Environmental Assessment Officer – Freshwater Fisheries

The role

We have an exciting opportunity for a motivated and enthusiastic professional to join our Environmental Assessment and Advice Team as an Environmental Assessment Officer (Freshwater Fisheries), based in North‑West Wales.

In this role, you’ll play a vital part in monitoring and assessing freshwater fisheries across the region, providing high‑quality technical advice that helps protect and sustainably manage our natural resources. The post offers a rewarding mix of field and office-based work, with the main field season running from June to October, allowing you to see the direct impact of your work on rivers and fisheries across Wales.

You’ll bring strong experience in fisheries monitoring, along with excellent data analysis and report‑writing skills. Comfortable working outdoors and in or around water, you’ll also be confident travelling to remote sites and driving a range of vehicles, including four-wheel drive vehicles.

As part of this role you will work with others to plan and deliver the annual electric fishing monitoring programme, including training new staff and managing kit maintenance, provide advice and guidance, archiving data and supporting other fisheries activities across the organisation.

You will be analysing and interpreting data and reporting on findings for statutory and other purposes such as Water Framework Directive, the Eels Regulations Directive, issues of local importance, producing evidence that informs the sustainable management of our natural resources.

You will also provide fisheries information to internal and external stakeholders including local fisheries groups and produce a fisheries newsletter and contributing to Know Your River documents.

Driving is essential to this role, as it involves fieldwork in remote locations that are not serviced or accessible by public transport. The post also requires the transport of monitoring equipment, including the use of a four‑wheel‑drive vehicle. You must hold a full and current UK driving license.

As an organisation we support flexible working. You will be contracted to an NRW office within the place base / location above and a suitable hybrid working pattern will be agreed on appointment. Any regular face to face meetings or training will be planned in advance.

To make an informal enquiry about this role, please contact Claire Liversage at [email protected]

Interviews will take place through Microsoft Teams

About Us

The Environmental Assessment and Advice Team in North‑West Wales sits within the Operations Directorate, and you will report directly to the Team Leader. This role offers an excellent opportunity to develop your technical expertise while making a meaningful contribution to the protection and enhancement of Wales’ freshwater environments.

What you will do

• Undertake ad hoc and routine system administration, data quality assurance, analysis and reporting.
• Provide specialist, monitoring technical advice and guidance to internal and external customers, from a range of sources; helping ensure that decisions are based on sound technical judgement, in line with current legislation and best practice. Produce technical reports analysing and interpreting national and local datasets for operational work, public enquiries, court appeals etc.
• Help ensure that NRW’s monitoring data is collected and stored to the quality standards prescribed by European and UK legislation and by NRW policy.
• Assist Senior EAO and TL in planning, scheduling and tracking the annual survey and monitoring programmes, with regards to sampling activities.
• Advise on specialist non-routine monitoring/survey work and the analysis of data including input on delivery of operational measures.
• Contribute to delivery of survey and monitoring programmes.
• Guide, advise and support internal and external customers, ensuring decisions are made on sound technical data and information.
• Help resolve local issues by providing scientific and technical advice/interpretation of monitoring data.
• Assist in the development, implementation of new monitoring and reporting methods, including collaboration with partner organisations at a local level.
• Respond to requests for information relating to monitoring data, within specified deadlines.
• Maintain and procure specialist sampling equipment.
• Undertake health and safety duties and responsibilities appropriate to the post
• Be committed to Natural Resources Wales Equal Opportunities and Diversity Policy, together with an understanding of how it operates within the responsibilities of the post
• Be committed to your own development through the effective use of your personal development plan (known as Sgwrs).
• Required to take part in incident response activities.
• Any other reasonable duties requested commensurate with the grade of this role.

Your qualifications, experience, knowledge and skills

In your application and interview you will be asked to demonstrate the following skills and experience using the STAR method.

1. Expertise in freshwater fisheries science and knowledge of relevant legislation.
2. Practical experience of a wide range of field-based monitoring activities and methods, sometimes undertaken in physically demanding environments, and knowledge of desk and field-based analysis methods.
3. Good analytical and organisational skills, including experience of data management systems, and knowledge of data handling, including GIS, and use of statistics.
4. Excellent communication skills, including interpreting and reporting on environmental data.
5. A current full UK valid driving licence to drive NRW fleet vehicles. (cars and vans).
6. Ability to swim and be confident working in water.

Welsh Language level requirement

• Essential: Level A1 – Entry level
• Desirable: Level B2 – Upper intermediate level

Welsh language levels

Please note if you do not meet the A1 requirement i.e., ability to understand basic phrases and ability to pronounce Welsh names correctly, then NRW offers a variety of learning options and staff support to help you meet these minimal requirements during the course of your employment with us.

Additional Information

Successful applicants will be subject to a satisfactory Disclosure and Barring Service Check (DBS) check. Appointments are normally made within 4 to 8 weeks of the closing date.

Natural Resources Wales is unable to offer visa sponsorship for this position. Although we hold a Skilled Worker visa sponsorship licence, it applies only to specific roles that meet both the eligibility criteria and salary requirements set out by the UK Government under the Skilled Worker visa route.

Benefits

This role will offer a range of benefits, including:

• Civil Service Pension Scheme offering employer contributions of 28.97% (successful internal staff will remain in their current pension scheme)
• 28 days annual leave, rising to 33 days
• generous leave entitlements for all your life needs
• commitment to professional development
• health and wellbeing benefits and support
• weekly wellbeing hour to use as you choose

See full details for all the employee benefits you will receive.

Please keep reading

We’re passionate about creating a diverse workforce and positively encourage applications from under-represented communities. We embrace equality of opportunity irrespective of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

We are committed to equal opportunities, and we guarantee interviews for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

We want to attract and retain talented and highly skilled staff, so we make sure that our pay scales remain competitive. We advertise the full pay scale on our job descriptions. Appointed candidates start at the first point of the pay scale and annual increments are paid each year.

We want our staff to grow professionally and personally. From leadership development to access to further and higher education courses, our staff have opportunities to expand their knowledge on variety of topics, stay current in their field and continue to learn as their career progresses.

We are a Bilingual organisation which complies with the Welsh Language Standards. Welsh language skills are considered an asset to NRW, and we encourage and support staff to learn, develop and use their Welsh language skills.