Principal Sustainability Advisor

The Opportunity

Salary: Starting at £44,075 to £47,181 per annum

Working pattern: Full time, 37 hours per week. Flexible working and condensed hours options considered e.g. 9 day fortnight.

Location: County Hall, Chichester / hybrid working. The nominated place for work will be County Hall, Chichester. However, the team is a predominantly a hybrid working team based across East and West Sussex. We come together monthly for team meetings and the role may require occasional travel to Chichester and other sites for in-person meetings.

Employer Pension Contribution: 19.70% this alters per annum on the 1 April each year.

Annual leave: 30 days holiday + Bank holidays = 38 days.

Interview dates: Monday 11 and Tuesday 12 November 2025

The purpose of this role is to lead, manage and develop aspects of the council's Climate Change Strategy delivery, with a particular focus on project development and delivery.

You'll provide wider sustainability expertise to support Climate Change Strategy delivery internally and externally across priority thematic areas to be agreed once in post that support our climate mitigation and adaptation work.

What we need from you:

• Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence the actions of others and communicate information that may be complex and contentious to a range of audiences. Including the ability to negotiate solutions across wide areas of the business and successfully convince others of the need to take a specific course of action.
• Ability to quickly assimilate information, consider the issues, risks and resource / budget implications and recommend the most appropriate course of action.
• Ability to think creatively, innovatively and laterally and to adapt to changing situations in a measured and flexible manner in order to adapt the advice and guidance provided to suit any change in circumstance whether legislative, structural, partnership related etc.
• Ability to research, analyse and interpret information to make effective and robust judgements and build compelling business cases and project proposals.
• Ability to organise and prioritise work, co-ordinate a variety of tasks in a clear and logical way and achieve agreed deadlines.
• Relevant advanced theoretical and procedural knowledge of sustainability, and climate change mitigation and adaptation, plus detailed knowledge gained from practical application, preferably in a local government setting.
• Proven success in developing and implementing projects on time and within budget in accordance with funding agreements.

For more information on the Key Skills as well as the Qualifications and/or experience required, please refer to the Job Description attached.

Rewards and benefits

As well as adding real value to our service users and our communities, as an employer we recognise our employees are central in being able to achieve this. To recognise this we want to help support your development and provide a great place to work ensuring you can fulfil your full potential, have access to a range of benefits including:

• an excellent local government pension scheme
• generous holiday entitlement of 30 days (plus opportunity to buy additional leave)
• a range of flexible working options, depending on your job role
• maternity, paternity, dependency and adoption leave
• volunteering opportunities
• training and development opportunities, including coaching and mentoring
• a range of discounts giving our staff access to hundreds of offers; groceries, travel, cinema tickets, days out, leisure activities, high street retailers and the opportunity to save over £1,000 a year through our West Sussex Choices benefits platform (see our Staff discounts page if you are a business looking to offer a discount)
• health and wellbeing benefits including access to our Employee Assistance Programme, Mental Health First Aiders and Voluntary Health Cash Plans

For a full list this can be found at our Rewards and Benefits page.

Further information

The reference number for this role is EIE01478.

You'll need to be able to travel independently between work locations for meetings and site visits.

For an informal conversation or for further information regarding the role, please contact Rachel Carless (Strategic Manager Climate Change) at For issues or queries regarding your application please contact

To apply, please follow the links below to upload your CV and Cover Letter. In your cover letter please outline your motivations for applying and explaining the skills and experience you can bring to the role (please refer to the key skills) ensuring that any gaps in employment are covered in your CV. Please ensure you have saved the job description attached to the main advert on our website as, once the job has closed, you may not have the opportunity to download again.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. This post is subject to 3 years referencing and a health check.

Equity, inclusion and accessibility is very important to West Sussex County Council. We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, as this helps us build a diverse and talented workforce, that reflects the communities we serve. We ensure our approach to recruitment is flexible and supportive to enable all applicants to be at their best and to ensure they have the best possible chance of success.

We operate a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants that have a disability, are a veteran or are a care leaver. More information can be found on our application help page.

CC

Job Reference: EIE01478