Conservation Team Manager

Surrey Wildlife Trust; Whitby; On-site; GBP 35,000 - 41,000; Full time

Job summary

A regional environmental trust in the UK seeks a Conservation Team Manager to lead the Reserves Officers and deliver nature restoration objectives across diverse habitats. The ideal candidate has experience in the environmental sector, strong project and budget management skills, and excellent interpersonal abilities. This role offers a salary range of c.£35,000 - £41,000 per annum, with potential for professional development.

Qualifications

• Experience in the environmental sector.
• Strong ability to manage teams and projects.
• Excellent interpersonal skills to engage with various stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Manage the Reserves Officers team for effective conservation delivery.
• Drive nature restoration objectives across the county.
• Respond to swiftly changing demands and complex conservation issues.

Skills

Project management

Budget management

People management

Ecology knowledge

Nature restoration

Job description

Guided by a collaborative vision where we all play a part in connecting nature, we provide expert advice and guidance to landowners and managers, making sure the land we look after leads by example, while inspiring and educating people and organisations across the county on what they can do. By doing this we will create a Surrey that is full of diverse and abundant wildlife, where nature is at the heart of individual choices, corporate decisions, and local economic and policy making. One that helps tackle the ongoing climate emergency, while supporting the health and wellbeing of all who live here.

We are looking to recruit a Conservation Team Manager, a strong and practical people person who can help deliver the Trust's nature restoration objectives, combining logical thinking, project and budget management skills with the imagination and determination to expand and explore alternative approaches to how we restore nature across the county.

With a background in ecology and nature restoration across a range of habitats, we need a competent, passionate, skilled individual to manage our team of Reserves Officers in the challenging conservation delivery of the land we manage and to drive plans forward by empowering the reserves team, prioritising effectively, responding to swiftly changing demands and dealing with complex issues.

You must have previous experience of successfully working within the environmental sector matched with an out-going, personable and friendly approach, and the ability to work with a wide range of people.

Initially this role will manage all the Reserves Officers as one team working across the county; it is anticipated that in Spring/early Summer 2026, the role will be split across two areas broadly in the line with the revised Unitary Authority structure due to be put in place as a result of local government devolution.

Surrey Wildlife Trust is one of 46 Wildlife Trusts across the UK, a grassroots movement working to protect and connect at least 30 per cent of land and sea for nature's recovery by 2030.

c.£35,000 - £41,000 per annum dependent on current experience, with scope for role development and salary growth.

Surrey is a diverse county of lowland heath, calcareous grassland, woodland and wetlands which we are re-connecting using evidence-based approaches, through practical management, partnership working, community engagement, passion and drive.