Experienced Freelance Ecologist

Experienced Freelance Ecologists WANTED – Arbtech Associates Programme

Are you an experienced ecologist looking for a way to work on your own terms, and select only the jobs that appeal to you from a wide range of opportunities? You could be freelance already, or perhaps work in a consulting, regulatory or conservation role, and want to boost your experience and income?

Unbelievably, in the last nine months alone, Arbtech has quoted on over 36,000 surveys and won more than 11,000 of them. For tree, ecology and BNG services, we truly are the UK’s most trusted consultant by the planning and development sector.

While the overwhelming majority of our work is undertaken by our 120-strong team of directly employed staff, we still rely upon a close-knit team of trusted Associates (sub-consultants), to help us cope with the demand for our services, so that our clients’ projects are kept moving (all year, not just seasonally).

Consequently, we’re inviting applications to join our Associates Programme from experienced ecologists anywhere in the UK!

Nota bene that we advertise for bat emergence survey freelancing separately. For more details on these and other seasonal roles in 2025, please visit the current vacancies section of our website.

Why become an Arbtech Associate?

Becoming an associate is a great way to earn generous survey payments on an ad-hoc basis, fitting surveys around your life and other work, as and when you choose. As an Arbtech Associate you will get:

• Transparent fees structure – for any work you decide to accept, you’ll get paid a defined, fixed percentage of our fees, every time; meaning you’ll never need to waste your time quoting against other people and there’s never any haggling or messing about.
• Rapid payment – we understand that cash is king to any small business, so our finance team do a weekly pay run for our Associates.
• Plain English T&Cs – our Associates get a plain English sub-consultancy agreement with no nasties buried in the small print. In fact, there is no small print!
• Flexible arrangements – pick the locations that you like, and the surveys that interest you. Do as much or as little as you want! There’s no obligation to take work from us so you have nothing to lose by becoming an Associate.
• Large volumes of opportunities – unless you live in an extremely far-flung part of the UK, the opportunities to earn extra income or grow your business are without parallel!
• Varied work across a range of ecological disciplines – no getting pigeonholed into one survey type (unless you want to be, of course!)
• Access to in-house CPD and training materials – get access to the same in-house training and materials that our permanent staff benefit from. And better, why not join us on multi-day masterclasses with industry heavyweights, and other CPD opportunities?
• Covered by our £5m PI – we recommend that you have your own professional indemnity insurance and for those that do, the rate of pay is slightly higher, but we can cover you under our own insurance if you prefer.

What surveys can I do?

Arbtech undertakes all types of terrestrial and aquatic ecology work, around the UK, from which our Associates can pick and choose. Typically, our Associates can demonstrate competence* in one or more of the following types of ecological assessment. Of course, the more of these you can do, the more opportunities you’ll be able to choose from.

• Preliminary ecological appraisal
• Preliminary roost assessment
• GCN, reptile, bird and mammals survey (all types)
• Protected species license writing
• BNG assessments and management plans
• Expert-level specialist reports

*We have several methods of determining competence depending upon the type of work you want to do, including but not limited to submitting examples of your recent work, joining us on site for a survey, and of course, a technical interview. In some cases – such as freelance bat emergence surveying, we have developed online training materials and assessments to validate your competence in line with the CIEEM competency framework and other best practice publications.

Is this the right option for me?

Our Associates need to be able to perform ecology surveys competently and independently, without significant training. We’ll help you learn to use our report templates, and our internal systems and processes, but expect you already know how to do the fieldwork and author a report or licence. For surveys that require a protected species licence, you will need to hold that license yourself.

Beyond that, our Associates need to be reliable, pro-active and self-organised and hold themselves to a high standard of fieldwork and report writing.

See what some of our associates have to say about work with Arbtech

“Subcontracting for Arbtech has been fantastic. I have the complete freedom to pick work as and when I want it, in locations that suit me and at times of my choosing. The head office team are amazing and provide brilliant support. I have got to see a wide variety of interesting sites and I am extremely excited to carry on working with Arbtech in the future” – Helen, Kent

Become an Arbtech Associate today!

Simply send us your CV, any recent examples of your work, your location and a list of the surveys you can do independently to dreamteam@arbtech.co.uk.

Please use the following format in your email subject: “[NAME] – ARBTECH ASSOCIATE”

We’ll arrange a brief chat to make sure the Associates Programme is right for you, and then we’ll be able onboard out to our system and offer you work.