Reception supervisor

Closing date for applications: Wednesday 8th April 2026 12:00pm

Salary: £37,500 per annum, plus benefits

Location: St James’s Square, London SW1

Working hours: 35 hours per week, Monday to Friday, 9.30am - 5.30pm, with occasional Saturday and evening work.

Interviews: 13th and 14th April 2026

Lead a welcoming reception team at one of the UK’s most prestigious libraries, ensuring every member and visitor feels valued.

For over 180 years, The London Library has stood as one of the UK's greatest literary institutions, inspiring creativity, and ideas. Our esteemed members, past and present, include literary giants like Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin, Virginia Woolf, and contemporary authors such as Kazuo Ishiguro and Sarah Waters. Our collection boasts around one million books, a vast eLibrary, and an invaluable postal loans service, making it a sanctuary for those who cherish the written word. We are championed by our President, Helena Bonham Carter CBE, and operate as a registered charity.

We are seeking a Reception Supervisor, responsible for the efficient running of the Library’s Reception ensuring an excellent customer service experience is provided to members of, and visitors to, the Library throughout our opening hours.

What you'll be doing

In this pivotal role, you will:

• Manage our small team of Membership Assistants who cover the main entrance reception desk
• Answer questions about membership and services in person, by phone and email, giving tours to prospective members and assisting with membership processing and administration.
• Liaise closely with the Membership and Marketing departments, ensuring that Reception staff are aware of current member offers and other activities relevant to the recruitment and retention of members.

What we are looking for

• Good general education to at least A-Level standard or qualified by experience, with a good level of literacy and numeracy (GCSE English and Maths at grades A-C or equivalent)
• Proven experience of supervising staff that provide excellent customer service in a customer-service environment, preferably in the charity, cultural or Not For Profit sector.
• Exceptional inter-personal and communication skills with the ability to convey information clearly and courteously, face to face, by telephone or email.
• Successful performance management experience, ensuring that you can lead and contribute effectively to the team and be able to organise your own and others work and time effectively.

Personal attributes include:

• Pleasant, approachable, welcoming, helpful, and responsive even under pressure
• Being flexible, willing to turn a hand to whatever needs doing on occasion, whilst being patient, resilient and with a good-humoured approach to problem-solving is essential.
• You enjoy meeting and developing relationships with people and have a proven track record of defusing challenging situations.

Why Join Us?

The London Library offers a friendly, hardworking, and inclusive workplace where we strive to support the diverse needs of our team. We welcome applications from all sections of the community and are committed to equality and diversity. Specific adjustments and access needs can be discussed to make this role suitable for you.

If you’re passionate about delivering an exceptional Membership experience and want to use your skills to help drive the success of The London Library, we’d love to hear from you!

Please note:

• The Library welcomes applications from all sectors of the community. All applicants will be considered on the basis of their merits and abilities for the post.
• We can only consider candidates with the current right to work in the UK.
• We reserve the right to shorten or extend the closing date of any position where a high or low volume of suitable applications are received. Therefore, if you are interested in this role, an early application would be encouraged.

We welcome and encourage applications from candidates who are under-represented in the creative industries.

Please make sure that you state in your application that you found this role via Creative Access.