Where a collection manager can go next
5 destinations recorded, ranked by how much of the target role a collection manager already meets. The closer to the top of Table 1, the less there is to learn.
Collection managers ensure the care and preservation of objects within cultural institutions, like museums, libraries, and archives. Collection managers, along with exhibition curators, and conservators, play a very important role in collections care. They can be found in most large museums.
Also known as conservator, museum technician, curator, collections manager.
Professionals 30 skills on file 5 career moves 1 above 60% overlap Closest: cultural archive manager, 64%
- 70% and above · short step
- 50 to 70% · real move
- Below 50% · substantial retraining
Table 1 · Within reach
Table 2 · A bigger jump
Possible, but expect real retraining rather than a sideways step.
Table 3 · What the job itself asks for
A collection manager needs 20 required skills and areas of knowledge. These 10 are the ones fewest other jobs share, so they say the most about the work.
- compile detailed collection inventory information skills
- establish high standards of collections care assisting and caring
- implement risk management for works of art information skills
- supervise artefact movement handling and moving
- advise on loans of art work for exhibitions management skills
- assess museum object condition information skills
- create collection conservation plan management skills
- monitor museum environment information skills
- collection management software social sciences, journalism and information
- document museum collection information skills
Table 4 · Jobs that lead here
The reverse view: occupations whose skills already cover much of what a collection manager does. The figure is how much of this job each one brings.
- cultural archive manager 80% covered · difficulty 24.2
- exhibition registrar 64% covered · difficulty 41.3
- conservator 43% covered · difficulty 60.2
- exhibition curator 36% covered · difficulty 66.4
- museum director 34% covered · difficulty 67.7
- art handler 27% covered · difficulty 73.1
- art restorer 24% covered · difficulty 75.6
- research manager 24% covered · difficulty 75.6
- book restorer 20% covered · difficulty 79
Look up another occupation
Collection manager is filed under Professionals, ISCO major group 2. The full index lists all ten groups.
How these figures were compiled
Overlap is how much of the target role is already part of a collection manager’s work. It is directional: the figure for the reverse move differs. Every entry above opens the full comparison for that move: what carries over, what is missing, and where to start. The full method.