Beaver Habitat Restoration Officer

Are you passionate about restoring natural processes and supporting the recovery of healthy functioning wetlands and thriving nature-rich river corridors?

Are you excited about the prospect of working alongside wild living beavers to increase flood resilience, improve water quality and enhance biodiversity?

We are looking for a motivated and skilled person who can lead on wetland habitat restoration in the River Otter, to deliver benefits for beavers and local communities.

You will support the delivery of DWTs work on the Climate Resilient Otter Catchment (CROC) and Otter Catchment Source to Sea projects. These novel projects are of national importance, aiming to integrate beavers’ eco-engineering skills with man-made interventions, such as leaky dams, ponds and riparian buffer strips, to deliver benefits to nature and society. The outputs from the projects are crucial in supporting the wider reintroduction of beavers, showcasing methods for creating ‘beaver-ready catchments’ and testing financial support mechanisms to landowners making space for beaver wetlands. The development phase, including baseline surveys, preliminary site designs and landowner engagement, is complete.

We are looking for someone with skills and experience in habitat creation, wetland restoration or natural flood management methods to finalise site designs with landowners, establish long-term funding options for ongoing management, secure necessary consents and coordinate the practical delivery of capital works.

The role is based at Cricklepit Mill in Exeter and will require frequent field visits to the River Otter catchment in East Devon. The postholder will have access to a £180,000 capital works budget for contracting services and delivery of practical works.

This is a part-time (30 hours per week), fixed term role until 31 March 2027. We are keen to extend the role beyond March 2027, but this will be subject to further funding.

Interviews will be taking place on Thursday 21 August. If you cannot attend this date, please let us know when you apply.

We welcome candidates of all backgrounds and abilities who meet the essential criteria for this role. To achieve our vision, we need more people, and more diverse people, on nature’s side. We are committed to developing an inclusive and diverse organisation, in which everyone feels supported, valued, and able to be their full selves.

DWT is committed to the principle of equal opportunity in employment.

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