Data Engagement And Analysis - Senior Adviser

A key part of this role will be working proactively to support Natural England’s England Ecosystem Survey (EES) team and working with internal and some external stakeholders to understand the project’s data needs and data holdings. EES is one of the principal data collection projects within the tNCEA. The aim of this role will be to overcome barriers to effective data management and sharing to improve access to and effective use of evidence and assist tNCEA projects to produce outputs under the Open Government Licence (OGL).

The demands of the role will be split between providing advice and support to the EES project and developing the systems and capacity to integrate and analyse all the data generated by the tNCEA. The scope of the role may develop and evolve according to the evidence needs.

Key tasks and principal accountabilities:

• Seek to understand the short- and long-term priorities for the England Ecosystem Survey (EES) project and associated data storage, analysis and mobilisation issues, to enable effective planning and problem-solving, working with tNCEA project leads and the wider Defra Group.
• Coordinate the planning, development, and maintenance of a data storage and processing architecture for EES in collaboration with the EES team, Natural England (NE) data architects, and system providers, ensuring this meets NE and stakeholder requirements such as data accessibility and sharing.
• Lead and contribute to aspects of the tNCEA programme of work around the improvement of data quality, quality assurance processes, and data search and discovery, including the development of guidance, tools and training materials for effective data planning, procurement and management.
• Work with colleagues to develop and maintain processes and tools for both day-to-day data management (e.g., data wrangling and quality assurance) and higher-level system and dataset manipulation and management (e.g., data transfers and systems migration).
• Work with colleagues to maintain the standards, guidelines, and infrastructure required to ensure good data governance and production of Open Data products, whilst ensuring NE’s legal duties and responsibilities have been met with regard to metadata, licensing information, Intellectual Property Rights, GDPR and other data protection legislation.

The Team:

The Evidence Services Team provides scientific and evidence leadership, services and support to help Natural England operate as an evidence-led organisation. The Evidence Services Team is responsible for delivering Natural England’s part of the Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment (NCEA).

The NCEA is a transformative programme to understand the extent, condition and change over time of environmental assets across England's land and water environments, supporting the government’s ambition to improve the environment within a generation. Data will come from earth observation, professional field data collection, citizen science and partner data sets. This role sits within Natural England’s terrestrial NCEA (tNCEA) programme.

Natural England’s tNCEA programme is organised into projects:

1. Mapping and Earth Observation – Spatial data and maps on natural capital to inform national and local decision making and delivery.
2. England Peat Map – Mapping the extent and condition of England’s peatlands.
3. Field Data Collection – Data on habitats, soils, landscapes and species to understand the condition of natural capital assets. Delivery of the England Ecosystem Survey.
4. Citizen Science – Working with citizens and community science to fill gaps, provide local and landscape scale information and engaging the public.
5. Data Engagement and Analysis – Making tNCEA, partner and volunteer data available for analysis, integration, and use. Producing high quality evidence products by analysing and integrating tNCEA data.
6. Programme Management – Managing Natural England’s tNCEA programme.

This role sits within the Data Engagement and Analysis (DEA) team, which delivers data guidance and advice, creates partnerships for data mobilisation, and supports data management and Analysis across Natural England’s tNCEA projects.

Closing Date: 04/04/2024, 23:55 hours
Interview dates: To be confirmed