Lead Wildlife Manager

Job Introduction

We are Forestry England.

We live and breathe forests.

Job title – Lead Wildlife Manager

Salary – £48,765 - £52,557

Contract type – Permanent

Hours – 37 hours per week

Vacancy closes – 5th April 2026 23:58

Join us. We're foresters, professionals and experts. We are a passionate team who love to share our enthusiasm and want to make a positive difference for you and the environment.

Together, we’re using our scale and expertise to grow the nation’s forests for everyone. We’re already adapting our landscapes for tomorrow, and getting stuff done today, like creating amazing places and experiences for you to enjoy. We're providing vital homes for wildlife, making our air cleaner to breathe and producing sustainable timber.

What you’ll do…

Wildlife management sits at the heart of nature recovery, sustainable forestry and forest resilience. It protects biodiversity, enables the next generation of timber, and restores balance to ecosystems that can no longer regulate themselves. This role leads the wildlife management function across the >250,000 hectares of the nation’s forests managed by Forestry England. Of this, around 68,000 hectares are designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest and 59,000 hectares are ancient woodland. These landscapes support significant populations of native and non‑native ungulates - including muntjac, roe, fallow, sika and red deer - as well as feral wild boar. 

Evidence shows that deer pressure on woodlands has risen over recent decades, with approximately 33% of English woodlands now negatively affected, up from 24% in the early 2000s. In addition to deer, non-native grey squirrels create substantial challenges for woodland recovery, causing damage such as bark stripping, alongside challenging our native wildlife. With the UK lacking its native top predators, active wildlife management remains essential to replicate natural ecological functions and maintain balanced, healthy woodland ecosystems. This intervention is vital to enable nature recovery, support sustainable forestry, and maintain the long‑term resilience of the forests we manage.

This role provides strategic leadership for wildlife management across England, overseeing more than 70 dedicated staff. The post holder will act as Forestry England’s subject matter expert within the National Operations team and will report directly to the Head of Environment and Nature Recovery.

Please see the job description below for more information and details about what we need from you.

Where you’ll work…

This is a flexible, National role, that will involve dealing with contacts across England, meaning occasional travel with overnight stays. The postholder will be expected to regularly travel in accordance with the needs of the business and the demands of the post.

Benefits… 

Alongside your salary, Forestry England contributes an average of 28.97% towards your pension. You will become a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension Scheme.

• 25 days holiday a year, raising by one day every year’s service, up to 30 days (pro-rated for part time employees) plus additional days off such as bank holidays.
• STaR is our employee benefits scheme offering discounts on everyday supermarket shopping, as well as other things such as hotel stays clothes, mobile phones, other electrical items, medical and car insurance, holidays, gym discounts, household bills, Headspace wellbeing app.
• free parking at Forestry England sites and free entry to our National Arboretums at Westonbirt and Bedgebury.
• a commitment to lifelong learning through career development. Forestry England will support your career development in a variety of ways, including continual professional development, support for individual learning plans and sponsored membership of professional bodies.

Read more about the benefits on the Forestry England website.

How to apply…

You will be asked to write a 200 word statement on your relevant experience and career history, along with a personal statement of no more than 500 words. You will be assessed on both during sifting. More details about how to apply are listed on the application form. 

At interview, your Technical Knowledge will be tested through questions and a presentation by the candidate. We will also test the following behaviours through questions: 

 The Behaviours being assessed at interview are – 

Successful candidates will undergo a criminal record check and the government baseline personnel security standard check.

If you require any reasonable adjustments, please email fcrecruitmentteam@forestryengland.uk.

If you're planning to use AI to support your application, please ensure you've read our guidelines here first. 

Read more about our application process and working with us on the Forestry England website. 

Nationality requirements…

Read more about nationality requirements here. 

Working for the Civil Service…

Forestry England is part of the Civil Service. The Civil Service has a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS). This means candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria during the application process will be guaranteed an interview. We also offer a Redeployment Interview Scheme to current civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the role. This role is also part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans and Prison Leaver Recruitment initiative. 

We may offer candidates on the reserve list for this role the opportunity to be considered for roles at lower pay bands.

Within Part 7 of the Immigration Act 2016, it is essential that applicants should have the ability to provide conversation in accurate spoken English.

Our recruitment process makes appointments based on fair and open competition and merit, as outlined in the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles. If you feel your application has not been treated in in line with/according to these principles and you wish to make a complaint, please email: englandhr.services@forestryengland.uk.