Natural England is seeking a Chartered Surveyor to support nature recovery and the sustainable management of natural capital and ecosystem services across our National Nature Reserve estate.

These roles offer a unique opportunity to contribute to conservation without the pressure of fee targets, and with the benefit of flexible working arrangements.

As part of our Estate Management team, you’ll help manage a diverse portfolio of leasehold and freehold assets covering approximately 65,000 hectares, including 134 National Nature Reserves (NNRs)—some of the most iconic and ecologically significant sites in England. The estate also includes offices, workshops, and other buildings essential to our operations.

Chartered Surveyors play a vital role in ensuring the estate delivers its full conservation and income potential, meets legal obligations, and provides value for public investment. You’ll be joining a national team of Surveyors and Land Agents, working collaboratively with conservation professionals across the country.

These roles will primarily focus on casework in the North of England—including County Durham, Northumberland, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, and Cheshire—with occasional involvement in national strategic projects.

The roles offer flexibility for home or office working or a mixture of the two. There is flexibility in your location base, however it is expected that you spend 2 – 3 days per fortnight working with the Area Teams and on their NNRs, supporting local delivery. You would be expected to work out of an NE office once a week (minimum).

Job description

Key areas of work include:

Estate Management - manage all tenure casework for a particular geographic area.
Professional advice - the post holder will provide advice on casework, legal and valuation matters related to the management of the Natural England estate. This may include engagement of internal and external advisers on such matters. Internally, this will involve working with our Area Teams, NNR staff, the National NNR team and Natural England’s legal team.
Work with wider NE teams to provide Land Agent input to emerging policy areas and/or schemes and to align the NE Estate processes with NE regulatory needs – e.g. tenure and protected sites such as Telecoms or wildfowling guidance.
Income generation - explore traditional and new potential of Estate assets and drive forward opportunities from emerging environmental markets such as Biodiversity Net Gain & Nutrient Mitigation.
Acquisitions and declarations - advise the relevant geographic team on NNR acquisitions and National Nature Reserve designation.
NNR records - updating and maintaining of property records and mapping.
Finance - work with support staff to deliver accurate payments and receipts from the Estate tenure and assist with procurement for valuation and other contracts.
Contribute to reviews and updates of upcoming Government policy and Estate Management procedures.

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