Natural England
Nature Restoration Fund Conservation Measure Delivery Senior Officer - ( Ref : 6737 )
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Job Summary
This position is based Nationally
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:
This role is a rare opportunity to play a part to bring about systematic change to the planning system and planning casework.
We’re looking for motivated team players to join a unique, high-profile cross-Government Funding Programme — the Nature Restoration Fund (NRF). You’ll be part of a fast paced, supportive and creative team committed to influencing policy that will help to deliver sustainable growth and meaningful nature recovery.
The NRF is designed to accelerate development while introducing innovative mechanisms that can extend significant and targeted environmental protection that drives nature’s recovery. It will offer a flexible, scalable approach to delivering environmental improvements where development impacts protected sites or species. Through Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs), the NRF will identify strategic, landscape-scale conservation measures to ensure better outcomes for nature.
The pace is fast, the challenges are significant, and adaptability is key — but the opportunity to contribute to this ambitious programme is hugely rewarding. We are a supportive and caring team that champions collaborative, agile working, bold ambition, and fresh, innovative thinking. If this sounds like the kind of environment you thrive in, we’d love to hear from you.
Key tasks and accountabilities
- Work with internal and external partners and stakeholders to procure, source and deliver conservation measures; building partnerships for Nature’s recovery.
- Lead areas of Environmental Delivery Plan development and progress opportunities to build robust evidence bases to support them
- Provide technical advice and data analysis to Defra and MHCLG to support NE’s response to emerging NRF related policies, briefs and risks.
- Lead technical assessment of delivery of conservation measures
- Ensure procurement policies align with legal and regulatory requirements and generate reports on compliance and risk, where required.
- Build effective relationships with other Government Department colleagues alongside key partners and stakeholders, developers and industry groups.
- Build capability in the team and organisation through sharing expertise on best practice approaches, technical details and advice.
- Be prepared to work flexibly to deliver ad-hoc outcomes as required in a high pressure and fast-moving change environment.
- Identify opportunities for improvement and creation of procedures and frameworks.
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Skills And Knowledge
- Knowledge of commercial processes and legislation that underpins procurement/sourcing of conservation measures (Essential)
- Applies scientific/analysis knowledge to provide sound, data-based evidence to our internal and external stakeholders (Essential).
- Good IT data analysis skills, especially Excel (Essential).
- Demonstrate an ability to lead within a certain area that supports change, embraces challenge and adapts work practices to positively contribute to the Nature Restoration Fund outcomes (Essential).
- Knowledge of the Nature Restoration Fund, and the underpinning legislation (Desirable)
- Technical expertise and application of developing strategic approaches to solutions to enable sustainable development (Desirable)
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 (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.
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
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It is Natural England policy to employ at the entry point of the salary range.
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
- Knowledge of commercial processes and legislation that underpins procurement/sourcing of conservation measures (Essential)
- Applies scientific/analysis knowledge to provide sound, data-based evidence to our internal and external stakeholders (Essential).
- Good IT Data Analysis Skills, Especially Excel (Essential).
- Demonstrate an ability to lead within a certain area that supports change, embraces challenge and adapts work practices to positively contribute to the Nature Restoration Fund outcomes (Essential).
Work Delivery
- Manage and deliver your work to meet agreed targets and deadlines (Expert)
- Handle data responsibly, understand your role in good governance, and comply with delegations, policies and procedures (Practitioner)
- Identify and apply the most appropriate data and methodologies for your analysis, utilising reproducible analytical pipelines and data science approaches where appropriate (Practitioner)
Personal Effectiveness
- Use clear and appropriate language, communication styles and techniques that engage your audience (Practitioner)
- Make and explain objective decisions which combine your professional judgement and evidence (Expert)
Putting People at the Heart of the Environment
- Nurture trusting partnerships and collaborate to achieve pragmatic outcomes that help deliver Natural England’s vision, mission and aims (Practitioner)
- Work proactively and collaboratively with stakeholders and partners to identify and secure opportunities to deliver gains for people and nature (Practitioner)
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
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