NCEA Higher Data Scientist - ( Ref : 6763 )

Job summary

Job description

Join us in shaping a future where nature and people thrive. Whether you're drawn to hands-on conservation or playing a vital part behind the scenes, your work at Natural England will support lasting benefits for the environment and society.

Our Role

Natural England is the Government’s adviser for the natural environment and the Nature regulator with a wide range of statutory duties and powers. We provide the evidence, expertise and advice to recover Nature and shape better places for people to live. We do this working through and with others.

Strategic Outcomes for Nature

Our strategy is framed through four strategic outcomes. Each of these outcomes reinforces and amplifies the others, and together they address environmental, social and economic actions critical to thriving nature.

• Recovering Nature– Increased scale and quality of places where nature thrives.
• Building Better Places– Greener homes and infrastructure create healthier, more investable places, recognising we live better where nature thrives around us.
• Improving Health and Wellbeing– Build nature into everyday life so people can support, access and benefit from nature, wherever they live.
• Delivering Security through Nature– Nature helps us adapt to the threats of a changing climate and improves our national security, supporting more resilient food production, healthy soils, clean and plentiful water and clean air.

Find out more about the work of Natural England at:

Natural England’s Strategy: Recovering Nature for Growth, Health and Security - GOV.UK

Job description

The Role

An exciting opportunity to join this ambitious and pioneering project delivering England’s biggest ever field data collection survey and releasing the resulting data into the public domain.

The England Ecosystem Survey (EES) is the ‘jewel in the crown’ of Defra’s Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment programme (NCEA) programme – part of the Government’s Major Projects Portfolio. The project will deliver a comprehensive assessment of England’s ecosystems, bringing together data on soils, vegetation and landscape features. This role will provide project support to the wider EES project team by assisting other lead and senior advisers with GI desk studies linked to the field data collection element of EES. The role holder will lead on cleansing the EES datasets, a key task before publishing and data analysis can take place.

Key Tasks/Principal Accountabilities

• Present data in suitable form for a variety of customers and partners including ArcGIS Online and have analytical ability
• Cleaning the Vegetation & Landscape and Soils datasets prior to data publication.
• Design and implement dashboards for data visualisation and reporting.
• Carry out terrestrial data & spatial analyses as required to support project commissions for the NCEA programme
• Follow project data standards, processes and systems to ensure delivery of high-quality outcomes to internal and external customers.
• Carry out GI related work to support other work areas as required by the team e.g. data management and licensing.
• The successful candidate will be required to show flexibility in managing and adapting to other work should team priorities or resources change.

Knowledge, Skills & Experience

• Proficient in using of Geographic Information Systems (ArcGIS or QGIS) to perform spatial analysis of vector datasets, create and manage geospatial data, and produce high-quality, publication-ready maps.
• Experienced in transforming data, including integrating different data types (e.g. spatial and non-spatial) and from different data sources.
• Good data management skills, data validation and awareness of current data standards and legislative drivers for handling data (e.g. metadata standards, INSPIRE, UK GEMINI 2).
• Knowledge of data sharing and presentation of spatial data through ArcGIS Online.
• Proficient in at least one programming language (R or Python) and experience in using it for GIS analysis and data cleaning.
• Working knowledge of Survey123 and Survey123 Connect for data collection and integration.
• Knowledge of Web App and Experience Builder for creating interactive web applications.
• Experienced with using GitHub, including the ability to manage branching and merging, and creating concise documentation for scripts.
• Soil knowledge (desirable) to support interpretation and analysis of soil-related datasets.
• Experience with using GIS in the context of environmental surveys.
• Awareness with a range of statistical analysis techniques and applications or willingness to develop these skills. Awareness of the Statistics Code of Practice.

Benefits

At Natural England, we support a healthy work-life balance by offering full-time, part-time, and flexible working arrangements.

We provide excellent opportunities for career progression, training, and development tailored to your role. This includes ten days annually for personal learning and development, plus three additional days for volunteering.

You’ll receive a generous leave allowance of 25 days per year (pro rata), increasing by one day for each year of service up to 30 days (pro-rata), access to the Civil Service Pension scheme with a 28.97% employer contribution, and a range of benefits such as shopping discounts and a cycle-to-work scheme. Staff can also join the Civil Service Sport club for discounts on sports, leisure activities, and social events.

We are committed to fairness, equality, and inclusivity. Our employee-led diversity networks help foster a welcoming environment where everyone feels valued and supported.

Locations

Natural England has adopted hybrid working – which means our staff work from a flexible range of locations, encompassing home, offices (ours and our partners) and relevant sites. All new staff will be formally linked to one of our 25 offices across England, and the expectation is that all new staff will be able to access their local office to be part of the community of staff in their geographical area. Staff are expected to attend their associated office for 20% of their contractual hours.

Staff members are required to carry out all their duties working in this way and cannot do so from an overseas location at any time. Travel expenses will be paid if work-related travel is required but does not apply to travel between home and your associated office.

National team roles can be linked with any Natural England office while Area Team roles will be linked with an office in the relevant geographic area.

View a map of our office locations here: online map of Natural England office locations.

Pay

It is Natural England policy to employ at the entry point of the salary range.

Please note: Licensed visa sponsoring organisations are employers authorised by the government to recruit and sponsor overseas workers, enabling them to obtain the appropriate visa to w