Trading Standards Officer: Enforce Fair Trade in Whitby

Are you passionate about protecting residents and visitors from fraudulent and illegal practices? If so, we have an exciting opportunity to join our high quality, professional Trading Standards team whose focus is on delivering the most effective service for Staffordshire residents and businesses, whilst embracing intelligence led activity within a matrix working environment. Our team of dedicated officers work hard to maintain the integrity of the food chain and keep people safe and well.

The Trading Standards service has responsibility for the enforcement of regulation across a wide variety of areas and almost three hundred pieces of legislation. The service aims to support businesses to grow by ensuring a sustainable trading environment through the provision of compliance advice whilst taking robust enforcement actions to keep people safe and protect vulnerable communities in Staffordshire from harm and/or financial loss.

Our Trading Standards Priorities:

• Prevention - working with partners to reduce offending.
• Supporting the local economy - enabling businesses to be compliant.
• Safeguarding - our most vulnerable residents.
• Enforcement - taking robust and proportionate action against offenders.

You will be based in Stafford with the opportunity to work flexibly subject to business requirements.

Main Responsibilities

As a Trading Standards Officer, you'll play a vital role in promoting a fair, safe, and lawful trading environment across Staffordshire. Your work will be varied, impactful, and community-focused. Here’s a glimpse of what you might be doing:

• Maintaining Food Standards: Conducting regular inspections of food businesses, including manufacturers, retailers, and caterers.
• Animal Health and Welfare Oversight: Inspecting farms and markets to uphold animal health and welfare standards, including animal licensing activities.
• Protecting the Public: Safeguarding vulnerable individuals and taking enforcement action when necessary.
• Preventing Harm and Detriment: Disrupting and investigating rogue traders and illegal doorstep activities, building criminal cases, and presenting evidence in court.
• Collaborating for Impact: Working with partners and stakeholders to enhance efficiency, recover costs, and generate income.
• Ensuring Product Safety: Conducting test purchases and sampling food, toys, cosmetics, electrical goods, and animal feed to ensure compliance with legal standards.
• Monitoring Trade Practices: Carrying out inspections both in-person and online of manufacturers and suppliers.
• Supporting Businesses: Advising companies on how to trade fairly and comply with regulations.
• Fighting Fraud and Scams: Partnering with other agencies to protect consumers and businesses from deceptive practices.

The Ideal Candidate

You’ll have enforcement experience and will preferably already hold a trading standards qualification (Diploma in Trading Standards or Consumer Affairs, Regulatory Compliance Officer or Trading Standards Practitioner Apprenticeship or similar, preferably with a recognised certificates of competence in Food Standards, Feed, Animal Health and Welfare, Animal Licensing Inspector Level 3 Award). However, we will also accept applications from part-qualified candidates with relevant enforcement experience, and we will offer support to continue personal training and development through to full qualification or equivalent.

We’re looking for someone who has:

• Experience of criminal investigation and completion of criminal investigation reports.
• Experience of Project working.
• Ability to manage conflict and difficult situations effectively.
• Excellent interpersonal skills to form effective diverse working relationships with colleagues and partners.
• In depth knowledge of Trading Standards matters, criminal, civil and procedural legislation.
• Aware of National and Local Government policy in regulatory services.

You will be expected to travel efficiently across Staffordshire and have a flexible approach to out-of-hours & weekend working, including out-of-hours rota.

What We Offer

As one of the region's largest employers, Staffordshire County Council offers a wide range of benefits and rewards to support your wellbeing and development.

• A supportive and inclusive working environment.
• Flexible working arrangements, including hybrid working.
• Generous annual leave and pension scheme.
• Ongoing professional development opportunities.

If this sounds like a good match to your skills, we look forward to hearing from you. In return we can offer you an exciting and diverse role which is rewarded with a competitive salary and benefits package within the high performing and supportive Trading Standards team.

Don’t feel you meet all the requirements? We value transferrable skills, experiences, and qualifications so for an informal chat about the role, please contact: Stephanie Young, Trading Standards Team Leader on 07773 791256 or email: stephanie.young@staffordshire.gov.uk

Interviews to be held on: Thursday 16th and Monday 20th April 2026.

Our Recruitment Process: We anonymise applications during shortlisting to ensure only relevant information is considered. Please complete your application fully, especially the supporting statement, to highlight what you’ll bring to the role.

About Staffordshire County Council

We are no ordinary county council: Our Values: The core of who we are as an organisation. Just like we all have personal values that shape our thoughts and behaviour, organisational values drive how we think and act collectively. Our values were created and shaped by colleague feedback and national best practice and they sit at the heart of People Strategy: We have a real sense of community spirit that brings our people together. This feeling of belonging means we are all connected to what we do and take pride in the difference we make every day for Staffordshire people. We are ambitious and our sights are set firmly on a better future. We look forward and race ahead - that goes for your career too.

Our benefits: We recognise that it is our employees that are central to everything we do. We aim to create a supportive working environment where employees can achieve their full potential and achieve a healthy work-life balance. In addition to your salary, as a member of staff, you will have access to Our rewards and benefits - Careers at Staffordshire.

Our recruitment process: As an Authority we are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people/vulnerable adults and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Staffordshire County Council is an equal opportunities organisation and Disability Confident employer. We encourage applications from all background and communities. As part of our commitment as a Disability Confident employer, a Gold Award Armed Forces employer and our commitment to supporting care leavers - we offer a guaranteed interview as long as your application meets the minimum criteria for the post.