The UCL History of Art Department is seeking to appoint a full-time Lecturer in the History of Art, Materials and Technology, to begin on 1 September 2026. The successful candidate will have a background in art history, conservation, heritage or material science, or associated fields. We encourage applicants whose expertise will complement existing departmental strengths. The successful candidate would be capable of teaching in and overseeing the running of the Material Studies Laboratory. They would join a thriving department with close links to London’s museums and gallery networks and a university with its own important collections. They would contribute to teaching, take on administrative responsibilities, demonstrate ongoing research excellence and generate research income by actively.
We welcome applications from candidates with a PhD in any relevant specialism of conservation, heritage or material science, art history, visual and material culture, or associated fields. An interest in lab-based and/or workshop-oriented teaching in these areas is particularly desirable. Additional experience in museum collections, curatorial practice, studio practice or cultural heritage would be an advantage. The ability and willingness to engage with current debates in the discipline of art history and to work across disciplines are essential, and we encourage applications from candidates who are able to connect their area of expertise to broader intellectual and methodological frameworks.
About us
UCL History of Art is a successful medium-sized department, based within the Faculty of Social & Historical Sciences, with a high international reputation. Academic staff have a wide range of approaches to the history of art across an expanded geography, with particular interests in image cultures, the materials and materiality of art, and visual technologies of all kinds. Presently, in terms of period coverage, we have concentrations of expertise in contemporary art, in art since c.1800, and in medieval and early modern art. The Department’s research was ranked 1st in London for Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory by REF 2021 (overall GPA rankings).
The Department has a large and productive research-student community, with an average of 30–40 research students registered in any one year, and a thriving MA History of Art programme. In 2023 we launched a new MSc Conservation of Contemporary Art & Media at UCL East, our campus in east London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Undergraduate programmes are based in Bloomsbury, and include a single honours History of Art degree and several combined honours programmes. As part of the single honours degree, students can choose to follow a unique degree course in History of Art, Materials and Technology, which includes a strong component of lab-oriented work for students wishing to explore issues of materiality, technique, technical analysis and object-based enquiry, as well as associated theoretical, historical and ethical questions.
The Department houses the Material Studies Laboratory, based at the Bloomsbury campus, a research and teaching facility consisting of two laboratory spaces, one dedicated to teaching and handling of materials and artifacts, drawn from our teaching collection and our Departmental Cabinet of Obsolete Technologies, and a second focusing on the instrumental analysis of heritage materials. Other relevant local resources at UCL include the Institute of Making, Institute of Archaeology, UCL Art Collections, and the Slade School of Fine Art.
