Flood and Water Officer

About the role

Help protect communities from flooding through expert support, data management, and customer-focused service.

This is an exciting opportunity to play a key role in supporting the Council's responsibilities as the Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA). The post holder will provide technical and administrative support to help ensure compliance with flood risk legislation and guidance, while assisting residents, stakeholders, and partners with flood-related enquiries.

Working within a specialist team, you will help maintain and manage vital flood risk data, support the delivery of flood risk management activities, and contribute to protecting local communities and infrastructure from the impacts of flooding.

What will you be doing?

You will play an important role in helping the Council fulfil its responsibilities as the Lead Local Flood Authority. You will provide technical support, manage vital flood risk data and records, respond to enquiries from residents and stakeholders, and contribute to projects that help improve flood resilience across the area.

Key responsibilities will include:

• Providing technical support to Flood and Water Officers and the wider Planning Team to ensure flood and water management considerations are integrated into planning decisions.
• Managing and maintaining the Flood and Water team's database and GIS records to support accurate data collection, tracking, and retrieval.
• Updating and improving the Council's GIS-based register of Flood Risk Management Assets through data analysis, partner liaison, site visits, and surveys.
• Responding to requests for flood risk information and supporting the collection of new data required by the team.
• Handling enquiries and reports relating to flooding, providing advice, guidance, and information to residents and stakeholders.
• Gathering information from communities affected by, or at risk of, flooding through engagement, site visits, and survey work.
• Supporting the preparation and maintenance of flood risk strategies, plans, maps, and policies, including the Local Flood Risk Management Strategy.

Make a difference by helping communities become more resilient to flooding and supporting the sustainable management of local flood risk.

About you

• Level 5 qualification (Foundation Degree, HND or DipHE) in Civil Engineering or a related discipline, or demonstrable relevant professional experience.

• Good understanding of hydrology, hydraulics, and geomorphology processes relevant to flood risk
• Detailed knowledge of flood risk management and the role of the LLFA
• Experience of managing and maintaining complex datasets
  • Strong analytical skills with the ability to analyse, translate, present, and disseminate complex information
  • Good communication skills
  • Able to deliver excellent customer service under pressure
  • Computer literate with experience of Microsoft Office applications (Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint) and experience with document management systems.
  • Good organisational skills
  • Willingness and ability to travel as required independently to multiple sites across the Council’s administrative area to undertake site visits, or further away to attend meetings and events on behalf of the Council. For example, the ability drive with access to own transport.
  • Good time management skills
• The ability to carry out site visits or investigations on a variety of outdoor locations including domestic properties, overgrown land, and building sites. Must be able to use ladders and scaffolding and be able to walk across sites with uneven ground conditions.
• Ability to demonstrate awareness/understanding of equal opportunities and other people’s behaviour, physical, social and welfare needs.
• May be required to work outside office hours
• Likely to be required to travel in the course of duties

Our Benefits

Here at North Northamptonshire Council, we’re transforming for the better, using all our creativity and imagination to create the best life for our local people.

You’ll find that we have a wide range of careers that may be more surprising than you think!

Why choose us?

We offer a vibrant working environment with:

• a competitive salary
• a pension scheme, where we pay a significant contribution on top of your contribution. It provides life cover and ill-health protection.
• lots of opportunities to develop your skills, knowledge and potential in a large unitary council
• generous leave entitlement (28 days, rising to 33 days) and bank holidays, plus the option to buy up to an extra 10 days
• hybrid and flexible working arrangements, where practicable for service needs to help you with a healthy work-life balance.

We provide a range of great benefits such as an Employee Assistance Programme, an Employee Benefits Scheme, wellbeing support, travel rates at HMRC rates, as well as supporting a range of active Employee Network Groups.

About us

Our Values and Behaviours

Our values define who we are and how we operate, by forming the foundation for how we interact with our customers, colleagues and provide our services. They are also at the forefront of our decision making and delivery and are:

Customer-focused
Respectful
Efficient
Supportive
Trustworthy

Our key commitments help ensure that the priorities we make, now and in the future, maintain the necessary breadth of focus in those areas that we believe matter most.

Disability Confident Employer

We are proud to be a recognised Disability Confident Employer and is committed to providing an inclusive recruitment process and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role.

Our Employment and Disability Service provides bespoke support to individuals facing barriers to employment, helping them work towards their goals to start, stay and succeed in employment. For further information please click here The Employment and Disability Service (EADS) | North Northamptonshire Council

Armed Forces Community

The council obtained the Gold status award for the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme (ERS).

Further information can be found at Jobs and careers | North Northamptonshire Council (northnorthants.gov.uk)