River Restoration Manager

While professional experience and qualifications are key for this role, make sure to check you have the preferable soft skills before applying if required.

Salary: £38,346 - £42,545 per annum (according to level of expertise and experience)

Contract length: Fixed term contract – 35 hours per week for 1 year – with likely possibility of extension

Location: Hybrid/ flexible - Any Thames21 office, Central, East London

Responsible to: Thames21 River Restoration Programme Manager and/ or Head of Improving Rivers

About Thames21

Thames21 is a leading environmental charity, working across London and the Thames Basin to deliver high-impact nature-based solutions to the climate and biodiversity crisis through restoring rivers, whilst also connecting communities to their local green-blue spaces and inspiring long-term stewardship of them.

Diversity at Thames21

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at Thames21 is key to our success and as such we employ staff from a diverse range of backgrounds, this we feel is key in ensuring that everybody has an equal opportunity and is not treated differently or discriminated against because of their characteristics. We value the voices of our individual employees, and we strive to work in a collaborative, innovative balanced way. The postholder must actively support this.

Purpose of the job

Thames21’s purpose is to deliver increasingly resilient and healthy rivers and landscapes that are closer to their natural state with an abundance of fish and wildlife, empowering and working with people to bring multiple benefits to the natural environment, to individuals and communities. In recent years we have significantly up-scaled our planning and delivery of river restoration works and by 2027 we will improve 15km of river habitat annually. To enable this, we are looking for a committed, self-motivated and technically capable River Restoration Manager to lead this work.

Candidates with a proven track record in delivering river restoration and/or habitat improvement projects, including experience managing contractors and in partnership with multiple public and private partners are encouraged to apply. The candidate should be technically strong in one or all areas of river restoration (woody habitat interventions, fish passage etc) and adept at managing complex budgets and reporting to funders. You will have confidence and credibility and be able to engage and influence a variety of stakeholders.

This role is a key position in implementing Thames21 mission and the selected candidate will be part of a dynamic and committed team. You will have the chance to add input and help develop our Five-Year Strategic Plan goals and as a key position in the organisation, you will influence how we deliver our restoration goals.

Main duties and responsibilities:

• Work with Thames21’s Head of Improving Rivers and local stakeholders such as catchment partnerships, councils, Friends groups etc. to develop and deliver river and wetland restoration projects throughout the areas we work.
• Develop detailed plans for the river and wetland restoration in consultation with local and expert stakeholders, meeting local needs and ecological objectives. Ensuring the necessary requirements for Construction, Design and Management (CDM) are covered as part of that process.
• Obtain all necessary permissions to deliver the projects, potentially including flood defence consent and planning permission.
• Ensure that the development and implementation of the works are well integrated into wider programmes such as catchment partnerships, evidencing and community engagement.
• Work with project partners to develop and manage tender processes for works which require the use of contractors, the tender processes will need to meet relevant requirements for project partners and funders (including CDM).
• Ensure that the Team’s RAMS are all correct and up to date. As well as ensuring all H&S documentation is correct and filed within SharePoint.
• Manage contractors to implement projects so they achieve maximum benefits and alignment to project scope.
• In partnership with others, use a range of monitoring tools to record and quantify the impact of different activities. Ensuring this data is captured correctly and presented to the programme funder, to potential future project funders and available to other relevant parties.
• Support the development and delivery of watercourse Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) projects, including habitat condition assessment, monitoring, reporting and long-term management planning.
• Maintain accurate records and databases, ensuring data integrity and accessibility.
• Manage and support other staff in the development and delivery of restoration projects.
• Input to the strategic development of Thames21’s work particularly the Improving Rivers Portfolio.

*This job description cannot cover every issue or task that may arise within the post at various times, and the post-holder will be expected to carry out other reasonable duties from time to time which are broadly consistent with other Thames21 activities with those in this document.

It is essential that in your application you give evidence or examples of your proven experience in each of the following criteria including the competencies.