‘So what do you do at the National Trust?’ is a question that I get asked a lot, by visitors and colleagues, family and friends. I’m Joe Flatman, and I’m what is known as a Consultancy Manager in the National Trust (NT). I’m also one of Current Archaeology’s monthly columnists, and ten years ago I wrote a book entitled Becoming an Archaeologist: a guide to professional pathways. The first edition won Current Archaeology’s ‘Book of the Year’ award in 2012, and ten years later the second, revised and updated, edition has just been published.
Becoming an Archaeologist examines the history of archaeology as a profession; the jobs and organisations that exist within this field and what life is like working among these communities; and the training required to get a career in the sector. It includes interviews with archaeologists working around the globe at every stage of their careers and in every specialism – from archaeobotany to zooarchaeology and plenty more besides – and some of the individuals featured are my colleagues at the NT. In celebration of meeting the milestone of a second edition, here I am going to explore some of the people and projects involved in archaeology across the organisation that I call home.
As mentioned above, I am what is known as a Consultancy Manager (or ‘CM’, as we are referred to within the Trust). CMs lead the teams of specialists, including archaeologists, who care for our sites, and the NT’s Director-General Hilary McGrady calls us the glue that binds the charity together: sometimes deploying our leadership skills to help guide and support colleagues; other times acting as managers for the projects that we undertake; and on other occasions bringing our technical expertise and connections to bear – including, in my case, my background in archaeology. But I’m not paid to be an archaeologist, and 99% of the time I don’t ‘do’ archaeology, either in the popular sense of undertaking fieldwork or in the wider sense of deploying an archaeological mindset at our special places. The NT does, however, have a vibrant team of practising archaeologists who work across much of the UK (the organisation covers England, Wales, and Northern Ireland – the National Trust for Scotland is a separate, allied charity), alongside a much larger voluntary community.
