Overview

Job Title – Ecologist
Reference Number – 12815
Salary – Competitive
Location(s) – Manchester
Contract Type – Permanent

Passionate about ecology? Highly skilled and ambitious? Looking for the opportunity to manage
your own projects?

As a consultancy of over 1,600 staff, we are large enough to work on high-profile schemes across
the North West, such as the MCFC academy, Square Kilometre Array at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire,
development of Lancaster University’s Science Park and the second phase of regeneration at
Liverpool’s Stanley Dock, the prestigious Tobacco Warehouse. We also deliver smaller schemes
which allow for a range of experiences of field work and project management.

Our national team has doubled in size over the last five years and we continue to go from strength
to strength. As such, we are looking to recruit an Ecologist to support our growing profile in the
North West. We are particularly keen to hear from candidates who have experience of authoring
technical ecological reports, acting as an SQE for BREEAM or ornithologist and have project
management skills.

The Manchester office has a strong planning team and therefore an awareness of the planning
system will be important for this role. The Manchester team are involved in all aspects of ecological
surveying and reporting including European Protected Species mitigation and monitoring works.
We are looking for ecologists who have the confidence to liaise with clients & stakeholders,
capable of leading field surveys and a desire to manage their own projects. The ability to
deliver multiple high-quality projects within fixed deadlines is an essential requirement of the role.
Experience of botanical or ornithological surveying would also be a distinct advantage.

As experienced ecologists ourselves, we understand how ecologists think and work and have
introduced ecology-specific methods to allow the team to fulfil their potential:

• With over 60 permanent ecologists across 12 offices, we work hard to operate as one
cohesive team to minimise your time away from home.
• We utilise bespoke training and support from our in-house experts regardless of location –
allowing the best people to work on the projects that interest them so they are delivered to the
highest standards.
• We encourage the development of well-rounded ecologists who can talk about all
stages of a project rather than just one niche area. We encourage diversification of skills and
the passing-on of knowledge to the rest of the team. We recently held our annual all-ecology get
together over two days where our experts provided training, including bats and lighting, BREEAM
and badger sett exclusion, to name but a few.
• Given that all grades of ecologist complete site visits and meetings, we provide cars or
car allowances to every member of the team, including for personal use.
• Our Class 2 bat licence incentivisation scheme rewards those ecologists who have
spent time and effort in achieving their handling licence – we know it’s not easy! And to show our
support for personal development, we award a significant financial bonus to anyone
achieving Chartered Environmentalist status through CIEEM.

• We have an established Time Off In Lieu system which allows ecologists to manage
their time throughout the year, to suit their specific needs, alongside the seasonal demands of the
role. Working on night-time surveys can be tiring, so we allow people to work as flexibly as
possible to try and maintain a sustainable life-work balance.

• We work alongside many other teams including Planners, Landscape Architects,
Archaeologists and Engineers and with a culture of openness, there is always someone within the
business who can provide advice and support for almost any query.

If the timing’s not quite right for you, please do still get in touch, as we are focused on
recruiting the best ecologists so are happy to discuss flexible working patterns or a delayed
start-date, including part-time or fixed-term contracts, in order to secure the best candidate.