Visitor Opening Days for October:
- Open Weekends
- October Half Term Open Tuesday to Sunday (CLOSED Monday)

OK, Understood

Work With Us

Do you have a passion for invertebrates, food, farming or nature or always wondered what it would be like to work or volunteer with us? Then please do check below regularly to see if we have any positions available.


Bug Farm Seasonal Assistants

Days per week: March-September, or part of this period

Short/long term: 5 days per week

Paid/voluntary: Paid

Our seasonal positions are extremely competitive and generally attract pre/post-MSc ecology or entomology students. The positions offer fantastic opportunities for students/early-career naturalists to get into the world of applied entomology/invertebrate zookeeping/ecology/nature recovery/outreach in a busy and vibrant visitor attraction and research centre.

To register your interest, please send us an e-mail or cover letter, detailing why you would like to volunteer with us, and a CV to info@thebugfarm.co.uk

Application deadline: Applications accepted year-round, but we usually fill these roles by the end of February each year at the latest.

Job title: Bug Farm Volunteer

Days per week: Flexible – usually from March-October

Short/long term: Flexible

Paid/voluntary: Unpaid – volunteer positions

We are often able to offer fantastic opportunities for students/early-career naturalists to get into the world of applied entomology/invertebrate zookeeping/ecology/nature recovery/outreach in a busy and vibrant visitor attraction and research centre.

Click here for an example of the volunteer role description.

To register your interest, please send us an e-mail or cover letter, detailing why you would like to volunteer with us, and a CV to info@thebugfarm.co.uk

Application deadline: Rolling deadlines.

Job title: Bug Farm Year in Research/Industry Placement/Student Placement

Days per week: Flexible

Short/long term: Usually 9 months (shorter placements also available)

Paid/voluntary: Unpaid – volunteer positions

Each year, we work with universities to host up to three Year in Research/Industry students and up to two shorter-term student placements. We are often able to offer fantastic opportunities for students/early-career naturalists to get into the world of applied entomology/invertebrate zookeeping/ecology/nature recovery/outreach in a busy and vibrant visitor attraction and research centre. We also run weekly conservation/land management volunteering sessions.

While we work directly with universities on these placements, we can also arrange placements directly with interested students. To register your interest, please send us an e-mail or cover letter, detailing why you would like to work with us, and a CV to info@thebugfarm.co.uk

Application deadline: Rolling deadlines.

Grub Kitchen

Grub Kitchen regularly has seasonal positions available for front of house and kitchen staff. Please e-mail info@grubkitchen.co.uk for more information.


Dr Beynon’s Bug Farm Ltd – Research projects

We also have the following research opportunities available. These projects would suit students carrying out undergraduate, MSc or PhD research or students/early career scientists wanting to take on an independent research project to gain experience in the field and build their CV. Dr Beynon did this instead of doing a MSc before doing her doctorate!


Research project

Project title: Marsh fritillary butterfly reintroduction

Approximate duration: TBC

Dates: Flexible

Suitable for: PhD or possibly MSc project, or both

Paid/voluntary: Unpaid – we would be happy to look into funding opportunities with you and a university supervisor

This is part of a wider project looking at bringing back the marsh fritillary butterfly to the St Davids peninsula in 2026. More information on the background to the project can be found at the following project pages: Bringing Back the Marsh Fritillary to the St Davids PeninsulaConnecting the Commons and Common Connections.

We would like to develop a programme of research around a potential marsh fritillary butterfly reintroduction to the St Davids peninsula. While we would encourage students to develop their own programme of research around the project, we are especially interested in questions related to metapopulation dynamics.

Click here for more information on the research project.


Additional research/conservation/volunteer roles

We have a number of long-term conservation and research fieldwork experiments running and are interested in finding students who may like to carry out their research projects on them. These include:

  • Plastic-free and herbicide-free woodland creation.
  • Assessing the costs and benefits of eDNA soil and water sampling compared to conventional ecological surveying across the St Davids peninsula (data have already been collected): See film on the Common Connections page.
  • Cataloguing a historic global butterfly collection and comparing species distributions with today (winter project).
  • Bumblebee and butterfly surveys: We are looking for regular volunteers to assist with our surveys across the St Davids peninsula.
  • Assessing the efficacy of toad gulley ladders in reducing toad mortality – see the BHS website for more information. We may be able to offer this as a student project, but the start-date of this work has not yet been finalised.
  • Assessing how horse owners can reduce the environmental impacts of antiparasitic treatments: We have a strong collaboration of vets and ecologists committed to addressing this issue and may be able to collaborate on a student project on this topic. If you are interested in this topic, or on non-target impacts of antiparasitics in animals more generally, have a look at the bottom two fact sheets on the Dung Beetles Direct page.
  • Fancy carrying out a research project with us but want to design it yourself? Have a look at our Common Connections project to have an idea of some of the data we collect In particular, the list of reports should give you an idea of the data that is available.

Key information

All roles are offered to people aged 18yrs+. We have a small number of work experience placements available each year for young people, for which there is usually a waiting list. If you are interested in work experience, please send us an e-mail to express interest.


Accommodation

Dr Beynon may be able to separately offer subsidised accommodation in a (beautiful) shared staff/student house St Davids for a small number of staff/volunteers/students. If you are interested in accommodation, please get in touch with sarah@thebugfarm.co.uk as soon as possible and we will give you more information, as spaces are extremely limited.