Wildlife Field Staff Id:1672

**Details**:
**Reference number**:

- 351958**Salary**:

- £27,470 - £28,606- A Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 27%**Job grade**:

- Executive Officer**Contract type**:

- Fixed term
- Loan
- Secondment**Length of employment**:

- End 30th November 2025**Business area**:

- APHA - Science**Type of role**:

- Science**Working pattern**:

- Full-time**Number of jobs available**:

- 1Contents

Location

About the job

**Benefits**:
Things you need to know

Location
- Nympsfield, South West England, GL10 3UJ : Sand Hutton, Yorkshire and the Humber, YO41 1LZAbout the job

**Job summary**:
APHA is a brilliant place to work where our people feel valued, have a voice and can be their authentic selves. We value difference and diversity, not only because we believe it is the right thing to do, but because it will help us be more innovative and make better decisions.

We are looking for compassionate, dedicated individuals who strive for excellence and integrity and who put animal health and welfare at the heart of everything they do.

Are you conscientious and an excellent team worker?

Do you enjoy working outside?

**If the answer is ‘yes’, we would love to hear from you**

We currently have an exciting opportunity in the Wildlife Team for Field Staff to operate nationally. This post will form part of a team of field staff to assist with delivering vaccination of badgers against TB and related work, mainly field-based activities such as badger sett and activity surveys.

**Job description**:

- The Wildlife Team are based at two locations; these roles may be contractually based at either the Woodchester Park location in Gloucestershire or the Sand Hutton location in York, although other APHA locations may be considered. (The project management office for this work is located at the Woodchester Park site)._

This is an important part of supporting implementation of the Government’s TB Strategy, and we are looking for highly motivated individuals with a willingness to travel and work away from home regularly and with a strong appetite for wildlife-related outdoors work. **This role requires substantial and regular travel to various destinations within England throughout the year.**

You will spend most of your time between May and end of October undertaking badger vaccination fieldwork, which is taking place in a wide geographic spread of counties, as far south as Cornwall and as far north as Cumbria. You would be expected to regularly work away for continuous 3 week periods (for each trapping and vaccination round). Turn-around time between three-week vaccination rounds may be short at times. Where vaccination areas are close to your home location you may be able to carry out some vaccination rounds within reasonable daily travel and we will always endeavour to match staff home locations to project areas to minimize travel however the expectation would be that there would be a substantial requirement for away working in these roles.

From November to April inclusive, you will be undertaking other badger-related duties mainly consisting of conducting field surveys (again, across a range of counties as required by project needs) and potentially other activities related to estimating and monitoring badger numbers some of which may involve periods of deskwork.

**Ability to satisfy this mobility requirement of the roles is therefore essential**.

Suitable vehicles will be provided for this work on a business-use only basis and related expenses will be covered. Some initial attendance at Woodchester Park will be necessary for training and enrolment but further attendance on site thereafter is expected to be infrequent/mínimal as you will primarily be working in the field as determined by the needs of the project (and therefore mostly travelling to work sites from home). Some training may take place elsewhere.

Please note that, if Woodchester Park is your normal contractual base, journeys to/from Woodchester Park will be at your own expense and in your own time. Depending on your home location, this might also necessitate overnight stays at your own expense. Once you are assigned a vehicle, occasional visits to your contracted base at Woodchester Park in your work trucks from your home locations is permitted where this is necessary and/or incidental to delivering the fieldwork.

This is a great opportunity to gain new skills and valuable experience of wildlife-related fieldwork. If you are already a trained badger vaccinator or experienced in surveying for badgers, it is an opportunity to substantially employ those skills.
- The Woodchester Park unit delivers a range of mainly badger-related wildlife research, scientific, technical, and field-based services and projects for Defra’s TB policy team and Welsh Government. This supports the implementation of strategies to tackle TB. The unit at Woodchester Park has at its heart a well-established scientific study that enables researc