Lead Climber

Why Southwark?

Southwark is one of London’s most dynamic and diverse boroughs - a place of energy, creativity, and ambition. We’re proud of our commitment to fairness, equality and opportunity, and we’re working every day to make Southwark a place where everyone can thrive.

Southwark is a dynamic, diverse and ambitious borough, and our Licensing Service plays a vital role in supporting safe communities, vibrant businesses and a thriving night-time economy. We are looking for an organised, customer-focused Unit Support Officer to join our Licensing team and help deliver a high-quality, responsive service to residents, businesses and partners.

What You'll Be Doing

As Lead Climber / Team Leader, you will supervise and lead a team of arborists, ensuring work is delivered safely, efficiently and in line with contract specifications and industry standards. You will also work as a senior operative within the team, managing site risks and acting as a key point of contact for colleagues, managers and the public.

You will play a critical role in maintaining high standards of arboricultural practice while supporting productivity, training and continuous improvement.

Key responsibilities

You will:

• Lead and carry out high-quality arboricultural operations, ensuring all work meets specification, performance targets and best practice standards.
• Supervise and manage a team of tree operatives, allocating daily work, organising equipment and ensuring professionalism on site.
• Undertake and oversee a full range of arboricultural works in line with BS3998 and other current standards, including pruning, removals, sectional dismantling, planting, aftercare, stump grinding and pest and disease management.
• Take responsibility for on-site health and safety, managing ground and aerial operations and ensuring public safety at all times.
• Implement traffic management controls where required, in compliance with the New Roads and Street Works Act.
• Support the delivery of productivity targets and assist with service improvements, new working methods and efficiency initiatives.

What We're Looking For

You will be a highly skilled arborist with strong leadership experience and a commitment to safety and quality.

You will bring:

• Proven experience at Climber or Lead Climber level within the arboricultural industry.
• A comprehensive range of NPTC/LANTRA certifications (or equivalent), including climbing, aerial rescue, rigging, chainsaw operations and MEWP use.
• Strong working knowledge of arboricultural standards, including BS3998 and BS8545.
• Sound understanding of health and safety legislation and safe working practices.
• Excellent tree species identification skills and the ability to assess defects and risks.
• Confidence leading teams, allocating work and maintaining high performance standards.
• Good communication skills and a professional, customer-focused approach.
• Basic IT skills or a willingness to undertake training.
• A full, clean UK driving licence with C1 + E entitlement.

Additional Information

Benefits and more information:

Salary Range (Full time equivalent)£35,373 - £41,637pa.

In your role, we want you to feel supported, challenged and rewarded. You will benefit from our family-friendly policies including flexible working, home working, and a local government pension scheme, plus many other staff benefits. You will join a motivated, driven and supportive team that strives for excellence and values its members. You will also be part of a successful and high-achieving development team that is making a real difference to the lives of residents in the borough. For more information about the wide variety of benefits you can take advantage of please visit our Staff Benefits page.

Closing date: 25/01/2026

Interview date: 02/02/2026

Guaranteed Interview Scheme:

As part of our commitment to inclusion, we offer guaranteed interviews for specific groups of people. To qualify, you'll need to meet the minimum requirements for the role, and identify with one of the below criteria:

• Members of the Armed Forces and veterans
• Are currently in care, or have previously been in care
• If you consider yourself to be disabled or if you have a long-term health condition

*Please note, we reserve the right to close applications prior to the closing date indicated above - please apply as soon as possible - we look forward to receiving your application.

Attachments

• Please Click Here For the Job Description and Person Specification