Natural England
Marine Senior Officer - Sussex and Kent - ( Ref : 6690 )
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South East England
Job Summary
This position is based at Ashford or Worthing
Job Description
Join us in shaping a future where nature and people thrive. Whether you're drawn to hands-on conservation or playing a vital part behind the scenes, your work at Natural England will support lasting benefits for the environment and society.
Our Role
Natural England is the Government’s 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 England’s Strategy: Recovering Nature for Growth, Health and Security - GOV.UK
Job Description
Sussex & Kent area team are looking for a Marine Senior Officer to lead our marine nature recovery work, who will play an important strategic leadership role, working to reduce key pressures to enable nature recovery at sea.
As a Senior Officer you will fulfil a key leadership role and will be expected to be a role model for Natural England’s ways of working and help drive the changes needed to deliver Natural England’s Strategy. The role holder will have experience of statutory marine delivery work, and knowledge of current European and UK policies and legislative frameworks for the marine environment and have a drive to work in collaboration internally and with external partners.
The role requires strong organisational and communication skills, and experience of motivating, supporting, or developing others and experience of working with partners. Regular travel across Sussex and Kent is required to meet colleagues, visit sites, and engage with stakeholders, with patterns varying depending on project needs.
The role will sit within our Resilient Landscapes and Seas team alongside our Protected Sites colleagues and is an exciting opportunity to deliver a real difference for marine nature recovery.
Key Tasks/Principal Accountabilities
The successful candidate will:
- Demonstrate expertise in the delivery of marine statutory casework
- Lead a small team to support effective casework handling and delivery of evidence-based advice in a timely manner
- Lead your team to deliver Marine Protected Area cycle work, which includes marine monitoring, condition assessment, conservation advice and designations.
- Lead NE’s fisheries work with Sussex IFCA and provide a supporting role for Kent & Essex IFCA. This includes coordinating committee attendance and leading NE’s statutory consultation responses.
- Support internal collaborative working between terrestrial, coastal and marine colleagues, sharing learning and identifying opportunities for continuous improvement.
- Oversee and proactively engage with key partners to ensure effective communications and excellent stakeholder relationships.
- Develop capability and capacity of your team through mentoring, coaching and contributing to relevant learning and development opportunities
- Participate in the relevant internal networks to ensure that marine delivery targets are met; exchanging information and best practice; and identifying more effective ways of working by collating lessons learnt.
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Knowledge, Skills & Experience
- Relevant degree or equivalent qualification and experience.
- Strong knowledge of ecology processes and biodiversity relevant to UK waters and coast particularly in Sussex and Kent.
- Strong experience of applied knowledge and evidence of providing expert advice to customers and stakeholders, ideally relevant to marine and terrestrial protected sites e.g. for designation, monitoring or delivering marine casework.
- Strong knowledge of current European and domestic policies, legislative frameworks and drivers for the marine environment and coastal zone combined with a practical understanding of UK Marine Protected Areas and the roles and responsibilities of key marine and coastal stakeholders.
- Effective communication and collaboration abilities to identify and implement opportunities to improve ways of working and support internal and external relationships.
- Experience of supporting team members knowledge and building experience to aid staff to deliver on key strategic objectives.
- Technical expertise relevant to Marine Protected Areas, in particular around monitoring, regulations and designations.
- Understanding of statutory fisheries work.
- Knowledge of Sussex and Kent marine habitats and Marine Protected Areas and other Designated Sites.
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.
You’ll 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.
We are committed to fairness, equality, and inclusivity. Our employee-led diversity networks help foster a welcoming environment where everyone feels valued and supported.
Locations
Natural England has adopted hybrid working – which means our staff work from a flexible range of locations, encompassing home, offices (ours and our partners) and relevant sites. All new staff will be formally linked to one of our 25 offices across England, and the expectation is that all new staff will be able to access their local office to be part of the community of staff in their geographical area. Staff are expected to attend their associated office for 20% of their contractual hours.
Staff members are required to carry out all their duties working in this way and cannot do so from an overseas location at any time. Travel expenses will be paid if work-related travel is required but does not apply to travel between home and your associated office.
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National team roles can be linked with any Natural England office while Area Team roles will be linked with an office in the relevant geographic area.
View a map of our office locations here: online map of Natural England office locations
Pay
It is Natural England policy to employ at the entry point of the salary range.
You will become an active member of the relevant local leadership community, the group of senior Natural England staff in each of the localities across England who we ask to provide support and co-ordination for the local group of staff.
How To Apply
We welcome and encourage applications from all communities. Natural England is accredited to the Disability Confident Scheme, which denotes organisations which have a positive attitude towards disabled people. Disabled applicants who meet the minimum requirements for the role at the shortlisting stage are guaranteed an invitation to interview.
If you require a reasonable adjustment at interview, or there is anything else you would like the panel to take into consideration, you should notify us of this at application stage where possible, or well in advance of your interview. We now provide primary interview questions in advance for all formal recruitments.
This vacancy uses competency-based assessment. We'll assess you against the competencies below during the selection process. Please be aware that we reserve the right for roles that receive a high volume of applications to initially sift applications for one competence only.
- Technical Skills and Knowledge
- Personal Effectiveness
- Putting People at the Heart of the Environment
- Work Delivery
When completing the application form you should present relevant examples using the STAR format. Give us an example of how you have demonstrated the competency (which can be work related or from another area of your life) and tell us about the Situation, the specific Task you had to undertake, the specific Actions you took, and the Result (both immediate and in a wider context) of your Action.
Please note that STAR format is not required when answering the Technical Skills & Knowledge competency.
Examples should be given in no more than 250 words for each competency.
If you are successful at the shortlisting stage, you will be invited to attend an interview via MS Teams or a suitable alternative, where you will be asked to give examples for all competencies as set out in the Job Description.
As with all roles in NE, these roles require office attendance of a minimum of 20% of the working time – one day per week for those who work full time, subject to any reasonable adjustments and/or existing contractual homeworking.
Additional Information
You are expected to hold a relevant degree or equivalent experience, and to have the following professional competencies:
Competencies
Competence 1
Professional competency
Technical Skills and Knowledge:
- An expert in marine environmental policy, issues and potential solutions. (Essential)
- Proven skills in creating and building networks/partnerships in the marine context. (Essential)
- Ability to effectively influence senior decision-makers in the public, private and third sectors. (Essential)
- Can analyse and communicate complex systems thinking in accessible formats to a range of audiences. (Essential)
- Technical expertise relevant to Marine Protected Areas, in particular around monitoring, regulations and designations. (Desirable)
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