For over 50 years The Island Trust has been providing life-enhancing, residential and day-sailing activities for young people with educational support needs, disabilities, and those experiencing hardship and deprivation. We award disadvantaged young people the opportunity to not only widen their horizons but also develop their skills and capabilities through the joy and challenge of learning to sail.

Based in Plymouth, our small fleet of traditional sailing vessels are operated by our subsidiary company Island (Cutter) Limited.

Current Vacancies

Shore-based

We currently have no vacancies.

Sea-going

We currently have no vacancies.

Relief work

If you are interested in freelance Skipper or Mate relief work and have the following skills and attributes:

• Qualified to Yachtmaster Offshore level (Skipper – essential / Mate – preferred but not essential)
• In-date medical qualification e.g. ENG1 or ML5 (essential)
• Hold a current Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) certificate, or are prepared to undertake DBS check
• Experienced in working with young people (preferred but not essential)
• Able to understand the (sometimes complex) needs of others and moderate working practices and approaches accordingly
• Empathic and compassionate
• A good team player and excellent communicator

then please email jobs@theislandtrust.org.uk or telephone 01752 823007.

Volunteer work

If you are aged 18 or over, have free time to give and are interested in voluntary work, particularly to help with vessel winter maintenance, at our base in Plymouth within Plymouth Yacht Haven marina, please call us on 01752 823007 or email jobs@theislandtrust.org.uk.

Privacy Notice:

If you apply to work or volunteer with The Island Trust or its trading subsidiary, the personal data you provide will be processed solely for the purposes of managing and assessing your application, in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. We will only share your data with external parties where this is necessary for the recruitment process – for example, to request a reference or to obtain a ‘disclosure’ from the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) – and we will inform you before doing so, unless we are legally required to disclose this information without prior notice.

If your application is unsuccessful, we will retain your personal data for six months following the conclusion of the recruitment process, after which it will be securely deleted or destroyed. If your application is successful, you will receive further information about how your personal data will be processed as part of your employment or volunteering engagement.

Last reviewed March 2026