Careers
Working here
Three vacancies, published salary bands, and a paragraph on what we are bad at. Average tenure is 9.2 years, which is either a recommendation or a warning depending on what you want from a career.
Open roles
Three vacancies, July 2026
Senior ecologist
£42,000 – £51,000 · Reading · Permanent
You will run your own survey programmes and take the biodiversity net gain conversations with design teams. We need at least one further bat licence holder and, ideally, a great crested newt class licence. Fieldwork is roughly 40% of the year and heavily seasonal — April to September is relentless and January is quiet, and we do not pretend otherwise at interview.
Acoustics consultant
£34,000 – £44,000 · Reading · Permanent
Three to six years in, comfortable running a BS 4142 assessment start to finish and willing to argue about a baseline. A good proportion of the work is residential schemes near roads and rail, with the Approved Document O overheating interaction that comes with it. IOA Diploma supported and paid for if you do not have it.
Graduate hydrologist
£28,500 · Reading · Permanent, September start
One position. You will spend the first year on flood risk assessments and gauging, with structured time on HEC-RAS and Flood Modeller. We take one graduate a year rather than six, because one can be properly supervised by a team this size and six cannot. A single flat salary, not a band, so nobody is negotiating against a peer.
Terms
What the job actually is
- Four-day core week; Fridays optional and unpaid overtime is not a thing here
- 28 days plus bank holidays, rising to 33 at five years
- Professional membership and one chartership route funded
- Salary bands published internally, reviewed every April
- Time off in lieu for dusk and dawn surveys, taken not banked
- Van fleet and pool cars — no expectation you use your own vehicle
And what we are bad at
Progression above principal level is genuinely limited. There are four heads of discipline and they are all in their forties, so if your five-year plan is a directorship, this is an honest reason to work somewhere larger. Three people have left for exactly that reason and we gave them all references.
Our seasonal peak is brutal. May and June involve dusk surveys most weeks for the ecology team, and while the time off in lieu is real, taking it in July does not undo being tired in June.
We have one office and no fully remote roles. Field disciplines need kit, vehicles and each other, and a hybrid pattern of two or three days in works; four days at home does not, and we would rather say that in a job advert than discover it in month three.
We are 61% male overall and 74% male at principal level and above. That is not a statistic anyone here is pleased with, the graduate intake has been at parity since 2021, and the gap will take a decade to work through at this size.
Get in touch
Tell us about the site before you buy it
A twenty-minute call at option stage is the cheapest environmental advice you will ever take, and occasionally it is the advice not to proceed.