Career Guidance

The Royal Opera House has over 1,000 employees and in addition engages numerous casual workers and freelancers over a season.

Three out of four of our employees work in a huge variety of technical, craft, administration and customer service roles - technical stage, learning and participation, fundraising, costume and scenery production, marketing, press, box office, front of house, props, retail, human resources, digital and finance to name but a few.

We are passionate about inspiring people to choose careers in the arts sector, particularly in the back-stage areas that they may not have previously considered.

Getting started

There are various routes into a career working back-stage in theatre. Some jobs require qualifications; some entail training; others can be learned on the job.

• The Royal Opera Houses co-manages the annual TheatreCraft careers event where you can get advice from industry experts on training and employment opportunities.
• The Conference of Drama Schools has published a guide to careers backstage, which you can download here. It contains an overall view of career structures within the different specialities and has details of training courses.
• Getintotheatre.org helps you find out about the huge variety of careers in the industry, career opportunities, work experience and training.
• You may like to consider applying for the Royal Opera House First Stage Work Experience programme or Apprenticeship Scheme