About the job

Job summary

Why JNCC?

We’re small enough (c.300 staff) that your voice is heard by everyone including the CEO, but big enough that we have all the skills, resources and people you’ll need to get the job done. All our staff are passionate about conservation and making a difference to the world we live in. We have a very flexible, inclusive and welcoming organisational culture. Our Executive Management provides employees with the freedom and tools you will need, and our friendly team will assist you in your role. JNCC is committed to maintaining employee health and wellbeing, whether it is physically, emotionally, financially or socially, and offers a range of benefits to support employees in this. Such benefits include the option to join the Civil Service Pension Scheme, professional and personal development opportunities as well as an exciting job in a unique environment.

Background

JNCC are seeking to appoint two Marine Support Officers; one based in JNCC’s Marine Monitoring Team on an 18-month fixed term contract in the first instance, and one based in JNCC’s Marine Protected Areas Team on a permanent contract. 

The Marine Monitoring Support Officer will work in the Marine Monitoring Team. The team covers a range of activities including organising and delivering offshore seabed surveys, collating and analysing survey data to complete survey reports, improving access to and managing marine biological and protected area data, understanding human impacts on the marine environment and providing expert advice to national and international fora. The team interacts with several others within JNCC, including the Evidence Team to ensure collected data is accessible and available to support advice, MPA team on MPA monitoring programmes and the Marine Ecosystems Team to ensure survey design and outputs meet reporting requirements. The post holder will work with these teams to provide relevant data to and improve data access.

The MPA Marine Support Officer will play a critical role in the effective delivery of JNCC’s diverse work portfolio on MPAs. Principally, the post offers essential support in the communication of information on UK offshore MPAs to our external customers (most notably through JNCC’s MPA Site Information Centres ), supporting ongoing liaison with Governments and provision of advice around offshore MPA and Highly Protected Marine Area (HPMA) designations, facilitating the flow of information on offshore MPAs amongst our team and other teams within JNCC, and more general support to the work of JNCC’s work on MPAs. 

Job description

Post Duties

Please indicate in your Personal Statement when completing your application form whether you are interested in being considered for one of the particular posts advertised here or both. The detailed descriptions of each role are as follows:

Marine Monitoring Support Officer

Offshore seabed survey support – Contribute to planning of MPA monitoring surveys including: 

•    To assist survey planning leads in developing plans for offshore MPA monitoring surveys with partners including Cefas and Marine Scotland Science by preparing and managing survey data packages for internal and external use; 

•    Coordinating use of offshore seabed survey equipment and Personal Protective Equipment across JNCC; 

•    Supporting the provision of seabed samples (e.g. taxonomic reference collections, genomic and carbon sub-samples) to museums and other partners;

•    Updating offshore seabed survey webpages as and when required e.g. following surveys, report publication; and 

•    Promoting JNCC’s work by publicising reports and surveys and through presence at conferences etc. 

Benthic survey data management – Assist with the management of marine data, including: 

•    Data management and metadata cataloguing of incoming datasets in accordance with the benthic survey data ingestion protocol; 

•    Assisting with the ongoing organisation of third-party data, including ascertaining usage permissions; 

•    Assisting with the external storage and publication of survey datasets (e.g. DACs);

•    Running periodic reports to summarise UK marine data; 

•    Contributing to development work on the Marine Recorder application. 

Answering internal and external data queries – jointly manage the Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office survey inbox and Offshore MPAs email inbox and handle other requests for data, responding to a variety of queries within 21 days of receipt. 

Other support work – Contribute to other aspects of the team’s work as required and to improve the team’s flexibility and resilience. Including taking minutes and organising meetings. 

MPA Marine Support Officer

•    Support MPA Site Leads – This will include work on the maintenance of our online Site Information Centres, maintaining master copies of individual site GIS files, and responding to queries from internal and external customers. 

•    GIS and mapping support – Manipulation of geospatial data (ecological, physical and human activities) using ArcGIS/qGIS to produce high quality and consistent GIS outputs. 

•    Supporting our Marine Monitoring and Evidence Teams – facilitating the flow of information on offshore MPAs and the ingestion of marine survey data. 

•    Development of conservation advice - Help develop JNCC advice on the conservation of protected features to support JNCC’s provision of advice on management measures, monitoring survey planning and assessment reporting. 

•    Supporting liaison with Governments around offshore MPA & Highly Protected Marine Area designations – Providing input to queries and assistance in the preparation of further formal advice on offshore MPAs & HPMAs.

•    Supporting our implementation of technical assistance programmes to ODA-eligible countries – Providing support to theme and country leads on our international MPA technical assistance work under the Ocean Country Partnership Programme. 

•    Supporting wider MPA team work as appropriate. 

Person specification

Please demonstrate in your statement of suitability your reasons for applying.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £26,379, Joint Nature Conservation Committee contributes £7,122 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

As part of the application process you will be asked to complete a statement of suitability. In your statement, refer to the responsibilities and experience section of this advert to show how you’re suitable for the role.

Please use the STARR technique

• Situation: Set the stage. 
• Task: Explain where you fit in. 
• Action: Describe each step. 
• Results: Impress with your achievements.
• Reflection: what have you learned 

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.