Land Advice Service Manager

Contract type: Permanent

Location: Hybrid working

Hours: 37.5 per week

The LAS Manager’s role has principal responsibility for the strategic development, and day to day running, of Future Nature Wildlife Trust Consultancy’s Land Advice Service, leading a small, dedicated, specialist team and working collaboratively with the Wildlife Trust’s Conservation Strategy Directorate. The LAS Manager will lead on business development, building relationships with clients and partners and raising the profile of the Land Advice Service, so that a range of new projects are won and delivered across the three counties. By forging strong relationships with landowners and farmers who wish to manage their land sympathetically for wildlife, the LAS’s work will generate revenue for the Wildlife Trust, and result in positive impacts and sustainable outcomes for Nature’s recovery in our Region.

Key Responsibilities

Deliver a successful Land Advice Service (LAS)

• Lead the business development of the LAS, growing the profile and market share, and building a network of partners, contacts, and clients.

• Estimate, bid for and win new contracts in a competitive market. Increase the pipeline of opportunities, quotations, and commissioned projects, to meet or exceed the LAS budget.

• Ensure the quality of LAS proposals, tenders and reports are consistently high and meet industry best standards.

• Provide wildlife-friendly land management advice to landholders, farmers, partners and colleagues, to ensure that good outcomes for nature result from LAS involvement.

Manage Land Advice Service operations

• Head-up project management within LAS, delivering projects from opportunity to client handover at high utilisation rates, and coordinating team resources for projects to be delivered on time and on budget.

• Manage incoming requests, client liaison and allocate project responsibilities within the team, quoting customers promptly, tracking opportunities and measuring client satisfaction.

• Create sound project specifications, accurately budgeting for time and expenses.

• Support development of core operational procedures, including health & safety and project management.

Develop opportunities for landowner engagement

• Lead the engagement with individual landowners or groups of landowners, such as farmer clusters, to find and develop opportunities for LAS services.

• Provide up-to-date working knowledge of sources of funding and financial incentives for land management practices, such as Countryside Stewardship, Biodiversity Net Gain, Environmental Land management Services, and initiatives for Nature’s recovery, including conservation approaches, agricultural policy and agri-environment schemes.

• Organise and deliver training and networking events for farmers, land managers and landowners.

Person specification

• Experienced in delivering environmentally beneficial land management advice to clients, ideally in a consultancy environment.

• Experienced in writing and reviewing project proposals, technical reports and management plans, able to ensure the quality of the consultancy’s products is of the highest standards.

• Evidence of managing commercial business operations, with working practice of achieving high utilisation rates to deliver profitable results.

• Willing and able to take responsibility for all aspects of project delivery – desk and field based – with the necessary project management skills and experience to achieve budget and programme targets.

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, to ensure effective communications with colleagues, clients and external stakeholders. Able to lead meetings and present to groups.

• Evidence of working with a range of landowners, farmers and estate managers, with the ability of forming long-term relationships at all levels, including forming and leading farmer clusters.

• Willingness to travel within the three counties to meet farmers, landowners, and colleagues as required, and be comfortable in commercial, rural and agricultural environments.

• Organised self-starter with ability to manage own workload and deadlines with minimum supervision.

• A current UK-valid driving licence.

• Well-developed IT skills with a working knowledge and understanding of MS Office and experience with GIS.

• Ability and willingness to demonstrate the BBOWT behaviours of Connect, Grow, Lead by Example, Positivity and Conscious Inclusion

• Flexible approach to the demands of seasonal field surveying or client-related events, that may require occasional unsociable hours of work.