Biodiversity Net Gain and Biodiversity Planning Specialist

Overview

Role: Biodiversity Net Gain and Biodiversity Planning Specialist

Location: UK Flexible - Remote working allowed

Salary range: £45,000 - £55,000 plus benefits

Role ID: 2023-1745

Our vision is to create a safe and sustainable world

Ricardo plc is a global strategic, environmental, and engineering consulting company, listed on the London Stock Exchange. With over 100 years of engineering excellence and employing close to 3,000 employees in more than 20 countries, we provide exceptional levels of expertise in delivering leading-edge and innovative cross-sector sustainable products and solutions. Every day, we enable our customers to solve the most complex and dynamic challenges to help achieve a safe and sustainable world.

Energy & Environment, one of Ricardo plc’s five operating business units, is a leader in sustainability consultancy, solving complex environmental challenges through industry-leading analysis, advice and data. With more than 40 years of heritage in addressing air quality, environmental and sustainability issues, our customers value us for our deep understanding and breadth of services covering the entire value chain from evidence, policy & strategy to implementation.

We are looking for an enthusiastic, ambitious individual to help further expand our growing offering in Net Gain and associated Natural Capital and Nature-Based Solutions. We have a great team but are looking for someone with experience and keenness to expand this area and to work across our water, ecology, policy, agriculture and economics teams.

Key responsibilities

• Produce biodiversity resilience assessments (including Biodiversity Net Gain) to support design and delivery of net gain solutions for a wide range of clients.
• Pull together our offerings related to biodiversity, natural capital and wider benefits.
• Have a strong understanding of planning policy related to the areas of net gain keeping up to date with new guidance.
• Provide quality assurance and report reviews.
• Develop and mentor individual to increase resilience.
• Support related environmental assessment deliverable especially Habitats Regulation Appraisals: this would be highly beneficial.
• Have an ambition to expand this area of work to new clients.

Key competencies and experience

• Knowledge of the Biodiversity Net Gain process, including the Natural England Metric and guidance, and the underpinning policy and legislative drivers.
• Experience of implementation of biodiversity and wider benefits strategies.
• Working knowledge of and experience of habitat restoration, enhancement and creation techniques.
• Technical reporting.
• Strong knowledge of national legislation and guidance including experience of preparing habitat management and monitoring plans and planning.
• A track record of providing technical input into winning proposals.
• Ability to provide technical advice related to HRA

Skills and behaviours

• Excellent organisational skills.
• Good collaborative team working and communication skills.
• The ability to manage and prioritise workload and assist others in doing so.
• Effective stakeholder liaison.
• An ability to manage and work to tight project deadlines and under pressure.
• Experience of developing new and current client portfolios of work.

Working here

You will be warmly welcomed into our workplace where every voice matters. We are diverse thinkers and doers, coming together to create a culture of inclusion. We will support you to find your place. We will encourage you to use your passion and expertise to make a positive impact through the projects you work on.  Your knowledge and desire to bring about change will be invaluable in helping deliver innovative solutions that support communities across the globe in becoming safer and more sustainable.

Work life balance

We offer flexible approaches to work, whether that is working from home, being in the office, or as a hybrid worker. We're happy to discuss flexible working arrangements. Wellbeing is at the core to our culture, allowing employees to flourish and to achieve their full potential.

Benefits

We want you to know how much you are valued. Your remuneration and benefits package will reflect that. You will receive a range of benefits which include support for your physical and mental health. Our core benefits include 25 days' annual leave, plus 8 flexible bank holidays, a competitive company pension scheme, life assurance and professional subscriptions reimbursement. We also offer a wide range of flexible benefits to suit your lifestyle.

Next steps

Once you have submitted your application a member of our Recruitment Team will be in touch. Please be aware that the timing can vary dependent on the volume of applications that we receive for each role and in some cases, we may start to review applications prior to the closing date.

Ricardo is a Disability confident employer please advise the recruitment team via recruit.ee@ricardo.com if you require any adjustments to support you throughout the recruitment process.