Senior Science Officer

The Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust is looking for a Senior Science Officer to lead its long-term marine mammal monitoring project on board Silurian. Starting January 2025.

Senior Science Officer: Full-time (37 hours per week), 3-year fixed term contact, £29,650 per annum starting salary.

This is a rare and exciting opportunity to lead HWDT’s long-term marine mammal monitoring programme on board our charity owned and operated research vessel, Silurian.

We are looking for somebody experienced in marine mammal fieldwork and volunteer training to lead a programme of visual, photographic, and acoustic data collection.

The ability to provide scientific leadership for the programme, and to analyse data and prepare reports to describe results is essential to this role.

We are seeking someone with a genuine enthusiasm for teaching skills to others, who loves being at sea, and enjoys living and working in a close team. Experience working on boats or sailing would be an advantage. A valid medical fitness certificate (i.e. ML5 or ENG1) is required to work on board Silurian.

Our ideal candidate will have strong project management skills and be confident troubleshooting and problem solving, both remotely and in the field. Experience of data management is essential, along with the ability to manage budgets and monitor and report on project outputs. Ideally, we are looking for someone who is a confident spokesperson and will enjoy promoting the project, our activities on board and its scientific outputs.

Read the full role description here: Role description and person specification. Further information about Silurian and the work of the Trust can be found at here.

To apply send a CV, a covering letter explaining how your skills and experience meet the role responsibilities and person specification, and details of two references to Alison Lomax at alison.lomax@hwdt.org with ‘Senior Science Officer’ in the subject line.

You do need to have the right to work in the UK to apply for this role, https://www.gov.uk/prove-right-to-work. As a small charity HWDT are unable to sponsor visa applications for international workers at this time.

The closing date for applications is Monday 28th October. Interviews will take place in person in Tobermory, Isle of Mull on 11th or 12th November.

For an informal chat about the role, contact Alison Lomax on 01688 302620. 

This post has been generously funded by NatureScot.