Higher Data Scientist-Earth Observation Analyst- Living England project - ( Ref : 6613 )

Job summary

This position is based Nationally

Job description

Join us in shaping a future where nature and people thrive. Whether you're drawn to hands-on conservation or playing a vital part behind the scenes, your work at Natural England will support lasting benefits for the environment and society.

Our Role

Natural England is the Government’s adviser for the natural environment and the Nature regulator with a wide range of statutory duties and powers. We provide the evidence, expertise and advice to recover Nature and shape better places for people to live. We do this working through and with others.

Strategic Outcomes for Nature

Our strategy is framed through four strategic outcomes. Each of these outcomes reinforces and amplifies the others, and together they address environmental, social and economic actions critical to thriving nature.

• Recovering Nature– Increased scale and quality of places where nature thrives.
• Building Better Places– Greener homes and infrastructure create healthier, more investable places, recognising we live better where nature thrives around us.
• Improving Health and Wellbeing– Build nature into everyday life so people can support, access and benefit from nature, wherever they live.
• Delivering Security through Nature– Nature helps us adapt to the threats of a changing climate and improves our national security, supporting more resilient food production, healthy soils, clean and plentiful water and clean air.

Find out more about the work of Natural England at:

Natural England’s Strategy: Recovering Nature for Growth, Health and Security - GOV.UK

Job description

The team is responsible for delivering Natural England’s part of the Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment (NCEA) programme.

The NCEA is a transformative programme to understand the extent, condition and change over time of environmental assets across England's land and water environments, supporting the government’s ambition to improve the environment within a generation. Data will come from Earth observation, professional field data collection, citizen science and partner data sets.

Natural England’s Terrestrial NCEA delivery is organised into projects:

• Mapping and Earth Observation – Spatial data and maps on natural capital to inform national and local decision making and delivery.
• England Peat Map – Mapping the extent and condition of England’s peatlands.
• Field data collection – Data on habitats, soils, landscapes, and species to understand the condition of natural capital assets.
• Citizen science – Working with citizens and community science to fill gaps, provide local and landscape scale information and engaging the public.
• Data mobilisation and integration and reporting – Making NCEA, partner and volunteer data available for analysis, integration, and use, producing high quality evidence products by analysing and integrating NCEA data.
• Programme management – Managing Natural England’s NCEA programme.

This role sits within Project NE1 - Mapping & Earth Observation - Living England

The Living England project delivers a satellite-derived broad habitat map using machine learning using a standardised methodology. As a higher data scientist with Earth observation analyst skills (EOA), duties will include the acquisition, analysis and processing of EO data to meet the needs of Natural England’s Living England project. You will apply your knowledge of different Earth observation and data science techniques and data to environmental problems. You will support the implementation of Living England’s baseline workflow and contribute to innovation of habitat mapping and change detection. All Living England and change detection work is supported by field data collection to validate and improve methodologies used.

Key Tasks/Principal Accountabilities

You will be expected to:

• Apply earth observation data, tools and techniques to contribute to the development of EO mapping and monitoring methods in support of Natural England NCEA needs.
• Work with others to collate and prepare existing survey data, from a variety of sources, for use as training and validation data.
• Work under the direction of senior colleagues to support NCEA projects by providing EO analysis and expertise.
• Provide high quality mapping and statistical analyses for the NCEA programme and external stakeholders.
• Develop new tools to improve the way NCEA projects use EO and geospatial information.

Knowledge, Skills & Experience

• Advanced level of Earth observation analysis skills and experience.
• Experience of scripting and writing reproducible analytical processes, e.g. R/Python scripting.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills using a range of software and techniques (e.g., ArcGIS, QGIS, Google Earth Engine, eCognition etc).
• Basic knowledge of data governance, licensing, and management (Essential). Direct experience of using and applying a range of remote sensing data, tools and techniques.
• Experience of using EO techniques for environmental applications, e.g. habitat mapping and/or land management activities.
• Experience of using Google Earth Engine.
• Experience of using ArcGIS Online and/or ArcGIS Pro.
• Experience of data modelling (e.g. ArcGIS Model Builder, machine learning models).
• Apply the relevant methodologies and tools for collecting and collating data / evidence including metadata.
• Identify and apply the most appropriate data and methodologies for your analysis, utilising reproducible analytical pipelines and data science approaches where appropriate.
• Proactively communicate and present your data, evidence and analyses in ways that meet people’s needs, using clear and appropriate language so they can understand its implications and use it effectively to deliver positive outcomes for the environment.

Benefits

At Natural England, we support a healthy work-life balance by offering full-time, part-time, and flexible working arrangements.

We provide excellent opportunities for career progression, training, and development tailored to your role. This includes ten days annually for personal learning and development, plus three additional days for volunteering.

You’ll receive a generous leave allowance of 25 days per year (pro rata), increasing by one day for each year of service up to 30 days (pro-rata), access to the Civil Service Pension scheme with a 28.97% employer contribution, and a range of benefits such as shopping discounts and a cycle-to-work scheme. Staff can also join the Civil Service Sport club for discounts on sports, leisure activities, and social events.

We are committed to fairness, equality, and inclusivity. Our employee-led diversity networks help foster a welcoming environment where everyone feels valued and supported.

Locations

Natural England has adopted hybrid working – which means our staff work from a flexible range of locations, encompassing home, offices (ours and our partners) and relevant sites. All new staff will be formally linked to one of our 25 offices across England, and the expectation is that all new staff will be able to access their local office to be part of the community of staff in their geographical area. Staff are expected to attend their associated office for 20% of their contractual hours.

Staff members are required to carry out all their duties working in this way and cannot do so from an overseas location at any time. Travel expenses will be paid if work-related travel is required but does not apply to travel between home and your associated office.

National team roles can be linked with any Natural England office while Area Team roles will be linked with an office in the relevant geographic area.

View a map of our office locations here: online map of Natural England office locations.

Pay

It is Natural England policy to employ at the entry point of the salary range.

How to Apply

We welcome and encourage applications from all communities. Natural England is accredited to the Disability Confident Scheme, which denotes organisations which have a positive attitude towards disabled people. Disabled applicants who meet the minimum requirements for the role at the shortlisting stage are guaranteed an invitation to interview.

If you require a reasonable adjustment at interview, or there is anything else you would like the panel to take into consideration, you should notify us of this at application stage where possible, or well in advance of your interview. We now provide primary interview questions in advance for all formal recruitments.

This vacancy uses competency-based assessment. We'll assess you against the competencies below during the selection process:

• Technical Skills and Knowledge
• Work Delivery
• Personal Effectiveness

When completing the application form you should present relevant examples using the STAR format. Give us an example of how you have demonstrated the competency (which can be work related or from another area of your life) and tell us about the Situation, the specific Task you had to undertake, the specific Actions you took, and the Result (both immediate and in a wider context) of your Action.

Please note that STAR format is not required when answering the Technical Skills & Knowledge competency.

Examples should be given in no more than 250 words for each competency.

If you are successful at the shortlisting stage, you will be invited to attend an interview via MS Teams or a suitable alternative, where you will be asked to give examples for all competencies as set out in the Job Description.

As with all roles in NE, these roles require office attendance of a minimum of 20% of the working time – one day per week for those who work full time, subject to any reasonable adjustments and/or existing contractual homeworking.

Competencies

Competence 1

Professional competency

Detail

Technical skills and experience

Description

Advanced level of Earth observation analysis skills and experience (Essential)
• Experience of scripting and writing reproducible analytical processes, e.g. R/Python scripting (Essential).
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills using a range of software and techniques (e.g., ArcGIS, QGIS, Google Earth Engine, eCognition, etc) (Essential)
• Basic knowledge of data governance, licensing, and management (Essential). Direct experience of using and applying a range of remote sensing data, tools and techniques (Essential)
• Experience of using EO techniques for environmental applications, e.g. habitat mapping and/or land management activities. (Desirable)
• Experience of using Google Earth Engine (Desirable).
• Experience of using ArcGIS Online and/or ArcGIS Pro (Desirable).
• Experience of data modelling (e.g. ArcGIS Model Builder, machine learning models) (Desirable).
• Apply the relevant methodologies and tools for collecting and collating data / evidence including metadata (Practitioner).
• Identify and apply the most appropriate data and methodologies for your analysis, utilising reproducible analytical pipelines and data science approaches where appropriate (Practitioner).
• Proactively communicate and present your data, evidence and analyses in ways that meet people’s needs, using clear and appropriate language so they can understand its implications and use it effectively to deliver positive outcomes for the environment (Practitioner)

Competence 2

Professional competency

Detail

Work Delivery

Description

• Manage and deliver your work to meet agreed targets and deadlines. (Practitioner)
  • Apply the relevant methodologies and tools for collecting and collating data / evidence including metadata. (Practitioner)
  • Handle data responsibly, understand your role in good governance, and comply with delegations, policies and procedures. (Practitioner)

Competence 3

Professional competency

Detail

Personal effectiveness

Description

• Apply new technology to improve the way we deliver our work. (Practitioner)
  • Proactively communicate and present your data, evidence and analyses using clear appropriate language, communication styles and techniques that engage your audience in ways that meet people’s needs, so they can understand its implications and use it effectively to deliver positive outcomes for the environment. (Practitioner)
  • Use relevant internal and external networks to exchange information. (Expert)

Person specification

Please refer to Job Description

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £32,240, Natural England contributes £9,339 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

Please refer to Job Description

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Ruth Crundwell
• Email : Ruth.Crundwell@naturalengland.org.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : defra-recruitment-enquiries@resourcing.soprasteria.co.uk

Further information

https://networkrecruitment.tal.net/vx/appcentre-7/brand-4/spa-1/candidate/so/pm/1/pl/8/opp/6613-6613-Higher-Data-Scientist-Earth-Observation-Analyst-Living-England-project/en-GB

Attachments

DEF-001h - Candidate Pack Natural England v2.9 Opens in new window (docx, 548kB)