Break Into Archives Without a Master's: UK Edition

Most archives career advice assumes you live in the United States. If you're in the UK, half of it doesn't apply to you. This edition does.

Break Into Archives Without a Master's is a working guide for career changers and recent grads who want paid archival work without spending a year or more and well over ten thousand pounds on a master's first. The UK Edition takes the same seven-module framework and maps it onto the field in the UK.

Inside the UK Edition:

When an ARA-accredited postgraduate qualification is essential, and when it's only desirable

How to read a person specification and write a supporting statement against it

ISAD(G) cataloguing, Discovery, and the Archives Hub

The ARA's professional registration, open to members regardless of academic qualification

Paid traineeships and where to hear about them

UK job sources, from ARC Recruitment and ARCHIVES-NRA to council careers pages and Civil Service Jobs

Three free courses: the DPC's Novice to Know-How, NEDCC's Preservation 101, and The National Archives' Community Hub training

A skills self-assessment, a 30-day self-teaching plan, and experience and application trackers

Writing prompts that become your CV, supporting statement, and interview answers

A UK reading list, glossary, and resource library

Format: Word document (.docx), 31 pages. Fill it in on your computer or print it.

Course names, fees, and schemes change, so the workbook reminds you to check the details at the source.

By Mary Snyder, consulting archivist and founder of Snyder Archives & Research. For personal use only.