Lead Wildlife Manager

Job summary

Wildlife management sits at the heart of nature recovery, sustainable forestry and forest resilience. It protects biodiversity, enables the next generation of timber, and restores balance to ecosystems that can no longer regulate themselves. This role leads the wildlife management function across the >250,000 hectares of the nation’s forests managed by Forestry England. Of this, around 68,000 hectares are designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest and 59,000 hectares are ancient woodland. These landscapes support significant populations of native and non‑native ungulates - including muntjac, roe, fallow, sika and red deer - as well as feral wild boar.

Evidence shows that deer pressure on woodlands has risen over recent decades, with approximately 33% of English woodlands now negatively affected, up from 24% in the early 2000s. In addition to deer, non-native grey squirrels create substantial challenges for woodland recovery, causing damage such as bark stripping, alongside challenging our native wildlife. With the UK lacking its native top predators, active wildlife management remains essential to replicate natural ecological functions and maintain balanced, healthy woodland ecosystems. This intervention is vital to enable nature recovery, support sustainable forestry, and maintain the long‑term resilience of the forests we manage.

This role provides strategic leadership for wildlife management across England, overseeing more than 70 dedicated staff. The post holder will act as Forestry England’s subject matter expert within the National Operations team and will report directly to the Head of Environment and Nature Recovery.

Please see the job description below for more information and details about what we need from you.

This is a flexible, National role, that will involve dealing with contacts across England, meaning occasional travel with overnight stays. The postholder will be expected to regularly travel in accordance with the needs of the business and the demands of the post.

Job description

Key responsibilities & accountabilities

• Strategic lead for wildlife management including delivering the vision for wildlife management which encapsulates population management, partnership working, lethal control operations, firearms procedures, venison production and contract management, best practice, training, health and safety.
• Develop national policy through reviewing and ensuring Forestry England’s Policy, Practice, and Guidance documents are fit for purpose and up-to-date with the latest evidence and thinking.
• Provide expertise on a wide range of wildlife management situations with regards to firearms law, safety standards and legal compliance.
• Provide leadership for Forestry England’s wildlife management staff. This includes offering direct support to colleagues, organising audits, ensuring compliance with deer larder standards and overseeing firearms authorities. The role will also chair the Forestry England Firearms and Wildlife Management Standards Panel and lead on implementing its recommendations. In addition, the role will drive work to increase diversity and improve representation of all communities within wildlife management roles across the organisation.
• Work closely with colleagues across the Forestry Commission, and engage with other DEFRA departments and key stakeholders as appropriate, these will include Natural England, Natural Resources Wales, Forestry & Land Scotland, Non-Governmental Organisations and other stakeholder groups.
• Responsible for maximising brand and reputation opportunities, and managing risks, associated with Forestry England's wildlife management work directly with the national engagement team, and promoting collaboration at a local level.
• Ensure Forestry England are at the forefront of wildlife management, ensuring best practice is continually updated, technical advances are utilised, and novel methods are explored.

And any other tasks, reasonably requested by your line manager.

Person specification

Essential professional and technical experience

• Proven leadership experience and strong technical capability, including extensive team building, change management, project management and budget oversight. Able to apply technical expertise to inform decision‑making and to influence, motivate and inspire teams to adopt new ways of working.
• Proven professional‑level technical expertise in wildlife population management. This could include Deer Management Qualifications Level 1 & 2, managing large‑scale culling programmes, understanding population monitoring, delivering the British Quality Wild Venison Standard, and overseeing deer larder operations.
• Strong experience in contract management, ideally within a wildlife management context such as deer management or venison contracts.
• Knowledge of wildlife and firearms legislation, including relevant statutory requirements and best‑practice guidance.
• Ability to influence and collaborate effectively with a wide range of stakeholders and organisations, each with diverse mandates and ambitions relating to land management and the natural environment.

Desirable professional and technical experience

• Experience of visitor management, forestry operations, the technical aspects of timber production and forest management, protected species conservation, forest planning and operational site planning.
• Strong writing and presentation skills, combined with an ability to engage a wide range of stakeholders.

Qualifications

Desirable

• A degree in a relevant subject and/or similar levels of professional experience.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Leadership
• Communicating and Influencing
• Making Effective Decisions

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• TBC

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £48,765, Forestry Commission contributes £14,127 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

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Technical skills.

You will be asked to write a 200 word statement on your relevant experience and career history, along with a personal statement of no more than 500 words. You will be assessed on both during sifting. More details about how to apply are listed on the application form.

At interview, your Technical Knowledge will be tested through questions and a presentation by the candidate. We will also test the following behaviours through questions:

The Behaviours being assessed at interview are –

• Seeing the big picture: Understand how your role fits with and supports organisational objectives. Recognise wider Forestry England priorities and ensure work is in the national interest.

• Leadership: Show pride and passion for public service. Create and engage others in delivering a shared vision. Value difference, diversity and inclusion, ensuring fairness and opportunity for all.

• Communicating & Influencing: Communicate purpose and direction with clarity, integrity and enthusiasm. Respect the needs, responses and opinions of others.

• Making Effective Decisions: Use evidence and knowledge to support accurate, expert decisions and advice. Carefully consider alternative options, implications and risks of decisions.

Successful candidates will undergo a criminal record check and the government baseline personnel security standard check.

If you require any reasonable adjustments, please email fcrecruitmentteam@forestryengland.uk.

If you're planning to use AI to support your application, please ensure you've read our guidelines here first.

Read more about our application process and working with us on the Forestry England website.

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.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

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

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.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 : FC Recruitment Team
• Email : fcrecruitmentteam@forestryengland.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : fcrecruitmentteam@forestryengland.uk

Further information

Our recruitment process is underpinned by the principle of appointment on the basis of fair and open competition and appointment on merit, as outlined in the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles.If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with these principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should in the first instance contact FCE by email: englandhr.services@forestryengland.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive, you can contact the Civil Service Commission, which regulates all Civil Service recruitment.

Attachments

Forestry England Job Description - Lead Wildlife Manager (PB3) Opens in new window (pdf, 199kB)