Summary

We are the public body that looks after England’s historic environment. We champion historic places, helping people understand, value and care for them.

Historic England have a fantastic opportunity for you to join us as our Head of Climate Change.

The location of this role is National where we offer hybrid working, you will be based in one of our following offices and from home - Newcastle, York, Manchester, Birmingham, Swindon, Bristol, Portsmouth (Fort Cumberland) and Cambridge. 

Salary

National (Newcastle, York, Manchester, Birmingham, Swindon, Bristol, Portsmouth): £52,765 - £56,197

Cambridge: £54,390 - £57,926

What you will be doing

Working within Historic England’s Environmental Management Team within Policy Development, you will provide advice to government on the development of climate change policy, ensuring heritage is considered at an early stage. You will be a powerful advocate for the positive role heritage can play in lowering greenhouse gas emissions, delivering energy and carbon efficiency across the built environment, and in providing climate resilient places. You will support government delivery of its climate priorities alongside its heritage protection duties.

Providing advice to other policy teams within Historic England so they can build climate change into the advice they provide to government, you will also work closely with relevant colleagues across the organisation, drawing on their technical advice and expertise to underpin our advice to government.

You will provide strategic leadership and advice to teams across Historic England wishing to embed climate change into their work, ensuring it aligns with national policy and Historic England’s climate action priorities. You will also provide strategic direction through briefings for colleagues, including the Chair and CEO, to enable them to engage in climate- related matters with external stakeholders and senior members of government.

A key member of Historic England’s Climate Change Board, you will help guide delivery of the organisation’s corporate Climate Action priorities and Climate Change Strategy through a Climate Change Programme. Principally, you will lead and coordinate delivery of the government engagement and policy influencing component of the programme but will also provide strategic direction for the work of other activity leads to develop and deliver the programme.

Reporting directly to the Head of Environmental Management, you will work closely with the Director of Policy and Evidence (the Senior Responsible Officer for the Climate Change Programme).

This is a specialist policy and strategic leadership post with a focus on climate change, with a high proportion of the work currently focused on carbon and energy efficiency of historic buildings. You may, however, need to work on other policy areas depending on changing priorities across the Environmental Management Team and wider Policy Development Team.

Who we are looking for

• An appropriate qualification, a degree, or equivalent experience, in policy development, advocacy and delivery.

• Demonstrable understanding of wider strategic issues affecting climate change and heritage.

• Experience of negotiating with external partners at a senior level.

• Strong leadership, including setting goals and securing buy-in.

• Astute stakeholder management, including credibility and confidence to engage at a national level.

• Ability to communicate and engage persuasively, succinctly and credibly – verbally and in writing.

We are an equal opportunity employer which values diversity and inclusion. If you have a disability or neurodiversity, we would be happy to discuss reasonable adjustments to the job with you. Having just won the Gold Award from MIND, we also recognise the importance of a healthy work-life balance.

We are an inclusive employer and believe that flexible working options are for everyone. We want to make sure our working arrangements don’t prevent anyone from joining us because of their personal circumstances. We also want to provide you with the best balance in your home and work life that we can.

We are open to considering options including job sharing, part-time working, compressed hours working and different working locations, including hybrid working. Please visit our jobs pages or contact us to find out more.

Why work for Historic England

We offer a wide benefits package including a competitive pension scheme starting at 28% employer contributions, a generous 28 days holiday, corporate discounts, free entry into English Heritage sites across the country and development opportunities to ensure you achieve your goals.

We are committed to promoting equality of opportunity for everyone. Diversity helps us to perform better and attract more people to support our work. We welcome and encourage job applications from people of all backgrounds.

We particularly encourage applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates and candidates with disabilities as they are underrepresented within Historic England at this level.

Historic England want all of our candidates to shine in the recruitment process. Please tell us what we can do to make sure you can show us your very best self. You can contact us by email at recruitmentTeam@Historicengland.org.uk if you have any recruitment queries. 

To ensure a fair and inclusive recruitment process for everyone the use of AI or automated tools is not permitted.

Provisional interview dates: 23rd September - Virtual

Please follow the link for a full copy of the Job Description –

https://historicengland.org.uk/media/i4cnq0ri/head-of-climate-change.odt