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

Vessel Winter Maintenance

With packed schedules for the forthcoming sailing season, it is vitally important we highlight any maintenance issues early and carry out scheduled maintenance over the winter to keep the boats afloat and safe to use. If you have a passion for boat maintenance and love working as part of a dedicated crew, we want to hear from you.

Sea-going

We are on the lookout for talented individuals to join our team of sea and land-based staff who are all committed to the charity’s ethos that the benefits of sailing should be accessible to all. This is a fantastic opportunity to further your professional sailing career with one of the foremost youth sail training providers in the UK.

We deliver transformational voyages ranging from youth residential weeks and inclusive day sails for special educational needs schools, to a select program of commercial adult voyages and courses.

Operating primarily along the south Devon and south Cornwall coasts, our crew also enjoys occasional extended passages to the Isle of Wight and the Isles of Scilly. If you are looking for a rewarding role that combines high-standard seamanship with youth engagement, we want to hear from you.

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