Senior Specialist - ( Ref : 6884 )

Our Role

Natural England is the Governments adviser for the natural environment and the Nature regulator with a wide range of statutory duties and powers. We provide the evidence, expertise and advice to recover Nature and shape better places for people to live. We do this working through and with others.

Strategic Outcomes for Nature

Our strategy is framed through four strategic outcomes. Each of these outcomes reinforces and amplifies the others, and together they address environmental, social and economic actions critical to thriving nature.

• Recovering Nature Increased scale and quality of places where nature thrives.
• Building Better Places Greener homes and infrastructure create healthier, more investable places, recognising we live better where nature thrives around us.
• Improving Health and Wellbeing Build nature into everyday life so people can support, access and benefit from nature, wherever they live.
• Delivering Security through Nature Nature helps us adapt to the threats of a changing climate and improves our national security, supporting more resilient food production, healthy soils, clean and plentiful water and clean air.

Find out more about the work of Natural England at:

Natural Englands Strategy: Recovering Nature for Growth, Health and Security - GOV.UK

The Role

The Team is responsible for delivering Natural Englands part of the Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment (NCEA).

The NCEA is a transformative programme to understand the extent, condition and change over time of environmental assets across England's land and water environments, supporting the governments ambition to improve the environment within a generation. Data will come from Earth Observation, professional field data collection, citizen science and partner data sets.

Natural Englands NCEA is organised into projects:

1. Mapping and Earth Observation Spatial data and maps on natural capital to inform national and local decision making and delivery.
2. England Peat Map Mapping the extent and condition of Englands peatlands.
3. Field data collection Data on habitats, soils, landscapes and species to understand the condition of natural capital assets.
4. Citizen Science Working with citizens and community science to fill gaps, provide local and landscape scale information and engaging the public.
5. Data Engagement and Analysis - Making NCEA, partner and volunteer data available for analysis, integration, and use. Producing high quality evidence products by analysing and integration NCEA data.
6. Programme management Managing Natural Englands NCEA programme.

You will be helping to deliver this as a part of project 5, by building and maintaining partnerships with key stakeholders. Additionally, you will be internally supporting and providing expert advice to project staff and solving problems for the NCEA to improve its data ethics, governance, maturity, and its management of data.

Job description

Key Tasks/Principal Accountabilities

To support delivery of Natural Englands part of the Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment (NCEA) programme, Defra's largest research and development programme which seeks to generate and mobilise a baseline assessment of our natural assets by 2029. Achieve this by applying a deep knowledge of a specific and complex specialism and understand the broader context of the application of this specialism in delivering Natural Englands strategic objectives, as well as NCEA programme objectives. Maintain and build knowledge from external sources and networks to ensure expertise remains current. Make clear decisions and provide expert advice to internal and external customers in their area of specialism, that is key to successful achievement of Natural England environmental outcomes and the delivery of the NCEA. Identify evidence gaps and the research required to address these. Influence the development and implementation of Natural England and NCEA-wide strategy and programmes, by using your deep specialism in the mobilisation and use of relevant environmental data and evidence.

Key Responsibilities:

• Understand Natural Englands priorities: Youll learn about the short- and long-term priorities for Natural Englands work and its evidence needs. This will help with planning and solving data-sharing problems across different projects and teams.
• Leadership: Youll lead members of your team and wider Natural England through challenging and novel evidence requirements, requiring effective and clear communication skills
• Improve data access, quality and management: You will help improve organisational capability by creating guidance, tools, and training for the managing, sharing, and licensing of impactful data.
• Build partnerships: You will build and maintain strong collaborations with priority partners involved in collecting and sharing environmental evidence, including national organisations such as National Biodiversity Network Trust, UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, and local environmental groups.
• Collaborate with teams: Youll work closely with teams across Natural England, Defra, and other NCEA Partners, to ensure everyone follows best practice, continuously improving the way we handle data and utilise evidence across the organisation.
• Shape future strategy: You will help influence how biological data recording is managed in the future, working with Defra, other government departments, and external organisations.

Key performance measures:

• Agreements, projects, programmes and advice delivered to agreed budgets and timelines.
• Outcomes support NE Strategy and Action Plan, and Science Evidence and Evaluation Strategy.
• Outputs deliver identified benefits / meet identified customer or improvement needs
• Influencing work delivery and focus of external partners.
• Investment in own capability and well-being

Key relationships

Senior Specialists work across the organisation, applying their specialist skills, experience, and knowledge to a wide range of subject areas, strategies, and programmes. Senior Specialists work closely with other organisations, such as DEFRA, other Government Departments, and external partners to identify new research to improve our evidence base. They provide evidence-based challenge to shape and influence policy and practice

Knowledge, Skills & Experience

• Detailed knowledge of responsible data use, including data management processes, and implementing improvements to drive innovation and achieve best practice.
• Experience of project delivery, including managing budgets, procurement, and contract management.
• Experience of the range of monitoring techniques and environmental evidence used across the environmental sector, and their policy context.
• Experience working closely with Intellectual Property Rights or Data Licensing and adherence to datas terms of use.
• Ability to apply effective communications skills (verbal and written) in communicating about their specialism to multiple audiences (staff, public, stakeholders, scientific/technical groups).
• Experienced in producing impactful evidence, reflecting their understanding of Natural Englands and partners needs.
• Experience of building and leading networks and establishing effective working relationships with a wide range of colleagues, partners, and stakeholders

Benefits

At Natural England, we support a healthy work-life balance by offering full-time, part-time, and flexible working arrangements.

We provide excellent opportunities for career progression, training, and development tailored to your role. This includes ten days annually for personal learning and development, plus three additional days for volunteering.

Youll receive a generous leave allowance of 25 days per year (pro rata), increasing by one day for each year of service up to 30 days (pro-rata), access to the Civil Service Pension scheme with a 28.97% employer contribution, and a range of benefits such as shopping discounts and a cycle-to-work scheme. Staff can also join the Civil Service Sport club for discounts on sports, leisure activities, and social events.

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