Ocean Environment Scientist

Our customers require professional advice and Situational Awareness support, providing information about the marine environment to assist in their planning. To support this, the Ocean Environment Team within the Scientific Analysis Group, acquires data from a variety of sources and analyses those data for subsequent use. The purpose of this post is to provide the expertise necessary to use environmental data and provide an assessment of the environmental conditions likely to be encountered. This will be achieved through collaborations with external organisations and scientific communities. Utilising their technical knowledge and credibility, the post holder will be the technical expert in their area of specialism, leading and supporting UKHO projects where appropriate. 

Ocean Environment Scientists engage with other specialists and both internal and external stakeholders, in order to develop and maintain SME knowledge and communicate relevant technical information to the team. 

As Subject Matter Experts, postholders will be actively involved, in partnership with the Team Leader/Manger in process improvement and wider changes driven by Business direction. 

This role requires SC clearance and the potential for increasing to Developed Vetting clearance in the future. 

This is an excellent opportunity to gain experience in professional delivery, whilst maintaining and developing your scientific expertise in a supportive yet dynamic environment. 

For this role, we are looking for an Ocean Environment Scientist with a specialism in Physical Oceanography and Ice.

The post holder will undertake activities that fall within these four key areas: 

Development: The post holder will be tasked with the development of capabilities which will improve the customers tactical exploitation of the Ocean Environment. The post holder will develop a good understanding of the customers need for and use of environmental information and feedback from users is actively sought to inform development planning. New capabilities are delivered as projects led by the post holder. 

Data analysis and presentation: Data is obtained and analysed to create representative descriptions of the environment for situational awareness. The post holder will undertake analysis of data relevant to the teams tasking, to derive representative visualisations of the expected marine environmental conditions as well as improve analysis methodology in order to provide a better service, more efficiently. Methods and software tools used for analysis or presentation of results will be continually reviewed and updated to meet changing demands and improve services. 

Capability: Liaison with organisations (both UK and overseas) to meet the needs of assigned work and keep abreast of developments in marine environmental data and analytical techniques. Make the necessary arrangements to obtain data and provide this information as a dataset in a form readily useable by the customer. Develop a network of contacts throughout the academic/government/NGO community to facilitate the best available current scientific understanding and enable collaboration activities to enhance the team’s capability. Take part in outreach activities to raise the profile of the team as a leading supplier of maritime scientific data and expertise. 

Report writing and Quality Assurance: The holder will be expected to produce technical reports to record methodology and results or to present a case for changes to working practices, ensuring documentation is maintained for all analysis work.

We are looking for candidates who can demonstrate the following: 

• A postgraduate qualification and experience of working in marine science or related discipline.
• Strong numerical ability and a deep knowledge and understanding of the principles of marine environmental science.
• A deep working knowledge of data analysis and visualisation techniques applied to marine environmental data, including computer programming skills (experience creating and managing projects within MATLAB, R, BASH or Python).
• Recent experience working with commonly used data formats within the marine sciences, such as gridded NetCDF, csv, geotiff and shapefiles.
• A good understanding of data presentation and visualisation techniques as well as experience of applying that to marine environmental data.
• Experience of working independently on a scientific project(s) and making informed evidence-based decisions.
• Excellent communication skills at all levels, both written and oral. Including the ability to undertake scientific literature reviews, extract relevant information and summarising for a non-expert audience. 

To be successful in the role, you will need to have the confidence in your technical capability to undertake innovative approaches to complex tasks. You will be able to provide feedback, guidance and coaching in an inclusive and nurturing way to enable others to build their own capability. 

As the Subject Matter Experts in a team, Ocean Environment Scientists are actively driving scientific development and support process improvement within the organisation, so will need to have a positive approach to change and the drive to develop themselves to meet and embrace such challenges.

Alongside your salary of £38,173, UK Hydrographic Office contributes £11,058 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides. At the UK Hydrographic Office, it's very important to us that our people feel valued. We offer a huge range of benefits such as training and development, well-being support, flexible/ homeworking, a fantastic state of the art building, high spec equipment, and so much more. See our attached Candidate Information Pack for more details.

Please submit your application through Civil Service Jobs. You will be short-listed against set criteria.

Please read all criteria in detail and tailor your application to these requirements.