Role: Biodiversity Net Gain and Biodiversity Planning Specialist

Location: UK Flexible

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

Role ID: 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

Ricardo is an exciting and rewarding place to work and you have the opportunity to make a difference. You will work with teams of talented, dedicated, and supportive individuals. Alongside having a fantastic opportunity to develop your career with us through our broad range of projects, mentoring opportunities and a personalised approach to your learning and development. We are always keen to hear from people who have driven, ambition and a flair for innovative thinking.

Wellbeing and work life balance

We offer flexible approaches to work, whether that's 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. Our People are important to us, and we take pride in our wellbeing programmes and policies that support individuals including flexible working, carers policy, mental health first aiders and readily available support through our extensive Employee Assistance programme.

Diversity, Equality and Inclusion statement

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person's potential, and we'll help you reach yours. We have an ambitious diversity, equality, and inclusion approach as explained here. We value diversity; recognising that a more diverse workforce creates a richer and more varied working environment. Diversity also drives innovation, by allowing us to offer our clients the best consultancy service that we can. As part of our commitment to engage positively and pro-actively with all our employees and ensure a culture of inclusivity, we are a recognised as a 'disability confident' employer.

Benefits

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.

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.