Marine Support Officer

Marine Support Officer

Team: Marine Evidence
Ref No: 202527
Grade: O (EO)
Type of appointment: Fixed-term
Location: Peterborough or Aberdeen
Salary: £27,632

This post will have a base in either Peterborough or Aberdeen.

JNCC has adopted a hybrid working approach, allowing colleagues to benefit from time in the office, with the flexibility also to work from home. Employees are expected to work from one of our office bases for a few days a month as a minimum with attendance expected at regular face to face team meetings. Arrangements will vary by team and the exact balance will depend on the nature of your role. We can provide more details at the interview and offer stages.

Who are JNCC?

Established in 1991, we’re the UK’s statutory advisor on issues affecting the natural environment across the UK and internationally. Our primary role is advising all four Governments of the UK. We also work with private sector organisations to support decision making on the sustainable use of marine waters and natural resources around the UK. JNCC is led by the Joint Committee, which brings together members from the nature conservation bodies for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and independent members appointed by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs under an independent Chair. Support is provided to the Committee by approx. 300 people who bring together scientific and technical expertise, extensive knowledge of policy at global, European and national levels, and skills in working with other organisations. Staff are based in two main offices in Peterborough and Aberdeen.

Why JNCC?

We’re small enough (c.300 staff) that your voice is heard by everyone including the CEO, but big enough that we have all the skills, resources and people you’ll need to get the job done. All our staff are passionate about conservation and making a difference to the world we live in. We have a very flexible, inclusive and welcoming organisational culture. Our Executive Management provides employees with the freedom and tools you will need, and our friendly team will assist you in your role.

JNCC is committed to maintaining employee health and wellbeing, whether it is physically, emotionally, financially or socially, and offers a range of benefits to support employees in this. Such benefits include the option to join the Civil Service Pension Scheme, professional and personal development opportunities as well as an exciting job in a unique environment.

Hours of work: Full-time

Normal minimum hours of attendance for the post are 36 hours per week over a 5-day period, Monday to Friday.

Flexi time is available. This post may also be suitable for job share.

Annual Leave:

The annual leave allowance is 25 days per year, rising to 30 days per year after 5 years’ service. There are also 12 days public and privilege leave. Part-time staff will receive this on a pro rata basis.

Post background

This is a fixed term appointment for 1 year initially.

The Marine Support Officer will work in the Marine Evidence team and also provide support to the Marine Monitoring team.

These teams cover a range of activities including organising offshore seabed surveys, improving access to and managing marine biological and protected area data, understanding human impacts on the marine environment and providing expert advice to national and international fora. The teams interact with several other JNCC marine teams and work closely with the Data and Digital Solutions team to develop and improve data products. The post holder will work with these teams to improve data access and delivery.

Post Duties

MPA data dissemination

1. Assist with the continued development of JNCC’s MPA mapper, updating the product with new data as these become available as well as implementing improvements to the update process.
2. Update the UK MPA reference datasets and publish these on the JNCC Resource Hub when changes occur to the UK MPA network.
3. Assist in the development and implementation of MPA spatial data protocols to improve the flow and management of MPA GI evidence to JNCC users.
4. Prepare MPA boundary data for the nomination of UK MPAs to OSPAR.

Benthic survey data management – Assist with the management of marine data, including:

1. Data management and metadata cataloguing of incoming datasets in accordance with the benthic survey data ingestion protocol;
2. Assist with the ongoing organisation of third-party data, including ascertaining usage permissions;
3. Assist with the external storage and publication of survey datasets (e.g. Data Archive Centres);
4. Run periodic reports to summarise UK marine data;
5. Contribute to current and developing work areas on the Marine Recorder application.

Offshore seabed survey support – Contribute to planning of MPA monitoring surveys including:

1. Assist survey planning leads in developing plans for offshore MPA monitoring surveys with partners including Cefas and Marine Directorate by preparing and managing survey data packages and creating survey maps for internal and external use;
2. Coordinate use of offshore seabed survey equipment and Personal Protective Equipment across JNCC;
3. Support the provision of seabed samples (e.g. taxonomic reference collections, genomic and carbon sub-samples) to museums and other partners;
4. Update offshore seabed survey webpages and other communications as and when required e.g. following surveys, report publication;
5. Promote JNCC’s work by publicising reports and surveys and through presence at conferences etc;

Answering internal and external data queries – Jointly manage the Foreign Commonwealth Office survey inbox and Offshore MPAs email inbox and handle other requests for data, responding to a variety of queries within 21 days of receipt;

Other support work – Contribute to other aspects of the team’s work as required and to improve the team’s flexibility and resilience. Including taking minutes and organising meetings and workshops.

Technical

To be a successful candidate you will be/have:

1. A degree or equivalent qualification and/or relevant recent practical work experience that provides the knowledge and experience described below.

Experience (Responsibilities)

To be a successful candidate you will have:

1. Ability to use standard office software (word, presentational software and the internet), in particular experience using spreadsheets to interrogate and manipulate data in a logical and methodical manner (preferably MS Office).
2. Experience in managing and ensuring the quality assurance of large-scale datasets;
3. Experience using GIS to map, manipulate and interpret datasets (preferably using ArcGIS or QGIS).
4. A broad understanding of marine nature conservation work in UK, ideally in relation to work on MPAs.

Additional skills and experience that would be desirable to the post are:

1. Experience using relational databases to manage and manipulate datasets (preferably using MS Access or PostgreSQL).
2. Knowledge of the types of data used in marine monitoring from remote-sensing and in- situ marine sampling, including acoustic survey, remote imagery and infauna collection, as well as more novel techniques such as eDNA;
3. Knowledge of quality assurance and quality control standards and procedures for marine survey and monitoring, and assessment/mapping data;

Behaviours

1. Managing a Quality Service
2. Communicating and Influencing
3. Delivering at Pace
4. Working Together

In the event that we receive a large volume of applications we reserve the right to conduct the sift based on the Lead Behaviour of Managing a Quality Service

Please see the CS Behaviours framework for more details at this grade:

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

1. UK nationals
2. nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
3. nationals of the Republic of Ireland
4. nationals from the EU, EEA or Switzerland with settled or pre-settled status or who apply for either status by the deadline of the European Union Settlement Scheme  (EUSS)
5. relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals working in the Civil Service
6. relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals who have built up the right to work in the Civil Service
7. certain family members of the relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals JNCC do not provide sponsorship

JNCC do not provide sponsorship