UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) customers require us to provide professional advice and a range of Situational Awareness products 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.
Our Ocean Environment Technical Leads have the expertise necessary to advise on the use of this environmental data and provide an assessment of the environmental conditions likely to be encountered. This will be achieved through collaborations with external organizations and scientific communities.
We are in a position to be able to recruit 2 Ocean Environment Technical Leads to join and augment our Ocean Environment Team.
If successful, you will be the senior subject matter expert(s) for the Marine Environment within the UKHO and act as the technical advocate in this domain on behalf of the UKHO to external audiences in the military, academia, wider government and private industry. You will be responsible for the technical development of our Ocean Science disciplines, ensuring that the UKHO and Royal Navy can fully exploit a complex and rapidly advancing field.
Due to the nature of the work of the team, and the level of customer engagement and support provided to colleagues, on average 3 days a week working in the Taunton office would be the norm, although this can fluctuate depending on work in hand.
Job description
Activities and responsibilities fall into the following key areas:
Build scientific capability and expertise across marine environmental disciplines within the UKHO:
- Drive forward the technical development of specialist staff skills within the Ocean Environment Team—this includes technical specialists across Oceanography, Marine Biology, Geology, Acoustics and Data Analytics/Management.
Conduct research into:
- New marine environmental data acquisition (e.g., technology), processing (e.g., software) and analytical techniques (e.g., modelling)
- Marine environmental data sources and standards, assessing the relevance to UKHO strategy
- Complex technical issues relating to marine environmental data
Supervise Marine Environment related projects and programs:
- Responsible for overseeing marine environmental data processing, validating and data-basing. Seeking continuous improvement of UKHO's Marine Environmental data deliverables and processing procedures by primary research advising on the best formats, systems and practices
- Supporting the technical development of the Marine Environment databases and data management processes
- Providing technical leadership and representing UKHO interests on issues relating to emergent oceanographic data gathering technologies, e.g., the management and use of data collected using AUVs
- Verification of Marine Environment outputs, including assessing and editing geospatial data and associated text/reports
Engage externally with Marine Environment experts, data suppliers and potential partners/collaborators, and UKHO Customers, including the Royal Navy:
- Provide technical leadership to Royal Navy Hydrographic and Meteorological staff regarding appraisal and use of marine environmental data
- Represent the Marine Environmental technical interests of the UKHO throughout the MOD (including Allied), Government and academic communities
Required skills and experience
We are looking for candidates with a postgraduate qualification or equivalent experience in a marine environmental discipline, or related discipline, who will be committed to utilizing their expertise, currency and credibility to ensure we deliver high quality products and services to our defense users and allied partners.
To be successful in this technical leadership role, the post holder will have demonstrable experience in communicating with and influencing a wide variety of audiences, both nationally and internationally, whilst also able to coach, mentor and develop colleagues internally, to enable them to broaden their knowledge and skills.
Location: Taunton
Salary: £45,645
