, but your main focus will be on developing their skills as gardeners.

You will work alongside the community engagement team to support events, develop interpretation and communicate about what is happening in the park. Some of your time will be spent in assisting the Head of the park with service improvements and office-based tasks such as audits and health and safety checks. You may be required to deputise for them in their absence.

Weekly weekend hours are sometimes part of this role, enabling you to support the weekend staff. Flexible time-off-in-lieu is provided in exchange for these hours.

Please get in touch if you would like to talk with us about flexibility around the weekend working hours., In support of our approach to flexible working, we are happy to receive applications from those seeking full-time employment, as well as those who may want to share the role on a part-time basis. When making your application, please state whether you want to be considered for either full or part-time work and, if part-time, the number of hours per week you would be looking for.

We are seeking candidates who hold a formal horticultural qualification to minimum of NVQ level 3 certificate/diploma or equivalent. We would like you to be a skilled gardener with vast practical experience and strong botanical and ecological knowledge. With an understanding of health and safety legislation relevant to the horticultural industry, you will be experienced with a wide range of horticultural machinery.

If you have any additional needs and need reasonable adjustments to be made to the interview process, please let us know.

£32,407.44 per annum