6382 - Principal Officer - Development Plan Delivery
| Posting date: | 02 February 2026 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £51,000 per year |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 15 February 2026 |
| Location: | UK |
| Remote working: | Hybrid - work remotely up to 4 days per week |
| Company: | Natural England |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 6382 |
Summary
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
The Team
This is an exciting opportunity to join a busy team at the forefront of delivery, as Natural England seeks to deliver major government planning reforms, supporting our ambition for a healthy natural environment that underpins sustainable growth, supporting greener homes and infrastructure that create healthier nature-rich places for people to live, learn, work and play.
The Major Planning Casework Team sits within National Delivery and provides national leadership, coordination and support for Natural England’s engagement with major planning casework, including development plans, nationally significant projects and other complex, high‑risk casework. The team works across the organisation and external partners to ensure planning systems support nature recovery and achieve Natural England’s ambition for thriving nature for people and planet.
Development plans (Local Plans and Spatial Development Strategies) represent some of Natural England’s most strategically important planning work, shaping the future of places before development proposals come forward. National Delivery plays a critical role in overseeing a pipeline of development plan work delivered by area teams, ensuring we provide high‑quality, timely, advice, prioritising our resource and enabling growth and nature recovery through strategic advice.
The Role
This is a new leadership role providing national oversight, operational coordination and strategic direction for the delivery of Natural England’s development plan work within National Delivery.
The postholder will:
Champion development plan work as a key mechanism for nature recovery, promoting the value of proactive plan‑shaping internally and externally.
Lead national oversight of a pipeline of Local Plans and Spatial Development Strategies (SDS), ensuring Natural England has a clear, coherent understanding of scale, timing, risks and opportunities across England.
Ensure prioritisation and resourcing of development plan casework across Natural England, making sure that specialist time is deployed where it adds most value.
Provide leadership and assurance on development plan delivery, ensuring consistent approaches, high‑quality advice, and effective risk management across the delivery.
Act as the national coordination point, working with Area Team leads, specialists, Operations Managers, and Strategy colleagues to ensure that the organisation is aligned and that development plan commitments are delivered.
Support and guide Area Teams, providing escalation routes, setting expectations and enabling teams to deliver high‑impact, evidence‑led advice on plan‑
Drive improvements to operational systems, including forward planning, tracking tools, prioritisation frameworks, and national standards for development plan casework.
The role requires strategic operational leadership, excellent judgement, strong stakeholder engagement skills, and deep understanding of the opportunities plan‑making offers for nature at landscape scale.
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
The Team
This is an exciting opportunity to join a busy team at the forefront of delivery, as Natural England seeks to deliver major government planning reforms, supporting our ambition for a healthy natural environment that underpins sustainable growth, supporting greener homes and infrastructure that create healthier nature-rich places for people to live, learn, work and play.
The Major Planning Casework Team sits within National Delivery and provides national leadership, coordination and support for Natural England’s engagement with major planning casework, including development plans, nationally significant projects and other complex, high‑risk casework. The team works across the organisation and external partners to ensure planning systems support nature recovery and achieve Natural England’s ambition for thriving nature for people and planet.
Development plans (Local Plans and Spatial Development Strategies) represent some of Natural England’s most strategically important planning work, shaping the future of places before development proposals come forward. National Delivery plays a critical role in overseeing a pipeline of development plan work delivered by area teams, ensuring we provide high‑quality, timely, advice, prioritising our resource and enabling growth and nature recovery through strategic advice.
The Role
This is a new leadership role providing national oversight, operational coordination and strategic direction for the delivery of Natural England’s development plan work within National Delivery.
The postholder will:
Champion development plan work as a key mechanism for nature recovery, promoting the value of proactive plan‑shaping internally and externally.
Lead national oversight of a pipeline of Local Plans and Spatial Development Strategies (SDS), ensuring Natural England has a clear, coherent understanding of scale, timing, risks and opportunities across England.
Ensure prioritisation and resourcing of development plan casework across Natural England, making sure that specialist time is deployed where it adds most value.
Provide leadership and assurance on development plan delivery, ensuring consistent approaches, high‑quality advice, and effective risk management across the delivery.
Act as the national coordination point, working with Area Team leads, specialists, Operations Managers, and Strategy colleagues to ensure that the organisation is aligned and that development plan commitments are delivered.
Support and guide Area Teams, providing escalation routes, setting expectations and enabling teams to deliver high‑impact, evidence‑led advice on plan‑
Drive improvements to operational systems, including forward planning, tracking tools, prioritisation frameworks, and national standards for development plan casework.
The role requires strategic operational leadership, excellent judgement, strong stakeholder engagement skills, and deep understanding of the opportunities plan‑making offers for nature at landscape scale.