Royal Drawing School
Studio Supervisor and Technician
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Studio Manager and Technician
Line Manager: Technician Manager
Contract: Permanent, Part-time (1 day a week)
Days: Saturdays during Term time and a day during the week out of term time
Hours: 9am to 5.30pm (With an hour unpaid lunch break)
Overall Job Purpose:
To assist in the day-to-day smooth running of courses and exhibitions at The Royal Drawing School, providing key service to students, tutors, models, and the Education teams. Studio Technicians are responsible for the management of studios and storage spaces across all venues and are expected to exhibit a great understanding of Health and Safety.
Working with the Technician Manager, you will aid in the smooth day-to-day running of the school's studios and Print Room, ensuring the upkeep, appropriate usage, and set-up of studios and that materials are well stocked and available. You will support the Technician Manager in preparing and organizing all school exhibitions and events, working with the wider technician team and department managers as needed, and with the Facilities Team to ensure studios and exhibition spaces meet the highest standards of Health and Safety. As a representative of the School, you should be approachable, build excellent rapport with students and tutors, and maintain excellent flexibility and time management. This role involves a good deal of manual work — including hanging artwork, moving and lifting furniture, basic carpentry, and general studio cleaning — and calls for someone proactive who can work independently as well as part of a team.
Studio & Technical Set-Up
- Sets up, runs, and closes down studio spaces safely and efficiently across courses, providing technical (including AV and online) support throughout.
- Ensures studios are equipped, clean, and set up with sufficient materials for student use; moves easels, boards, and paper for daytime and evening classes and creates tutor sets as required.
- Sets up the Print Room and other specialist studio spaces ahead of scheduled classes, working to the day's running order (e.g., Saturday courses).
- Provides tutors and guest speakers with AV support throughout classes and events.
- Acts as a digital host for online (Zoom) classes when a member of the Education team is not available to do so.
- Supports class changeovers between back-to-back sessions working alongside Young Artists technicians/staff as required, and provides short cover for colleagues' breaks to maintain continuous on-site technician support.
- Puts out evening refreshments and registers and sweeps between classes.
- At the end of each day, leaves studios safe and tidy — materials and furniture stored away, windows closed, furniture neatly stacked, overhead/floor heaters switched off — and checks the studio and register are set up ready for the next class.
- Bags up used studio linens for laundry collection at the end of the day, ready for collection.
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Facilities, Repairs & Storage
- Maintains studios and storage spaces in good working order, carrying out practical repairs and improvements and liaising with Facilities Management on the upkeep of venues.
- Completes on-site repairs and maintenance as required; replaces and repairs studio equipment through general carpentry and repairs work.
- Assists in building helpful new additions to the studio, such as storage racks and trolleys.
- Works with the Technician Manager to ensure the School maintains use of allocated storage; keeps storage spaces tidy and accessible and helps build new storage areas as needed.
- Liaises with the Technician Manager and Facilities Management on the proper upkeep of studios, reporting problems to senior management.
Event & Exhibition Delivery
- Supports the planning and delivery of School exhibitions and events, from framing and hanging through to packaging, promotion, and offsite support.
- Frames student work using the School's stock frames as needed for exhibitions and assists the Technician Manager in maintaining and storing the School's frames.
- Assists the Technician Manager in hanging exhibitions in collaboration with programme leaders, curators, and onsite teams, and ensures walls are returned to their original clean state afterward.
- Assists in organizing appropriate art packaging and delivery of works.
- Assists School staff on an ad hoc basis with in-house events and parties; helps promote the School and represent it when possible, including delivering promotional material.
- Provides technical assistance at offsite bespoke courses when needed.
Materials & Stock Management
- Keeps studios and courses well stocked, ordering and tracking materials in a cost-aware and timely way.
- Assists the Technician Manager in designing and implementing stock inventories each term.
- Orders materials for studios, courses, and programmes as required, being aware of Public Programme and Drawing Year budgets; orders refreshments for studios as required.
- Ensures steady stock levels are maintained; collects and delivers materials around London to various studios.
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Health, Safety & Compliance
- Applies the School's Health & Safety policies and procedures consistently, keeping studios, equipment, and records compliant and up to date.
- Ensures studios are set up and run in line with the School's H&S policies and guidelines; assists the Public Programme and Education teams in ensuring students and tutors are aware of studio risk assessments, and helps enforce studio rules.
- In liaison with the Technician Manager, ensures risk assessments are completed for each course on a term-by-term basis, signed off with relevant tutors, and files kept up to date.
- Ensures wires are covered to avoid trip hazards, with no wire 'daisy chaining' or model heaters plugged into extension cables; ensures correct, up-to-date signage is in place.
- Has a moderate understanding of ladder training, COSHH, and proper manual handling.
- Monitors First Aid boxes, informing the Facilities, Health, and Safety Manager of required refills.
Customer Service & Communication
- Provides a warm, professional front-line service to students, tutors, and models, and handles transactions accurately.
- Takes payments from students on a Saturday for drop-in courses, with an excellent understanding of customer service.
- Builds excellent rapport with students and tutors as a key, approachable member of the School team.
Essential:
- Warm and welcoming manner, happy to help approach, and an excellent team player.
- Knowledgeable about an array of arts materials, particularly drawing materials.
- Will be expected to carry easels/other art equipment, which can be physically demanding; must be confident with hanging artworks of varying sizes and fixtures; must be confident with using hand tools.
- Flexible and adaptable, able to work extra days during busy exhibition periods.
- Understanding of the needs of art schools and artists.
- Self-starter, very proactive.
- Excellent time management.
- Good spoken and written communication skills.
- Good knowledge of the workings of office equipment and software, e.g., Microsoft Office (Outlook, Word, Excel).
- Understanding of audio-visual equipment and a willingness to learn.
Desirable:
- BA/MA in Fine Arts or equivalent experience in the arts.
- Having an artistic practice.
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