Operations Delivery Project Manager

Operations Delivery Project Manager – Grade 4

• The starting salary for the role is £30,000.00 – £34,000.00 per annum (dependent on
  experience).
• The role is permanent and full time (37.5 hours per week).
  
• There will be the opportunity to work from home in this role and to work flexible hours. Travel
  across the Westcountry for fieldwork, events and meetings will be required in this role.

Apply by midnight on Wednesday 24th January 2024 by
CV and Covering Letter to:

https://hr.breathehr.com/v/ope…

Interviews will be held in person at our offices in Stoke Climsland on Monday
5th February 2024.

About the Westcountry Rivers Trust

Formed in 1994, the Trust was established to restore Westcountry rivers. Measures to protect
rivers can help to save money for farmers, lower costs for water companies, boost tourism,
reduce the need to dredge estuaries and even benefit human health. Everything the Trust does is
informed by the best available science. Their work is driven by an ‘ecosystems approach,’
considering the function of the entire catchment, not just the rivers that flow within them

Today the charity works with a wide range of stakeholders from landowners to local communities,
businesses, farmers and water companies to restore and protect the rivers, lakes, estuaries and
coastal areas for the benefit of people, wildlife and the local economy. There has never been a
more important time to work on the rivers of the West Country as the impacts of climate
emergency and the ecological crisis is forcing society to invest in building catchment
resilience.

Spurred by a shared love of rivers, the Westcountry Rivers Trust is very much a grassroots
organisation, brought into existence from the bottom up. In the early 90s, a group of
individuals, passionate – but concerned – about the waterways around them, began to stitch
together their ambitions for restoring Westcountry rivers, laying the foundations for the Trust
we know today.

Everything the Trust does is informed by the best available science. Their work is driven by an
‘ecosystems approach,’ considering the function of the entire catchment, not just the rivers
that flow within them

It was this new perspective – not to mention the hands-on and tireless approach to river
restoration – that grabbed the attention of so many supporters and funders and which lies
behind the flourishing rivers trust movement. Since then, the Trust now has circa 75 employees
with an annual turnover of c£3m running multi-annual projects spread across a wide range of
funders.

The Trust has three main delivery teams and a support services team. Our employees work on
delivery sites, from home and from the office. Following the pandemic we have moved to a hybrid
way of working and it is important that our IT enables and supports this change.

The Role

As project delivery specialist contractors and consultants in the freshwater environment, the
Operations Team undertake and support the in-house delivery of a range of projects delivered
either directly by the team or supported by our trusted sub-contractors. The type of project
outputs, monitoring and interventions we deliver and oversee consist of, but aren’t limited to;
bankside and in-river habitat management such as arboricultural work, wetland creation,
protection and restoration, tree planting and woodland creation, gravel augmentation, natural
flood management (NFM) and other nature based solution (NBS) opportunities, floodplain
restoration and reconnection, weir removals and modifications, electrofishing monitoring,
catchment walkovers, gravel audits, invertebrate monitoring, arboricultural and ecological
surveys, supporting applications to countryside stewardship and the England woodland creation
offer (EWCO), training and development, and specialist work in protected and sensitive sites.

This role will be working in Operations Team which sits within our River and Fisheries Team.
The role holder will report to the Operations Team Manager and works closely with colleagues
across the team and the Trust.

Key responsibilities include:

• Support the Operations Team and other departments at WRT with managing the effective
  delivery of our work programme across a range of projects at the Trust.
• Effective project management for a range of schemes including managing and monitoring a
  schedule of project activities and key milestones to achieve project objectives.
• To manage risks, issues and changes to the programme of works.
• To maintain, interrogate and regularly update work schedules, deliverables, budget or
  activity logs and extracting information for reporting, in liaison with the Operations Manager
  and Operations Supervisor.
• Managing project budgets and team expenditure, checking invoices, costings on proformas and
  financial information from suppliers.
• Partnership engagement and liaising with stakeholders.
• Line management of junior members of the team, if appropriate.
• To assist with organising and attending events, meetings, workshops and associated
  dissemination of material and minutes.
• Prepare essential project related paperwork and assist with the drafting of reports and
  collation of material and data.
• To build positive relationships and liaise regularly with colleagues and external partners
  or organisations.
• To work with others at WRT to continuously develop and improve our project/programme
  management and administration processes and ensure that they are fit for purpose.
• To attend formal and informal training and develop relevant knowledge and skills (CPD) as
  appropriate.
• May be required to carry out other duties from time to time commensurate with the level of
  the post.
• Maintain appropriate confidentiality of information relating to WRT and its employees and
  maintain compliance with the UK GDPR.

Essential Criteria: 

• Experience of working in a project management, or other relevant role managing a programme
  of works, in a multi-task environment.
• Strong administration skills with a desire to continually improve and streamline processes.
• A proactive approach and ability to use initiative and problem solve, with a strength in
  the logistical management of a team and multiple workloads.
• The ability to work accurately with a high attention to detail.
• The ability to work to manage your own workload and meet deadlines, managing conflicting
  demands and working effectively to deadlines with minimum supervision.
• Experience of managing people effectively and planning workloads across a team to ensure
  objectives are delivered.
• Effective verbal and written communication with the ability to build positive working
  relationships.
• Demonstrable experience of working with MS Office suite especially Word and Excel.
• Formal education to at least Level 2 (GCSE Maths and English to grade C, or equivalent)

Desirable Criteria: 

• Previous experience of working in an arboricultural, agricultural, ecological or
  construction-based environment or similar.
• Experience of working with financial information and budgets.
• Membership of a relevant professional organisation.
• Degree level qualification in environmental, ecological or other appropriate background.