Wild Area Officer

What you’ll do…

Forestry England’s Biodiversity Plan sets out a bold ambition of nature recovery in the Nation’s Forests. Working across five principal focus areas, Forestry England aims to restore resilient biodiversity in the nation’s forests, delivering our vision to ensure that these forests provide the most valuable places for wildlife to thrive and expand in England.

The Wild Area Officer will oversee the development and delivery of one (initially Wild Ingoldsby) or more wild area projects in the district, managing them through concept and definition project stages, and facilitating their effective implementation on the ground. The post holder will be responsible for bringing the concept of wild areas to life, delivering at scale and pace to meet Forestry England’s ambitions for nature recovery.

Within Central England Forest District, working out of an office at either Sherwood Pines (NG21 9JL
), Market Rasen (LN8 3RQ
) or Fineshade (NN17 3BB
). Hybrid home working available. Travel across England will be required.

Alongside your salary, Forestry England contributes an average of 28.97% towards your pension. You will become a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension Scheme.

• 25 days holiday a year, raising by one day every year’s service, up to 30 days (pro‑rated for part time employees) plus additional days off such as bank holidays.
• STaRis our employee benefits scheme offering discounts on everyday supermarket shopping, as well as other things such as hotel stays clothes, mobile phones, other electrical items, medical and car insurance, holidays, gym discounts, household bills, Headspace wellbeing app.
• free parking at Forestry England sites and free entry to our National Arboretums at Westonbirt and Bedgebury.
• a commitment to lifelong learning through career development. Forestry England will support your career development in a variety of ways, including continual professional development, support for individual learning plans and sponsored membership of professional bodies.

Read more about the benefits on the Forestry England website.

You will be asked to write a 200 word statement on your relevant experience and career history, along with a personal statement of no more than 500 words. You will be assessed on experience and behaviour‑based questions during your interview.

The Behaviours being assessed at interview are –

• Seeing the big picture
• Delivering at pace
• Working together
• Making effective decisions

Successful candidates will undergo a criminal record check and the government baseline personnel security standard check.

If candidates pass the interview but are not the leading candidate they can be placed on a reserve list. We may offer candidates on the reserve list for this role the opportunity to be considered for other roles at the same or lower pay bands.

In the event of a high number of applications, a pre‑sift may be carried out.

If you require any reasonable adjustments, please email fcrecrui

If you’re planning to use AI to support your application, please ensure you’ve read our guidelines here first.

Read more about our application process and working with us on the Forestry England website.

Read more about nationality requirements here.

Forestry England is part of the Civil Service. The Civil Service has a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS). This means candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria during the application process will be guaranteed an interview. We also offer a Redeployment Interview Scheme to current civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the role.

This role is also part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans and Prison Leaver Recruitment initiative.

Within Part 7 of the Immigration Act 2016, it is essential that applicants should have the ability to provide conversation in accurate spoken English.

Our recruitment process makes appointments based on fair and open competition and merit, as outlined in the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles. If you feel your application has not been…