Gardener Job profile

This full-time post is available from immediately on a permanent basis.

Are you a professional horticulturist who is excited to make an important move in your career by joining the gardeners here at the University of Exeter? We are a dedicated team who are fortunate to be involved in delivering the full breadth of horticulture as part of our service to the campuses at Streatham and St Lukes.

We work in an established landscape with both modern and historically significant planting and we are driven by working towards a broad range of goals that are mentally and physically rewarding in a healthy way.

It’s an estate quite unlike any other with a staff and student population of over 23,000 people and hundreds of private, public and ticketed events that manifest in an energy you can really feel over the course of a normal day here.

With a genuinely proud safety culture we take time and make time for your development and best practice out in the gardens. We keep all common and specialist equipment including battery powered and remote controlled machinery in the interest of welfare to the team.

Your role should you join us will focus on all expected seasonal work across beds, mixed shrub borders, lawns and hedges. It will also intermittently include planting, propagation and occasional cover in our plant nursery, wildlife habitat management and reactionary work during severe weather.

The right person for the role will have a passion for the industry as a whole and feel comfortable in having their views and ideas heard amongst the team as we layout the future planning of the grounds within its planted landscape, dating back to the mid 1800’s. A successful candidate will have a desire for high standards of presentation and be able to demonstrate this as part of the application and interview process. We are a proud custodian to our 150 hectares of gardens and grounds.

The working pattern will be 5 over 7 days, which will include working weekends. For the right candidate we can discuss flexible working pattern, please get in touch to discuss your needs.

The University is committed to safeguarding children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff to share this commitment. An enhanced DBS is required for this post.

We offer some fantastic benefits including:

We are committed to ensuring reasonable adjustments are available for interviews and workplaces.

Whilst all applicants will be judged on merit alone, we particularly welcome applications from groups currently underrepresented within our working community.

With over 30,000 students and 7,000 staff from 150 different countries we offer a diverse and engaging environment where our diversity is celebrated and valued as a major strength. We are committed to creating an inclusive culture where all members of our community are supported to thrive; where diverse voices are heard through our engagement with evidence-based charter frameworks for gender (Athena SWAN and Project Juno for Physics), race equality (Race Equality Charter Mark), LGBTQ+ inclusion (Stonewall Diversity Champion) and as a Disability Confident employer.

We are proud signatories of the Armed Forces Covenant and welcome applications from service people.

If you would like an informal talk about this role, please contact Anthony Cockell a.cockell@exeter.ac.uk or 07825 317044.