Principal Consultant

Overview:
**Role**:Principal Consultant - Environmental and Ecological Assessment

**Location**:Manchester, UK - Hybrid

**Role ID**: 2025-3101

**Our vision is to create a safe and sustainable world.**

Ricardo plc is a global strategic, environmental, and engineering consulting company. With over 100 years of engineering excellence and employing close to 3,000 employees in more than 20 countries, we provide exceptional levels of expertise in delivering leading-edge and innovative cross-sector sustainable products and solutions. Every day, we enable our customers to solve the most complex and dynamic challenges to help achieve a safe and sustainable world.

**The Role**

We are looking to appoint a Principal Consultant who has extensive and relevant experience as a team leader in undertaking and reviewing aquatic ecology assessments and supporting surveys within the UK water industry.

**Key Responsibilities**
- Lead and develop a team of aquatic ecologist, supporting and training junior staff.
- With the support of your team of ecologist deliver expertise in aquatic ecology investigations across all project stages, from bidding/feasibility/optioneering, extensive field survey programming, detailed design and assessment.
- Contribute to the production of consents such as Habitats Regulations Assessments (HRA), Water Framework Directive (WFD), Drought Permits and INNS assessments as a technical author or reviewer.
- The role of Principal Consultant will require strong organisation skills and ability to communicate with colleagues and clients to deliver projects to budget and programme.
- You will work collaboratively as part of a wider team of multi-disciplinary water and environmental experts that include specialists in the fields of EIA, HRA, water resources, hydro-ecology, ground and surface water hydrology, geomorphology, water quality and natural capital.

**Key Competencies and Experience**
- A first degree in a relevant environmental discipline ideally with a post graduate degree.
- In depth knowledge of UK and EU Wildlife Legislation, planning policies, licensing requirements and best practice survey techniques.
- Capable at leading Ecological Impact Assessments and Habitats Regulations Assessments.
- A good understanding of WFD assessments, in particular the biological metrics and indices that inform ecological status.
- Leading, planning and co-ordinating field surveys, analysing and interpreting survey results and planning and co-ordinating ecological mitigation works.
- Demonstrable specialist knowledge in either fisheries, macroinvertebrate or macrophyte ecology preferable.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills; be able to produce meticulous and accurate technical reports as well as communicate confidently with a variety of clients and stakeholders.
- Be organised with proven ability to multi-task and handle several projects simultaneously.
- Ability to manage multiple projects/proposals concurrently.

**Skills and Behaviours**
- A self-starter, as you’ll be part of a small, busy team. Excellent team working skills are therefore essential together with strong communication skills, sound understanding of ecological impact assessment and a close attention to detail.
- Proven technical reviewing skills.
- The ability to manage and support technical input into proposals.
- The ability to be flexible around business needs.

**Working here**

You will be warmly welcomed into our workplace where every voice matters. We are diverse thinkers and doers, coming together to create a culture of inclusion. We will support you to find your place.

We will encourage you to use your passion and expertise to make a positive impact through the projects you work on. Your knowledge and desire to bring about change will be invaluable in helping deliver innovative solutions that support communities across the globe in becoming safer and more sustainable.

**Work life balance**

We offer flexible approaches to work, whether that is working from home, being in the office, or as a hybrid worker. We're happy to discuss flexible working arrangements. Wellbeing is at the core to our culture, allowing employees to flourish and to achieve their full potential.

**Benefits**

We want you to know how much you are valued. Your remuneration and benefits package will reflect that. You will receive a range of benefits which include support for your physical and mental health.

Our core benefits include 25 days' annual leave, plus 8 flexible bank holidays, a competitive company pension scheme, life assurance and professional subscriptions reimbursement. We also offer a wide range of flexible benefits to suit your lifestyle.

**Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion statement**

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person's potential, and we'll help you reach yours. We have an ambitious diversity, equality, and inclusion approach as explained here. We value diversity; recognising that a more diverse wor