Environmental Data Specialist

Why JNCC?

We’re small enough (c.300 staff) that your voice is heard by everyone including the CEO, but big enough that we have all the skills, resources and people you’ll need to get the job done. All our staff are passionate about conservation and making a difference to the world we live in. We have a very flexible, inclusive and welcoming organisational culture. Our Executive Management provides employees with the freedom and tools you will need, and our friendly team will assist you in your role.

Post background

Are you an experienced data engineer looking for an opportunity to stretch your technical skills and have a positive impact for nature? The Digital and Data Solutions Team at JNCC is looking for a data engineer to contribute their skills and expertise to a range of technical projects and reporting responsibilities.

As the statutory adviser to Government on UK and international nature conservation, one of JNCC’s key roles is the provision of biodiversity related evidence. Access to good evidence to underpin biodiversity and nature conservation advice has become increasingly important as the demands and pressures on the environment rise. Evidence activities relating to biodiversity and nature conservation, such as data collection, dissemination, analysis, and reporting, are all critical elements of JNCC’s core functions.

The Environmental Data Specialist will work in the Digital and Data Solutions team. The Digital and Data Solutions Team at JNCC works across the organisation to deliver creative and innovative solutions which support biodiversity and nature conservation in the digital and data space, as well as offering cross-organisational project management, data protection, and information management expertise. The post holder will join the data engineering section of the team working across an interesting and varied range of projects. Examples of the projects our team are involved in include leading the data engineering function for a new air pollution assessment service, processing earth observation data for targeted projects; using Python and R to extract and analyse marine data; developing databases, validation routines and tools to collate seabird data; and managing the UK protected areas databases.

Within the teamlet there are lots of opportunities to work on projects of interest and collaborate with like-minded data engineers and developers. An interest in nature conservation and ecological knowledge would be helpful to you but are not a requirement.

Job description

Post Duties

The main duties of the Environmental Data Specialist post are to:

• Lead the development and construction of data products and services that feed into the Air Pollution Assessment Service project.
• Lead or support data ingestion, manipulation, analysis, reporting and publishing tasks for various JNCC projects using scripting and ETL software (such as FME). Projects include the UK protected areas databases and UK Biodiversity Indicators reporting.
• Contribute to the portfolio of automation work being undertaken by the team to improve the way in which we generate indicators and other data products.
• Work with other teams requiring technical solutions for structured, unstructured and spatial data across JNCC to define requirements and plan and deliver innovative solutions.
• Provide advice or practical design or production assistance in technical implementation, scripting, data management or processing and automation to support programmes across JNCC.
• Lead role in quality assurance and advice on management of ‘production’-level analytical scripts and promoting good practice in script creation, versioning, and documentation.
• Share best practice across the organisation and mentor or skill share with colleagues.

Person specification

Please demonstrate in your statement your suitability for the position.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Working Together
• Changing and Improving
• Communicating and Influencing
• Managing a Quality Service

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Solid experience with R, Python, or a similar scripting language, which you use to manipulate and analyse data and automate processes.
• Ability to write SQL queries to manipulate and extract data from large and complex datasets (preferably with experience using PostgreSQL). Experience of designing relational databases would be an advantage.
• Relevant experience in management, manipulation, and analysis of large or complex data for environmental applications including the creation of metadata, audit trails, version control and establishing processes/rules for changing and archiving them.
• Experience of, or aptitude for, working with others to identify data challenges, and design and implement solutions
• Experience of preparing and publishing data online
• Experience of, or aptitude to use source-control, package management, multiple computers operating systems or working on remote cloud computing platforms.
• Experience of automating data processing in order to generate efficiencies (including automation of functions and establishing links to databases and webservices).

Apply before 11:55 pm on Sunday 31st March 2024