Senior Reserve, Manager National Nature Reserve, Castle Eden Dene – ( Ref : 6550 )

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. 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.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide strategic leadership to deliver Natural England ambitions and drive the NNR agenda, across reserves on a landscape scale.
• Develop, review and deliver NNR management plans along with Area Team staff and partners and lead the development and implementation of NNR work programmes providing strategic leadership, setting priorities and risk management.
• Be responsible for delivering high value and strategically complex work programmes on the NNR cluster, dealing with challenging and complex external issues.
• Be a champion for ambition and implement strategic direction for engagement, delivery and visitor experience across NNR groups that aligns with national strategic and programme priorities.
• Seek opportunity to link into wider partnership ambitions and promote inclusion with diverse audiences.
• Provide functional (and/or) line management to NNR staff and volunteers including responsibility for H&S across the reserves.
• Manage budgets and seek external funding and income generating opportunities, identify long term strategic resource requirements and work with teams to ensure spend is tracked and audited.
• Lead procurement processes relating to the spend of programme budgets and provision of capital goods and services including project management of capital works.
• Implement Health & Safety (H&S) Frameworks and Legislation, provide leadership of a safe working practice culture to all staff, ensuring robust management of all H&S risks pertinent to activities undertaken on the NNR are in place and controlled.
• Develop opportunities for local and regional networks and partnerships across NNR delivery, including with Approved Body partners and other potential NNR managing partners seeking mutual benefits.
• Identify opportunities for local NNR science, research, evidence and monitoring to support or contribute to wider organisational evidence priorities and programmes.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Leadership (essential) – ability to line manage and develop others and manage volunteers in a remote setting to achieve good environmental outcomes. Motivate individuals and groups and use coaching and a range of engagement styles.
• H&S (essential) – Including risk assessment and management. Ability to demonstrate good judgement and decision making in complex situations.
• Collaborating and partnerships (essential) – demonstrates honesty and integrity, steers, or leads NE’s contribution to existing partnerships, has skills for issue resolution. Understands partners’ objectives and needs; can apply strategic thinking to identify the potential for new partnerships/relationships and negotiating skills to establish them.
• Work delivery (essential) – ability to manage complex, landscape scale or Area Team (AT) – wide NNR projects and programmes. Evaluate and assess priorities between NNR groups and balance NNR resources across their area of responsibility. Working with Reserve Managers, ensure delivery is on time and to budget.
• Technical skills (essential) – knowledge of the purposes of NNRs, the principles of site selection and the mechanisms involved in tenure, declaration, and other relevant legal and regulatory processes. Strong understanding of the diversity of reserve activities and the types of methods, tools and equipment used. Competence in relevant IT. Budget management and planning skills, including external funding. Competence in prioritising and planning programmes of work across multiple sites and years.
• Environmental and organisational outcomes (desirable) – An understanding of (i) local, regional and national environmental issues; (ii) Local Nature Recovery.

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 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), 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.

Equal Opportunities

This job is broadly open to the following groups: UK nationals, nationals of the Republic of Ireland, nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK, nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre‑settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) and their family members who have made a valid application for settled or pre‑settled status under the EUSS, individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020, Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service.