Inspector of Historic Buildings and Areas

Inspector of Historic Buildings and Areas

Summary
We are the public body that looks after England's historic environment. We champion historic places, helping people understand, value and care for them.

Historic England has a fantastic opportunity for you to join us as our Inspector of Historic Buildings and Areas.

This is a full-time, permanent post based in Greater London with Hybrid working. This post is for internal applicants only.

We offer a wide benefits package including a competitive pension scheme at 28.97% employer contributions, a generous 28 days holiday, corporate discounts, free entry into English Heritage sites across the country and development opportunities to ensure you achieve your goals.

What you will be doing
The Development Advice Teams provide Historic England's statutory and non-statutory advice to our customers, engaging where we add most value to decision-making through our distinctive contribution as national experts. The Development Advice Teams will also work closely with other teams to support communities in looking after historic places and in the advancement of Historic England's objectives.

As part of the Development Advice Team, you will take delegated responsibility for the delivery of Historic England's advice on proposals for change in the historic environment that fall within your area of competence. Applying the ethos of 'constructive conservation' and making effective use of Conservation Principles in all your advisory work, you will provide advice to owners, local authorities and others, to proactively work towards the sustainable management of the historic environment. You will also contribute to specific projects where your expertise would add value, for example as part of the Historic England Places strategy.

We need you to take responsibility for providing Historic England's formal planning and management advice in relation to buildings (both secular and ecclesiastical), and historic areas including assessing proposals, deciding upon that advice (unless the case is more appropriately escalated), and delivering it to agreed timescales and to excellent customer service standards. A key part of this involves working collaboratively with colleagues across teams and where necessary drawing on advice from regional and national specialists.

You will undertake pre-application discussions with potential applicants, including Extended Pre-application advice where appropriate, applying the ethos of 'constructive conservation' to negotiate creative solutions to problems so that proposed changes are sustainable.

You will assist local planning authorities and others with the interpretation of the law and national planning policy with regard to listed buildings and conservation areas including influencing elected council members and senior officers to make use of the powers available to them to safeguard heritage assets.

Who we are looking for

• Educated to degree level or equivalent in a relevant subject
• Broad and extensive experience of managing change to historic buildings and areas, including detailed knowledge of the planning system
• Thorough knowledge of secular and ecclesiastical architectural history and the morphology of historic places in England
• Thorough knowledge of legislation and planning policy in England, relating to secular and ecclesiastical buildings, historic places and infrastructure
• Skills, including written, oral & communication
• Adept at negotiation and influencing

Please note:
The role requires regular travel to sites not serviced by public transport.
The role requires visiting/inspecting sites which is likely to require climbing scaffolding and negotiating confined spaces (e.g. church roofs).
The role may require occasional attendance at community or planning meetings which are usually held at evenings or weekends.

Why work for Historic England
We are committed to promoting equality of opportunity for everyone. Diversity helps us to perform better and attract more people to support our work. We welcome and encourage job applications from people of all backgrounds.

We particularly encourage applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates and candidates with disabilities as they are underrepresented within Historic England at this level.

Historic England wants all of our candidates to shine in the recruitment process. Please tell us what we can do to make sure you can show us your very best self. You can contact us by email at recruitmentTeam@Historicengland.org.uk if you have any recruitment queries.

At Historic England we use a hiring system called Applied. Applied is a behavioural science-backed recruitment platform that reduces bias, improves quality of hire and increases diversity. We do not use CV application for the majority of our hiring processes. You will answer a selection of questions that allow our hiring teams to test your skills and suitability for the role.

To ensure a fair and inclusive recruitment process for everyone the use of AI or automated tools is not permitted.

Provisional interview dates: Tuesday 06th May 2025 in person in London

Please follow the link for a full copy of the Job Description - Job Description