Salary starting from: £45,000 per annum based on skills and experience

Hours: Full time, 40 hours per week

Based in: Covent Garden, London

Prior to commencing your application, please review our application guide here.

The Royal Ballet and Opera continues to lead the way in opera, ballet, music and dance both live on stage and through multiple digital platforms, from live streaming to worldwide cinema screenings. Our Covent Garden theatre has been at the heart of London and British cultural life for three centuries. We are home to two world-class Companies: The Royal Ballet and The Royal Opera.

The Royal Opera House describes the place we work, not who we are. The whole is always more than the sum of its parts – we may be a House, but three quarters of our audiences experience what we do outside this building. While our Covent Garden theatre is the nerve centre, the impact and influence of the organisation can be felt in every corner of the country, and around the world.

This role sits within the highly committed and successful Development and Advocacy Department, which generates over £41m revenue annually, plus additional capital funds, and secures the annual Arts Council England grant (currently £22.9m). The Department’s revenue generation and advocacy to Government of the value of our creative sector ensures the RBO can retain the best artists and crafts people, deliver our thriving National Schools’ Programme, maintain our beautiful grade I listed building, deliver on our charitable mission, and continue to produce world class performances.

The Membership Team, responsible for Friends and Patrons, are responsible for circa £10m annually. Friends and Patrons also make up 30% of ticket income, 55% of other donations and 88% of legacies, emphasising the importance of community building, good processes and customer service. The Patrons of the Royal Ballet and Opera are a core loyal audience who provide vital philanthropic support to the RBO. As a thank-you for their support, they enjoy premium benefits including a concierge Box Office and special events.

The Senior Patrons Manager at the RBO is a high-impact role for an experienced membership or philanthropy professional ready to take ownership of a flagship scheme. We’re looking for someone who is confident managing the day-to-day delivery of a membership programme, proactive in identifying and recruiting new Patrons, and committed to building meaningful, long-term relationships that encourage renewal and deeper support.

Our ideal candidate will be results driven, with a pro-active, can-do attitude that is role modelled in the small team of reports and more widely across the Department. You will be solutions focused with experience of taking accountability for improvements and resolutions. You will be able to lead and develop a small team, manage a busy workload with high output and productivity and demonstrate highly effective influencing skills.

You will have:

Senior-level experience within a membership, patrons or philanthropic environment, ideally involving high-net-worth individuals.
Proven track record of driving income growth against targets and KPIs, with strong commercial and analytical judgement.
Sound knowledge of Gift Aid and relevant charitable legislation, ensuring best practice compliance
Experience managing and growing donor relationships, including face-to-face engagement.
Experience leading membership or patron schemes, identifying opportunities for innovation and continuous improvement
Proactive, accountable and outcome-focused, with the ability to manage a substantial and fast-paced workload.

An understanding and knowledge of the art forms is not essential but the ability to learn and communicate effectively and persuasively about opera, ballet, music and dance to Patrons is critical for this role.

The Royal Ballet and Opera is one of the UK’s leading arts organisations and our aim is to inspire imagination, ignite emotion and make the extraordinary for everyone. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion underpin all that we do. We want our people to be representative of the diversity in the UK. We understand the creativity and innovation that diversity can bring and strive to create an inclusive environment in which everyone can thrive.

We encourage applications from people with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences and skills to join our teams. We particularly welcome applications from those who are from a global majority background and/or those who are disabled, as they are under-represented within our organisation.

We are a Disability Confident Employer, which means that we are actively working to ensure that candidates with disabilities and long-term health conditions feel supported, engaged and able to fulfil their potential in the workplace. We will endeavour to offer an interview to candidates who tell us they wish to participate in the scheme and who demonstrate in their application that they meet the essential criteria for the role, though sometimes due to the volume of qualified candidates with declarations this is not possible.

The RBO is also committed to safeguarding and protecting all children, young people, and adults and we implement robust safer recruitment practices. Due to our safeguarding promise, certain roles will be subject to a DBS check before commencing employment with us, which will be indicated in the advertising.

A full job description can be found here.

For more information about working with the Royal Ballet and Opera, please review the info pack here.

For a list of potential reasonable adjustments, please review this guidance document. If you have any access requirements for your application, please contact the RBO Recruitment Team on [email protected]

If you are applying as an internal candidate, you might find this guidance document helpful.

Closing date for applications: 11:59pm, 7th June 2026

Interviews will be held over two stages:
The 1st stage will be online via Microsoft Teams w/c 15th June 2026.
The 2nd stage will be in person at ROH Covent Garden w/c 22nd June 2026.

To ensure a fair process, late applications will not be considered under any circumstances.

Applicants must have work authorisation for the UK. No agencies.