Assistant Reserves Officer (Solent)

Salary: £23,000 - £25,000

Location: Curdridge, Southampton, Hampshire, SO32 2DP

Full Time: 35 Hours per Week

Fixed Term Contract for 12 Months

Closing date: 21 April 2025

Interviews: 29 April 2025

Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust is a grassroots movement working for nature's recovery and to bring people closer to nature. Our vision for a wilder future is beautiful and vital! We are seeking an Assistant Reserves Officer (Solent) to join our cause. As part of the Solent Estates team, you will be playing a key role in nature's recovery.

You will be helping to manage a range of nature reserves along Hampshire's South coast, focusing primarily on wader and wildfowl conservation. Working as part of a small team, you will be responsible for delivering practical land management covering nine nature reserves including two flagship sites, Farlington Marsh and Swanwick Lakes. You will help to manage nationally important and highly designated sites such as Farlington Marshes, as well as our other sites comprising of chalk streams, grasslands, flood meadows, lakes, and woodlands.

We routinely survey for butterflies, river flies, breeding waders and overwintering wildfowl, as well as other occasional biological and infrastructure surveys. This role requires a high level of practical competency, a broad understanding of ecology and habitats and good IT skills for routine admin.

The successful candidate will assist the Reserves Officer with day-to-day estate management and biological surveying. You will be responsible for leading volunteers on a varied and practical work programme whilst ensuring their welfare. This post is physically demanding and requires flexible working and occasional on-call hours. Experience with power tools, farm machinery and habitat management are essential. Good coastal bird identification is beneficial to the role but not essential. A full UK driving licence is required.

Wild About Inclusion! As an inclusive employer we recognise that our workforce needs to better reflect the communities in which we live and work. We encourage applications from all sections of the community, particularly those underrepresented within our sector, including people from black, Asian, minority ethnic backgrounds and people with disabilities. We are committed to creating a Movement that recognises and truly values individual differences and identities. We are proudly a Disability Confident Committed employer.

The scheme is helping us recruit and retain great people to meet our workforce needs. As a member of the scheme, we interview anyone with a disability whose application meets the essential criteria for the role. You can request this and adjustments including accessible formats of this vacancy.

We offer a wide range of benefits including a competitive salary, generous annual leave allowance, a contributory pension scheme, life assurance, learning and development support, 24-hour access to our employee assistance programme, discounted staff travel with our corporate partners Wightlink (subject to T&Cs) and more.

To apply for the role, please click on the 'Apply Now' button at the top of the page. In the supporting information section, you'll need to demonstrate, with detailed examples, how you meet the job requirements using the Job Description and Recruitment Pack below.