Hydrometry & Telemetry Officer in Slough

The role involves playing a key part in a collaborative team delivering essential Hydrometry and Telemetry (H&T) services across Operations North and the Upper Severn area. This is an opportunity to contribute directly to the reliability and performance of a vital hydrometric network that supports critical work in Water Resources, Flood Risk Management, and a wide range of internal and external data users.

In this hands-on role, you'll help ensure the network remains fully operational, accurate, and compliant with current standards. Your responsibilities will include:

• Data acquisition
• Site maintenance
• Installation and calibration of hydrometric and telemetry equipment
• Ensuring high-quality data is consistently available to inform decision-making

The position will primarily focus on supporting the hydrometric network within the River Dee and River Severn catchments, offering a varied and rewarding workload across diverse locations. You will be expected to participate in standby and call out rota to ensure effective, efficient, timely and safe responses to incidents.

Reporting to the Hydrometry and Telemetry Team Leader (North), this role offers flexible base locations across the North East or Upper Severn area. Driving is essential to this role as it requires visiting a network of sites. You must hold a full and current UK driving license. The ability to swim is also a requirement of this role.

As an organisation, we support flexible working. You will be contracted to an NRW office within the place base/location above, and a suitable hybrid working pattern will be agreed upon appointment. Any regular face-to-face meetings or training will be planned in advance.

About us: We are a team of 10 specialists delivering Hydrometry and Telemetry services across the North and Upper Severn areas. Working within the Place and Service Directorate, we support the North West, North East and Upper Severn catchments as part of the North East Wales Place. Together with our National Hydrometry and Telemetry colleagues, we provide a seamless Wales-wide service to internal and external customers.

Our work focuses on collecting and managing vital data on river levels, flows, rainfall and groundwater from a diverse network of monitoring sites. We also ensure our equipment and sites are maintained to the highest standards, with safety at the heart of everything we do.

What you will do:

• Ensure that all hydrometric data is acquired and transferred in a secure, timely and accurate manner for customers.
• Ensure the Wellbeing Health and Safety of yourself, team and public in every aspect of working within H&T.
• Support others within the H&T team in all aspects of hydrometric network management.
• Calibration of monitoring equipment; channel flow measurement; site maintenance; installation of monitoring equipment; data input to hydrometric archive (WISKI).
• Work to a defined team workplan to meet the team objectives and Service Level Agreements in place.
• Respond as instructed from within the team to assist in the coordination of fault finding and repair of telemetry outstation equipment when there is disruption to the Flood Warning Service or Water Management sites.
• Develop and maintain a strong internal/external customer focus; build effective relationships and work well within the team and with partners to achieve environmental goals.
• Support the H&T Team as required in delivery and development of annual work plans, standards and working practices.
• Assist with onsite installation of new small scale hydrometric sites, ensuring all customer needs are met in a timely, safe and efficient manner, and in line with CDM regulations.
• Undertake health and safety duties and responsibilities appropriate to the post.
• Be committed to Natural Resources Wales Equal Opportunities and Diversity Policy.
• Be committed to your own development through the effective use of your personal development plan.
• Required to take part in incident response activities.
• Any other reasonable duties requested commensurate with the grade of this role.

Your qualifications, experience, knowledge and skills:

• Educated to degree level or equivalent in a scientific or engineering subject, and ideally some experience in a similar job type role.
• Good communicator with effective interpersonal skills and a strong team worker.
• Sound awareness and understanding of Health and Safety and relevant regulations.
• Understanding of Hydrometry and Telemetry work, systems and how the team fits into NRW's approach to Water Management and Flood Risk.
• Demonstrate a flexible approach to work and be able to prioritise workload.
• A basic awareness of the British, European and International Standards relating to Hydrometry.
• A full and valid UK driving license.
• Ability to swim and be confident working in water.
• Welsh Language level requirements: Essential: Level A1 - Entry level Welsh language levels.

Please note if you do not meet the A1 requirement, NRW offers a variety of learning options and staff support to help you meet these minimal requirements during the course of your employment with us.

Additional Information:

• Successful applicants will be subject to a satisfactory Disclosure and Barring Service Check (DBS).
• Appointments are normally made within 4 to 8 weeks of the closing date.

Benefits:

• Civil Service Pension Scheme offering employer contributions of 28.97%.
• 28 days annual leave, rising to 33 days.
• Generous leave entitlements for all your life needs.
• Commitment to professional development.
• Health and wellbeing benefits and support.
• Weekly wellbeing hour to use as you choose.

We are passionate about creating a diverse workforce and positively encourage applications from under-represented communities. We embrace equality of opportunity irrespective of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. We are committed to equal opportunities, and we guarantee interviews for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

We want to attract and retain talented and highly skilled staff, so we make sure that our pay scales remain competitive. We advertise the full pay scale on our job descriptions. Appointed candidates start at the first point of the pay scale and annual increments are paid each year.

We want our staff to grow professionally and personally. From leadership development to access to further and higher education courses, our staff have opportunities to expand their knowledge on a variety of topics, stay current in their field and continue to learn as their career progresses.

We are a Bilingual organisation which complies with the Welsh Language Standards. Welsh language skills are considered an asset to NRW, and we encourage and support staff to learn, develop and use their Welsh language skills.