Fen Restoration Project Officer

Part Time – 24 Hours per Week
Salary: Up to £33,000 pro rata gross per annum (up to £22,628 actual salary for 0.68 FTE) depending on skills and experience
Fixed Term Contract Until 31 March 2030
Location: College Copse Farm, Ridge Lane, Rotherwick, Hook, RG27 9AU (with hybrid working available)

Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust is shaping a wilder future for our counties – protecting special places, restoring habitats and inspiring people to act for nature. As part of the UK’s fastest-growing movement for nature’s recovery, we lead with passion, integrity and bold thinking. Join a team where your work has purpose, your ideas matter, and you can help create lasting change for wildlife and people.

We are seeking a Fen Restoration Project Officer to join our cause.

The role has a strong emphasis on project management and partnership development and coordination, creating the habitat management strategies, relationships, governance structures and opportunities required to deliver long-term restoration across the wider Greywell Fen and River Whitewater catchment.

What you’ll be doing

You will be responsible for delivering a partnership project between South East Water (SEW) and HIWWT to restore Greywell Fen SSSI and identify opportunities to enhance the wider River Whitewater catchment. Working closely with partners, you will help shape and deliver a Project Delivery Plan, leading on a range of restoration activities including practical conservation management, control of non-native species, infrastructure improvements, and habitat enhancement.

You will investigate and maximise opportunities for helping neighbouring landowners and managers to implement measures on their land that will benefit Greywell Fen, the River Whitewater, and its catchment area. You will liaise with SEW and other external agencies to ensure good communication around project expectations and delivery, contractual and legal compliance, and to ensure strong working relationships are built and maintained.

About you

You will be a positive and proactive self-starter, adept at bringing together individuals from different backgrounds to positively influence land management for the benefit of nature. You will be organised and methodical, able to manage multiple workstreams simultaneously to deliver complex, high-impact programmes. You will have strong ecological knowledge including of groundwater-dependent wetland and chalk river ecosystems and their restoration.

Wild about inclusion!

As an inclusive employer we recognise that our workforce needs to better reflect the communities in which we live and work. We encourage applications from all sections of the community, particularly those underrepresented within our sector, including people from black, Asian, minority Ethnic backgrounds and people with disabilities. We are committed to creating a Movement that recognises and truly values individual differences and identities.

Disability Confident

We are proudly a Disability Confident Committed employer. The scheme is helping us recruit and retain great people to meet our workforce needs. As a member of the scheme, we will ensure that a fair and proportionate number of disabled applicants that meet the minimum criteria for this position will be offered an interview. You can request adjustments including accessible formats of this vacancy by emailing [email protected].

To be considered for an interview under the Disability Confident Scheme you must:

Identify as being disabled which under the Equality Act 2010 means a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial*, long term** adverse effect on your ability to carry out normal day to day activities; or a long-term health condition; and;

(*Substantial is more than minor or trivial **Long-term means 12 months or more)

Set out how you meet all the minimum qualifying criteria set out in the person specification for the post at the application and testing stages. This is a requirement for all candidates, not just those applying under the scheme.

We are happy to discuss the possibilities of hybrid and flexible working

This role will be based at our office in Rotherwick, Hook, however, we are happy to accommodate a hybrid working routine, and discuss a pattern of work which mutually suits the candidate and the Trust. Traditionally, office hours are Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm with an hour lunch break. We value spending time working in-person to develop strong connections with each other and with our mission, so we although we offer hybrid working, we do not offer full home working within our roles.

We offer a wide range of benefits including a competitive salary, generous annual leave allowance, a contributory pension scheme, life assurance, learning and development support, 24-hour access to our employee assistance programme, discounted staff travel with our corporate partners Wightlink (subject to T&Cs), free parking at our sites and more.

Closing date: 11 November 2026

Interviews: 20 November 2026