6577 - ichem Senior Data Scientist/ Data Analysist
| Posting date: | 01 June 2026 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £39,660 per year |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 26 June 2026 |
| Location: | UK |
| Remote working: | Hybrid - work remotely up to 4 days per week |
| Company: | Natural England |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 6577 |
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
The Role
This role is an opportunity to provide expert data analytics and management to support delivery of the iChem project, which is developing, embedding and reporting on the terrestrial indicator under the EIP Outcome Indicator Framework.
Natural England leads on this indicator, which focuses on exposure and adverse effects of chemicals on wildlife in the terrestrial environment.
Chemical pollution is one of the top five drivers of biodiversity loss. The Government’s ambition to address chemical impacts is reflected through the ambitious Environment Act, 25 Year
Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP). This is a growing high-profile topic in both public and political spheres.
Natural England has a statutory and non-statutory role to play with regards to evidence and advice on chemical impacts to the natural environment. We work closely with the lead authorities on managing chemical risk from production and use, i.e. Defra, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Environment Agency (EA).
Working closely with other specialists, you will interpret evidence to provide expert, practical advice across Natural England, while also working with external partners to enhance the evidence base and achieve environmental outcomes to support delivery of the 25 Year EIP
Key Tasks/Principal Accountabilities
We are seeking someone with expert data analysis skills and with experience of data management. You must be confident in working internally across Natural England and externally with partners and stakeholders. In addition, an understanding of chemicals and ecotoxicology impacts on wildlife, habitats, and risk-assessment approaches would be desirable. You will need to continually track data process / pipeline for H4 and ichem, refine data QA process/ requirements and arrange licensing and sharing agreements.
Specific responsibilities will develop and change over time, and the post holder will need to maintain a flexible and adaptable attitude and approach. Initial broad work areas are described below:
Lead and carry out complex data and spatial analyses to meet the evidence needs of a variety of Natural England, Defra group and other stakeholders.
Put in place project data standards, processes and systems to ensure outputs are high-quality and robust, including through good documentation, automation and refinement of QA processes and requirements.
Engage with customers and partners to identify and exploit opportunities for improving the evidence base, including application of chemical monitoring data alongside NE protected sites data for NE purposes.
Liaise with project managers, teams and relevant partners to support project planning and delivery, including arranging licensing and data sharing agreements and contributing to supplier specifications.
Work with a range of large-scale spatial and non-spatial biological and environmental datasets, including maintaining data pipelines, producing summary statistics and data analysis outputs using compatible R scripts, and supporting organisational requirements such as Freedom of Information requests.
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), 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.
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
The Role
This role is an opportunity to provide expert data analytics and management to support delivery of the iChem project, which is developing, embedding and reporting on the terrestrial indicator under the EIP Outcome Indicator Framework.
Natural England leads on this indicator, which focuses on exposure and adverse effects of chemicals on wildlife in the terrestrial environment.
Chemical pollution is one of the top five drivers of biodiversity loss. The Government’s ambition to address chemical impacts is reflected through the ambitious Environment Act, 25 Year
Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP). This is a growing high-profile topic in both public and political spheres.
Natural England has a statutory and non-statutory role to play with regards to evidence and advice on chemical impacts to the natural environment. We work closely with the lead authorities on managing chemical risk from production and use, i.e. Defra, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Environment Agency (EA).
Working closely with other specialists, you will interpret evidence to provide expert, practical advice across Natural England, while also working with external partners to enhance the evidence base and achieve environmental outcomes to support delivery of the 25 Year EIP
Key Tasks/Principal Accountabilities
We are seeking someone with expert data analysis skills and with experience of data management. You must be confident in working internally across Natural England and externally with partners and stakeholders. In addition, an understanding of chemicals and ecotoxicology impacts on wildlife, habitats, and risk-assessment approaches would be desirable. You will need to continually track data process / pipeline for H4 and ichem, refine data QA process/ requirements and arrange licensing and sharing agreements.
Specific responsibilities will develop and change over time, and the post holder will need to maintain a flexible and adaptable attitude and approach. Initial broad work areas are described below:
Lead and carry out complex data and spatial analyses to meet the evidence needs of a variety of Natural England, Defra group and other stakeholders.
Put in place project data standards, processes and systems to ensure outputs are high-quality and robust, including through good documentation, automation and refinement of QA processes and requirements.
Engage with customers and partners to identify and exploit opportunities for improving the evidence base, including application of chemical monitoring data alongside NE protected sites data for NE purposes.
Liaise with project managers, teams and relevant partners to support project planning and delivery, including arranging licensing and data sharing agreements and contributing to supplier specifications.
Work with a range of large-scale spatial and non-spatial biological and environmental datasets, including maintaining data pipelines, producing summary statistics and data analysis outputs using compatible R scripts, and supporting organisational requirements such as Freedom of Information requests.
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), 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.