Environmental Assessment Officer - Fisheries

Team / Directorate: Environmental Assessment and Advice Team / Operations 

Starting salary:  £36,246 rising to £39,942 per annum through annual increments being paid each year (pro rata for part time applicants)

Contract type: Permanent

Work pattern:  Full time, 37 hours per week (Part time, annualised hours, compressed hours or term time working considered - discussions at interview stage welcome)

Interview Date: 09/09/2025

Post number: 200439 ENV

The role

For our Environmental Assessment Officer Fisheries role, we're looking for an enthusiastic and well-organised team player to join our North East Wales Environmental Assessment and Advice Team.

This is an exciting opportunity to play a key role in the Dee Assessment Programme — a long-term monitoring initiative focused on salmon and sea trout in the River Dee. This unique programme generates vital data on the abundance and biology of these important migratory species, helping to shape the future of fisheries management and conservation in Wales.

As part of a place-based, collaborative team, you’ll be involved in a mix of fieldwork and office-based tasks, including year-round fish trapping and tagging (including adult salmon and smolt monitoring), electrofishing surveys of juvenile fish (fry and parr), maintenance and management of the angler catch return database, fish scale reading, biological analysis, data processing/analysis, and production of technical reports.

We're looking for someone who is meticulous with data, practically minded, physically fit, and confident working in sometimes challenging outdoor conditions — including night-time smolt trapping. Health and safety awareness is essential, and prior experience in fish sampling techniques or fisheries monitoring will be a strong advantage. A working knowledge of fish handling and welfare best practices is also highly desirable.

With improvements in fish monitoring technology, we will be aiming to utilise systems such as VAKI, ARIS, and PITT in coming years. This will improve confidence in the data we capture. Experience in these systems or any other fish monitoring technologies would be beneficial.

This role offers the opportunity to contribute to the protection of Wales’ freshwater ecosystems and work on a programme with real long-term impact.

As an organisation we support flexible working. You will be contracted to the NRW office at the above location and a suitable hybrid working pattern will be agreed on appointment. Any regular face to face meetings or training will be planned in advance.

To make an informal enquiry about this role, please contact Rob Evans at robert.evans@cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk  

Interviews will be held on at the Natural Resources Wales office in Buckley CH7 3AJ 

Successful applicants will be subject to a satisfactory Disclosure and Barring Service Check (DBS) check. Appointments are normally made within 4 to 8 weeks of the closing date.

About us

This role is part of our North East Wales Environmental Assessment and Advice Team — a multidisciplinary group working across fisheries, terrestrial and freshwater ecology, water quality, and earth science.

You'll focus on fisheries monitoring in the Dee catchment, with opportunities to support projects across North Wales. Working alongside colleagues in environmental regulation and conservation, you’ll help collect and analyse data that directly informs how Natural Resources Wales protects and manages the environment.

Join a skilled, passionate team delivering evidence that drives real-world environmental outcomes — from shaping policy to tracking the impact of our work on rivers, habitats, and species.

 

What you will do

• Undertake ad hoc and routine system administration, data quality assurance, analysis and reporting.
• Provide specialist, monitoring technical advice and guidance to internal and external customers, from a range of sources; helping ensure that decisions are based on sound technical judgement, in line with current legislation and best practice.
• Produce technical reports analysing and interpreting national and local datasets for operational work, public enquiries, court appeals etc.
• Help ensure that NRW’s monitoring data is collected and stored to the quality standards prescribed by European and UK legislation and by NRW policy.
• Assist Senior EAO and TL in planning, scheduling and tracking the annual survey and monitoring programmes, with regards to sampling activities. 
• Advise on specialist non-routine monitoring/survey work and the analysis of data including input on delivery of operational measures.
• Contribute to delivery of survey and monitoring programmes.
• Guide, advise and support internal and external customers, ensuring decisions are made on sound technical data and information.
• Help resolve local issues by providing scientific and technical advice/interpretation of monitoring data.
• Assist in the development, implementation of new monitoring and reporting methods, including collaboration with partner organisations at a local level.
• Respond to requests for information relating to monitoring data, within specified deadlines.
• Maintain and procure specialist sampling equipment.
• Undertake health and safety duties and responsibilities appropriate to the post
• Be committed to Natural Resources Wales Equal Opportunities and Diversity Policy, together with an understanding of how it operates within the responsibilities of the post
• Be committed to your own development  through the effective use of your personal development plan (known as Sgwrs).
• Any other reasonable duties requested commensurate with the grade of this role.
• Required to take part in incident response activities (For roles with exact or strong link only)

Your qualifications, experience, knowledge and skills

In your application and interview you will be asked to demonstrate the following skills and experience using the STAR method.

1. You will have a degree level qualification in a relevant subject area or the equivalent level of knowledge (i.e,fisheries)
2. Experience of analysing samples, field-based monitoring/surveillance, interpreting and reporting on environmental data and practical knowledge of a wide range of monitoring activities and methodologies.
3. Expertise in fisheries monitoring.
4. Excellent report writing skills and knowledge of relevant legislation.
5. Experience of monitoring data management systems, as well as practical understanding of technical monitoring solutions and practices.
6. Good analytical skills including statistics, and knowledge of data handling including GIS.
7. An excellent communicator with good organisational skills.
8. Ability to undertake fieldwork in sometimes physically demanding environments.
9. Ability to swim and be confident working in water.
10. A current full UK valid licence to drive NRW fleet vehicles. (cars and vans).

Welsh language level requirements

• Essential: Level A1 - Entry level (able to use and understand simple, basic phrases and greetings, no conversational Welsh)

Please note if you do not meet the A1 requirement i.e., ability to understand basic phrases and ability to pronounce Welsh names correctly, then NRW offers a variety of learning options and staff support to help you meet these minimal requirements during the course of your employment with us.

Benefits 

This role will offer a range of benefits, including:

• Civil Service Pension Scheme offering employer contributions of 28.97% (successful internal staff will remain in their current pension scheme)
• 28 days annual leave, rising to 33 days
• generous leave entitlements for all your life needs
• commitment to professional development
• health and wellbeing benefits and support
• weekly wellbeing hour to use as you choose

See full details for all the employee benefits you will receive.

Please keep reading

We’re passionate about creating a diverse workforce and positively encourage applications from under-represented communities. We embrace equality of opportunity irrespective of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.  

We are committed to equal opportunities and we guarantee interviews for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

We want to attract and retain talented and highly skilled staff, so we make sure that our pay scales remain competitive. We advertise the full pay scale on our job descriptions. Appointed candidates start at the first point of the pay scale and annual increments are paid each year.

We want our staff to grow professionally and personally. From leadership development to access to further and higher education courses, our staff have opportunities to expand their knowledge on variety of topics, stay current in their field and continue to learn as their career progresses.  

We are a Bilingual organisation which complies with the Welsh Language Standards.  Welsh language skills are considered an asset to NRW, and we encourage and support staff to learn, develop and use their Welsh language skills. 

Apply for this role

Please save these advert details for future reference as they will no longer be available online after the closing date.