Current Vacancies
Chef Manager
Closing Date: Midnight Friday 9th May 2025
Almond Valley Heritage Trust is a beloved family attraction and heritage charity, welcoming over 160,000 visitors each year. We’re on a mission to deliver a first-class visitor experience that brings together storytelling, history, and hands-on learning – and food is at the heart of that experience.
We’re looking for an enthusiastic and experienced Chef Manager to lead our culinary team in transforming our food offering. This is a unique opportunity to shape a food programme rooted in local heritage, seasonal produce, and creativity – all within a fun, fast-paced, family-friendly environment.
As Chef Manager, you’ll bring fresh ideas, exceptional culinary skills, and strong leadership to develop menus that are high-quality, great value, and inclusive for all visitors. You’ll also champion safety, sustainability, and customer satisfaction, working closely with front-of-house colleagues to deliver an outstanding experience.
If you're passionate about food, local history, and making a difference, we’d love to hear from you.
The full job description and application information can be found here Chef Manager
Join the team
We're a seasonal business, and our small core team grows each spring to meet the demands of the summer to come. Most seasonal vacancies are for visitor services, catering, and tidy team members.
A group of redundant coal miners outside the labour exchange in West Calder. An image from our museum collection; LVSAV2013.053
Application Guidance Notes
We understand that the thought of an application can send some people into a cold sweat so we have produced a helpful guide to help with the process.
A copy of the guide can be downloaded here
About Us
The story of Almond Valley begins in the late 1960's with a campaign to save the historic buildings of Livingston Mill from demolition. A volunteer group won the support of the new town development corporation, and over the course of a decade worked to restore the derelict watermill and farm-steading. Members of the local community then established a city farm on the site, and a little later, one of the outbuildings became home for the Livingston Oil Museum.
In 1990 the Almond Valley Heritage Trust was created to take forward these diverse interests. Ever since, we've continually extended the attractions and facilities of the site, exploring new activities, and developing new services. As a social enterprise, we've built a sustainable business that involves and serves both our visitors and the wider community. We've ambitious plans for continued progress.
As an accredited museum, Almond Valley works to provides a local museum service for those areas shaped by the shale oil industry, and represents the national importance of Scotland's shale oil industry.
Our shale oil industry collection is recognised as being of National Significance, and a vigorous programme of research and digitisation enables knowledge of Scotland's shale oil industry to be shared internationally through our Scottish shale website
Almond Valley holds particular appeal to families with young children, who have an immediate affinity with the farm animals and run wild in the green spaces and play facilities. We aim to be a happy carefree place that can be enjoyed by all of the family, and hope that the experiences shared will inform, inspire and be reflected upon. This gentle approach to learning links and underlies everything that we do.
Almond Valley is committed to advancing the Scottish Government’s ‘Fair Work First’ policy, including paying the Real Living Wage and ensuring staff have an effective voice.
Our Charitable Purpose
We are a registered charity in Scotland and our charitable purposes are:
- To advance arts, heritage, culture and science by safeguarding and celebrating the heritage and environment of West Lothian
- To preserve the heritage of Scotland’s shale oil industry by holding collections and engaging in museum activities that reflect the national and international significance of the industry
- To advance education and promote community well-being through activities that support popular enhancement in heritage.
Organisational Structure
What We Offer
- Pension
We’ll automatically enrol team members into a workplace pension (subject to qualifying conditions) - Annual Leave
Almond Valley offers 32 holidays per year, inclusive of Bank Holidays (pro-rated for part time team members) - Occupational Health
Team members health and well-being is a priority for us, so we ensure team members get the support and guidance that they require. - Professional Qualifications
We supports our team members to gain qualifications relevant for their work and their development - Learning and Development
We invest in our team members with learning and development with training programmes, courses and conferences. - Cycle2Work Scheme
Team members are eligible to take part in the Cycle to Work scheme, a salary sacrifice is scheme. - Gift Shop Discounts
Team members can take advantage of the 20% discount which is offered within the gift shop - Staff Discount in the Tearoom
Whilst at work team members can take advantage of the generous staff discount which is offered on certain products sold within the Tearoom - Staff Pass
When a team member joins the team they are given a staff pass which will give them access to the site for free - ASVA Card Access
Team members have access to The Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions card which allows free entry to a huge range of visitor attractions throughout Scotland. - Free Car Parking
Whilst at work team members can park their car for free at the on-site car park