Senior Ecologist (Leeds)

Your Impact:
At Jacobs, we'll inspire and empower you to deliver your best work so you can evolve, grow and succeed - today and into tomorrow. With more than 55,000 people in 40 countries, working at Jacobs offers an exciting range of opportunities to develop your career within a supportive and diverse team who always strive to do the right thing for our people, clients and communities.
People are Jacobs' greatest asset, and we offer a competitive package to retain and attract the best talent.
In addition to the benefits you'd expect, UK employees also receive free single medical cover and digital GP service, family-friendly benefits such as enhanced parental leave pay and free membership of employee assistance and parental programmes, plus reimbursement towards relevant professional development and memberships. We also give back to our communities through our Collectively program which incorporates matched-funding, paid volunteering time and charitable donations.
Work-life balance and flexibility is a key focus area for Jacobs. We're happy to discuss hybrid, part-time and flexible working hours, patterns and locations to suit you and our business
About The Opportunity
Jacobs are a globally respected and ambitious organisation, ranked UK Environmental Consultancy by Environment Analyst in 2021 (Working with Government & Agencies, Impact Assessment Services , Water Quality and Resource Management), ranked in the UK for Ecology and Wildlife Services by Environment Analyst, and winner of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management's large consultancy of the year award in 2021, and Highly Commended in 2023.
Our Leeds team are working with clients such as West Yorkshire Combined Authority, the Environment Agency, Network Rail, National Grid, Anglian Water on a range of nationally important infrastructure projects.
About you:
The successful person will join a respected and passionate company with excellent career prospects both locally and internationally. You will work as part of a diverse and highly skilled team of over 170 ecologists in the UK (600 globally) and work with hydrologists, geomorphologists, engineers, planner and project managers to provide support and advice to our clients. You will ensure ecology input is considered by project teams, work as a first point of contact and, with the support of the wider team, provide high quality technical advice.
The role will include:

Using your experience - in Environmental Impact Assessment and Habitats Regulations Assessment. We are particularly keen to meet those with expertise in botany and bats.

Working in multidisciplinary teams - quickly building rapport and trust to ensure that terrestrial ecology requirements are recognised, acknowledged and constraints acted upon.

Enthusiastically guiding from the front - being the first point of contact in the provision of expert advice to both clients and stakeholders.

Engagement - with both internal and external clients, customers and environmental regulators.

Develop networks across disciplines within the business - many of our projects are complex in nature and you will be required to work with other disciplines to create effective solutions. Creating an environment accessible to other specialists is essential to our project success, particularly when working across different geographies and cultures.

A willingness to both learn from and mentor others - develop and share skills that build team and team members' resilience. This will include engagement with our global communities of practice, externally facing communications (conferences, presentations, client meetings) and training events.
We actively support the professional development of staff, through our Global Career Framework, Chartership Academy Programme, Employee Networks and our Community of Practice networks, which connect us to over 600 Jacobs ecologists globally.
Here's What You'll Need:

A background in terrestrial ecology with significant years of relevant UK industry experience

Chartered membership of a professional body (or experience to obtain chartership)

Experienced in running ecological input on small to medium scale projects.

Outstanding written and verbal skills with good attention to detail

High level of personal responsibility.
Our Culture
Our values stand on a foundation of safety, integrity, inclusion and diversity. We put people at the heart of our business and we truly believe that by supporting one another through our culture of caring, we all succeed. We value positive mental health and a sense of belonging for all employees. Find out more about life at Jacobs.
We aim to embed inclusion and diversity in everything we do. We know that if we are inclusive, we're more connected, and if we are diverse, we're more creative. We accept people for who they are, regardless of age, disability, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, mental health, race, faith or belief, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, and whether you're pregnant or on family leave. This is reflected in our wide range of Global Employee Networks centred on inclusion and diversity - ACE, Careers, Enlace, Harambee, OneWorld, Prism, Vetnet, and Women's - find out more about our employee networks here.
Jacobs partners with VERCIDA to help us attract and retain diverse talent. For greater online accessibility please visit to view and access our roles. As a Disability Confident employer, we will interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for a vacancy. We welcome applications from candidates who are seeking flexible working and from those who may not meet all the listed requirements for a role
If you require further support or reasonable adjustments with regards to the recruitment process (for example, you require the application form in a different format), please contact the team .
Your application experience is important to us and we're keen to adapt to make every interaction even better. We welcome feedback on our recruitment process and if you need more from us before deciding to join Jacobs then please let us know.