Principal Ecologist

Working Pattern: 37 hrs per week - Monday to Friday

Location: West Bridgford, Nottingham

If you're an experienced Ecologist looking to move into a Principal role or already an established Principal Ecologist, this role could be for you!

The Job

We're currently looking for a Principal Ecologist to join our Environmental Management and Design Team within the Design and Consultancy Department of Via! This Principal Ecologist post will lead the Ecology team with 3 direct reports.

Key areas of responsibility will include: -

• Lead a team of Ecologists providing specialist ecology expertise to internal and external clients, supporting the delivery of environmental services.
• Leading on the growth of the ecological service within the Environmental Consultancy, identifying opportunities for development and identifying market opportunities to support business growth.
• To manage available resources and capacity within the team to ensure successful delivery of the teams work programme to meet both internal and external client expectations.
• Implement and manage the provision of specialist ecology expertise and project delivery which may be complex and significant to achieve quality, programme and financial targets meeting customer and stakeholder requirements.
• Lead on the design and delivery of ecological mitigation schemes, including provision of ecological clerk of works role for internal and external clients to achieve successful delivery and implementation of projects, and adherence to legislative and industry best practice.
• Manage the service area to internal and external clients to support delivery of projects across the organisation that may be complex and large-scale.
• Lead the team to provide specialist ecology support to Nottinghamshire County Council Planning department and other Planning Authorities, including undertaking the role of expert witness at planning/public inquiry, to ensure proposals are compliant with ecology focused planning legislation and national and local policies.
• Hold team members to account to comply with internal and external standards of statutory responsibilities, duties, policies and procedures to ensure standards are met to maintain a consistent and high-quality service
• Ensure Health and Safety management systems, processes and requirements are adhered to across the team, ensuring full adherence to health, safety and environmental legislation, policy and best practice to protect people and the environment.
• Act as an ambassador for individual schemes and the Company across professional, business and community events and networks at local and regional level to maintain a positive company reputation, build relationships with third parties and promote internal expertise for business development

The Person

Mainly you will be excited to be a part of our Environmental Design Team, but there are just a few other things we’d like from you:-

• A relevant degree and Chartership or membership of CIEEM or another relevant professional institute, or equivalent post qualification experience/knowledge gained through practical experience in a design consultancy and ongoing CPD requirements eligible for Chartership.
• Holds at least one Natural England protected species licence.
• Experienced and knowledgeable in ecology survey methods and assessment techniques.
• Proven experience of undertaking Preliminary Ecological Appraisals and producing high quality Ecological Impact Assessments and other technical reports.
• Ability to lead a team in a busy environmental services team, to make decisions and solve problems to meet team objectives and operational targets and be able to prioritise available team resources to meet the needs of the business.
• Excellent interpersonal skills to gain agreement and acceptance of others including colleagues, senior managers and clients. Ability to work collaboratively and actively involve colleagues and members of the team.
• Strong ICT skills including competence in specialist computer applications used to support engineering design activities including working knowledge of current computer aided design and GIS software packages
• Thorough working knowledge of health and safety, technical, planning and other legislation and good practice appropriate to at least one of the technical areas.
• Proven experience of providing information, communicating and working collaboratively with internal and external customers, stakeholders and colleagues to achieve delivery objectives.
• Proven experience of financial monitoring and control across a range of projects.

About Via

Based in Nottinghamshire, with a multi-skilled local workforce and a range of highly trained staff at a few different locations throughout the county. Via East Midlands provides sustainable highways services for Nottinghamshire and across the wider East Midlands region. Our roles include highway maintenance, electrical works, mechanics, construction, forestry, road safety, civil engineering and much more. We combine a public-sector service ethos with a strong commercial focus and we are passionate about innovation and creating and delivering sustainable solutions safely across Nottinghamshire and the wider East Midlands.

Via is a great place to work if you value work-life balance and we are committed to promoting a diverse and inclusive workplace. We offer a range of family friendly and inclusive employment policies, including generous annual leave allowances, with flexible working available to our office-based staff. With most of our work being based in the East Midlands, our front-line staff also enjoy short journeys to site each working day. By joining us you will be part of a growing organisation that positively embraces customer and community aspirations.

If this sounds like you, it would be great to hear from you.