Wildlife Field Team Manager ID:3205
| Posting date: | 15 April 2025 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £33,590 per year |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 12 May 2025 |
| Location: | Stroud |
| Company: | Government Recruitment Service |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 401110/1 |
Summary
We are looking for compassionate, dedicated individuals who strive for excellence and integrity, who are passionate about supporting the British farming industry and ensuring healthy wildlife populations.
Are you conscientious and an excellent team worker who is confident leading and managing a team?
Do you enjoy working outside?
If the answer is ‘yes’, we would love to hear from you!
We currently have an exciting opportunity in the Wildlife Team for Field Staff to operate nationally. This post will form part of a team of field staff to assist with delivering vaccination of badgers against TB and related work, mainly field-based activities such as badger sett and activity surveys. At HEO grade, you will also be supervising your own small team at EO grade undertaking the same duties.
The Wildlife Team are contractually based at the Woodchester Park location in Gloucestershire, although teams may operate from other designated APHA locations (The project management office for this work is located in Gloucestershire).
This is an important part of supporting implementation of the Government’s TB Strategy, and we are looking for highly motivated individuals with a willingness to travel and work away from home regularly and with a strong appetite for wildlife-related outdoors work. This role requires substantial and regular travel to various destinations within England throughout the year.
You will spend most of your time between May and end of November undertaking badger vaccination fieldwork, which is taking place in a wide geographic spread of counties across England. You would be expected to regularly work away for continuous 3 week periods (for each trapping and vaccination round). Turn-around time between three-week vaccination rounds may be short at times. Where vaccination areas are close to your home location you may be able to carry out some vaccination rounds within reasonable daily travel and we will always endeavour to match staff home locations to project areas to minimize travel however the expectation would be that there would be a substantial requirement for away working in these roles.
From December to April inclusive, you will be undertaking other badger-related duties mainly consisting of conducting field surveys (again, across a range of counties as required by project needs therefore potentially requiring further travel and staying away from home) and potentially other activities related to estimating and monitoring badger numbers some of which may involve periods of deskwork. Ability to satisfy this mobility requirement of the roles is therefore essential.
Suitable vehicles will be provided for this work on a business-use only basis and related expenses will be covered. Vehicles will be kept at the designated APHA office and collected by team members from site although in certain circumstances permission can be sought to keep a vehicle at home overnight (for example during vaccination mornings when working anti-social hours). Regular attendance at the designated APHA office will be necessary. Some training may take place elsewhere. Please note that journeys to/from the designated APHA office will be at your own expense and in your own time.
This is a great opportunity to gain new skills and valuable experience of wildlife-related fieldwork. If you are already a trained badger vaccinator or experienced in surveying for badgers, it is an opportunity to substantially employ those skills. The Woodchester Park unit delivers a range of mainly badger-related wildlife research, scientific, technical, and field-based services and projects for Defra’s TB policy team and Welsh Government. This supports the implementation of strategies to tackle TB. The unit at Woodchester Park has at its heart a well-established scientific study that enables research into TB and badger ecology and the maintenance of a high standard of key skill sets and expertise.
The wider wildlife team, based at Woodchester Park and Sand Hutton (in York), is involved in a range of research activities, primarily focused on wildlife health and management across a wide variety of species therefore there may be opportunity/ business need to work across a wider range of species. The HEO role will both deliver the relevant fieldwork as above and also act as supervisor and line manager for a small team at EO grade undertaking the same kind of fieldwork.
- Field staff will generally work alone but as part of an overall team to deliver vaccination campaigns and field survey and monitoring work.
- Vaccination projects are ongoing across counties in the South West, Midlands and North East currently, however there is the potential for the team to be asked to deliver new vaccination campaigns in any counties of England, as directed by changing policy needs. It is therefore critical that the postholder is geographically flexible and willing and able to travel and work away from home regularly for this role.
- You will be responsible for your own vaccination rounds (normally lasting 3 weeks per round end to end), and including trapping, welfare assessment, vaccinating and then releasing the animals.
- As a field team manager you would be responsible for the line management of a small team of EO field staff including regular 1:1s, carrying out competency checks, attendance and performance management.
- Working with the Project Management Office and other field managers you would be responsible for detailed planning of year round field operations.
- During vaccination rounds you would be the main point of contact for a team of EO field staff (not necessarily all within your own line management chain depending on staff allocations to project areas), maintaining oversight over field operations, distributing vaccine and paperwork.
- You will be required to work closely with the Project Management Office to plan fieldwork, provide updates on progress and to input into work planning and communication to the team.
- Some office or desk-based work will likely be necessary shortly before the start of, and after the end of fieldwork as well as ongoing administrative duties required year-round e.g. mandatory training, submitting timecards and vehicle log sheets.
- During the closed season other desk-based duties will likely include reviewing images from wildlife cameras
- Although this role is predominantly field based there is a requirement for good IT skills as all time-recording and expenses are submitted online and project documentation and standard operating procedures are all accessed online.
- Mandatory online and face to face training must be completed; this includes induction training and staying up to date with regular training requirements. Additional training to support your role as a line manager will also be required.
- Data collection in the field (for example recording outcomes of trapping activities) is app-based data recording
- Necessary equipment for the field work, including a laptop and mobile phone, will be provided, as will a suitable vehicle for business purposes only.
- You will need to undertake relevant training and familiarisation with how this work is done (passing a competency assessment) and will be expected to adhere strictly to trained methodologies and APHA standard operating procedures.
- You will be expected to regularly attend your designated APHA office for team meetings with the project management office, line managers and colleagues. MS Teams can also be used, for example if you are working away from Woodchester Park.
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