Rewilding Officer (Isle of Wight)

35 hours per week
Location: Little Duxmore Farm, Rowlands Lane, Havenstreet, Ryde, Isle of Wight, PO33 4DF

Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust is shaping a wilder future for our counties – protecting special places, restoring habitats and inspiring people to act for nature. As part of the UK’s fastest-growing movement for nature’s recovery, we lead with passion, integrity and bold thinking. Join a team where your work has purpose, your ideas matter, and you can help create lasting change for wildlife and people.

We are seeking an Isle of Wight Rewilding Officer to join our cause.

The Isle of Wight is an amazing place to live and work, and you will be part of a friendly team working from our new office based on our rewilding site, Wilder Little Duxmore. This post offers a great opportunity to support in managing our two rewilding sites here on the Isle of Wight as well as our chalk downland nature reserves and a small number of sanctuary reserves which will also form part of this role’s remit.

What you’ll be doing

You will be working to ensure these reserves are managed to the highest environmental and ecological standards and adapting to emerging challenges, such as climate changes. These form part of our ambition to create a connected corridor of wild places for local wildlife including adonis blue butterflies, yellowhammers and hazel dormice. The variety of work will involve managing scrub and tree management with a range of tools and machinery, building and maintaining fences to ensure they are stock proof, managing livestock and working with our local dedicated volunteer teams.

About you

You will enjoy working hands on, as part of a team and be confident using machinery, with a genuine passion for protecting and restoring nature at scale. You will bring energy, commitment, and a solid, time earnt understanding of practical conservation management. You will be keen to play a vital part in the team helping us to achieve a busy and varied work programme, keeping our reserves as special places for wildlife and people.

Wild About Inclusion!

As an inclusive employer we recognise that our workforce needs to better reflect the communities in which we live and work. We encourage applications from all sections of the community, particularly those underrepresented within our sector, including people from black, Asian, minority Ethnic backgrounds and people with disabilities. We are committed to creating a Movement that recognises and truly values individual differences and identities.

Disability Confident.

We are proudly a Disability Confident Committed employer. The scheme is helping us recruit and retain great people to meet our workforce needs. As a member of the scheme, we will ensure that a fair and proportionate number of disabled applicants that meet the minimum criteria for this position will be offered an interview.

To be considered for an interview under the Disability Confident Scheme you must:

• Identify as being disabled which under the Equality Act 2010 means a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial*, long term** adverse effect on your ability to carry out normal day to day activities; or a long-term health condition; and;
  (*Substantial is more than minor or trivial **Long-term means 12 months or more)
• Set out how you meet all the minimum qualifying criteria set out in the person specification for the post at the application and testing stages. This is a requirement for all candidates, not just those applying under the scheme.

We offer a wide range of benefits including a competitive salary, generous annual leave allowance, a contributory pension scheme, life assurance, learning and development support, 24-hour access to our employee assistance programme, discounted staff travel with our corporate partners Wightlink (subject to T&Cs), free parking at our sites and more.

Closing date: 06 April 2026
Interviews: To be confirmed

To apply for the role, please click on the ‘Apply Now’ button. In the ‘supporting information’ section, you’ll need to demonstrate, with detailed examples, how you meet the job requirements using the Job Description and Person Specification below. Please note that we may occasionally close vacancies early when we have received enough applications that meet the required criteria.