Heritage Consultant
What the work is
Provides advice and guidance on the conservation and management of heritage sites such as historical buildings, landscapes and cultural sites. Heritage Consultants may require 'cultural authority'.
Would you enjoy the work?
These are the main tasks in the official description. Mark how each one sounds to you.
- Researches and identifies heritage sites and buildings
- Plans, assesses and manages cultural agreements regarding heritage affairs
- Evaluates the potential impacts that proposed and planned developments may have on heritage locations and places of cultural significance, and provides recommendations for consideration
- Liaises with key stakeholders including clients, governments and Traditional Owners
- Formulates strategies to manage heritage aspects on construction or development sites
- Prepares and writes heritage impact statements
Try it
A simulation and a case study from this kind of work, set in a council archive and a small heritage consultancy in a regional town. They are fictional.
The kind of days you could have
Good days
- A dusty box of old records turns out to hold the missing piece of a local story
- A community group trusts you with something precious and you handle it well
- A visitor finds their grandparents in a register you helped save
Hard days
- Two groups who both care about a place want opposite outcomes from your advice
- A funding deadline and a pile of slow, careful work land in the same week
- Someone wants an answer now, but the evidence only supports a maybe
Written by Career Calling as a general guide. Real roles vary by employer and place.
Work a mission
Step into a simulated workplace in this field, with a brief from your manager.
Description and tasks: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Occupation Standard Classification for Australia, 2024, Version 1.0 (opens another site), occupation 232335, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. The skill guide above is our plain English summary.