Licensing Officer

Temporary to 31 March 2029

Job Purpose Summary

The post-holder will be a key member of NatureScot’s busy licensing team which sits within the Wildlife Management Activity, undertaking a range of duties to support the delivery of NatureScot’s statutory licensing function.

The NatureScot Licensing Team issue about 5000 protected species licences throughout the year. Licences enable actions that would otherwise be illegal. They cover certain types of activity such as disturbance to protected birds and animals and are issued for purposes such as preserving public health and safety, preventing serious damage to livestock, development, science and research.

We aim to provide an efficient and responsive licensing service that enables people to manage protected wildlife effectively, balancing legitimate needs of individuals and business with our regulatory responsibilities.

Key Responsibilities and Accountabilities

• Processing and issuing protected species licence applications, including assessing applications against the licensing tests and writing Statement of Reasons for issued licences;
• Processing licence returns and licence amendments;
• Assist in dealing with Freedom of Information requests, collating large volumes of requested information accurately and other reporting as required;
• Undertake compliance monitoring to ensure licence holders are complying with the conditions of their licence and report any licensing breaches to Licencing Manager/ Wildlife Crime Officer as appropriate.

Skills Required (Please refer to these in your Supporting Statement)

• Good understanding or experience of NatureScot’s licensing functions and approach, including knowledge of policy and legislation
• Understanding and experience of wildlife management approaches and the need for wildlife management.
• Good knowledge of Scottish protected species ecology
• Ability to source, collate and analyse data from a variety of sources
• Effective team working within a busy team including any experience of matrix management
• Good communication skills (written and verbal) including the ability to effectively deal with a wide range of stakeholders and to understand and appreciate their needs including in relation to novel and contentious cases.
• Good organisational and time management skills to effectively prioritise a high volume of reactive and proactive workload.
• Can demonstrate ability to work using own initiative and to ask for help when required
• Can demonstrate accuracy and attention to detail when undertaking day to day tasks

Working for NatureScot – what we offer you

NatureScot offers some great benefits to reward and support you whilst you are working for us. Our benefits package includes the civil service pension scheme, a generous holiday leave allowance plus flexi time, and employee discount scheme. Visit the NatureScot website for further details including below:

• We support flexible working for all roles, including part-time, compressed hours, hybrid working and job share. All vacancies are considered suitable for flexible working unless there is a business reason not to. We encourage applicants to discuss potential flexible working arrangements with us.
• A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97% (7.35% employee contributions) .
• 41.5 days of annual leave, including 5 fixed public holidays on St Andrews Day, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day and 2nd January.
• Equivalent of 2 days paid volunteering leave.
• A focus on wellbeing with access to an employee assistance programme.
• Job satisfaction from contributing proactively to the twinned nature and climate crisis.
• Death in service benefits.
• Cycle to work and electric vehicle salary sacrifice schemes.
• Access to an employee discounts scheme.
• Learning and development tailored to your role.
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity.

NatureScot’s Net Zero commitment:

Whether working at home or in an office, or travelling to meetings and site visits, as a NatureScot staff member you will contribute to our Net Zero plan, for example through positive carbon travel choices.

For information regarding the vacancy, please contact: Mike Hordley, Senior Licensing Officer – Policy and Legislation at [email protected]

For further information on the application process please contact: [email protected]

Nature is vital to all of us, so it is vital that we are an organisation for all of Scotland. The more diverse NatureScot is, the better we will be in connecting everyone with nature. We particularly encourage applications from people from Minority Ethnic (ME) backgrounds and people with a disability.

Closing date: 19 August 2026.
Interview date: 3 September 2026.