Spatial Data/GIS Analyst

Job Title: Spatial Data/GIS Analyst
Responsible to: TEP Technical Director and CEO 
Responsible for: Leading on all GIS related activities and projects
Based at: TEP Office at University College London (WC1H) and remote
Salary: Starting salary £32,000 – £38,000 depending on experience. Including
annual increments and pension contributions.

Description

The Greater Thames Estuary is a highly populated and busy part of the UK, and its coastline
would benefit from better coordination across the land and sea interface. Management and
resilience planning across the Thames Estuary tends to be landward facing, often not accounting
for the Greater Thames Estuary complex as a whole system. Much is being done to take a
proactive response to climate resilience planning and flood risk management, but these plans
generally do not consider the estuarine and marine natural assets or the ecological
connectivity between habitats that contribute to natural capital, nor the coastal community
needs. As a result, Marine Natural Capital is not accounted for, and Nature Recovery Strategies
and Biodiversity Net Gain options missing the opportunity to enhance the coastal/marine
environment.

The Thames Estuary Partnership (TEP) has an established GIS platform currently dedicated to
providing a strategic approach to improve river connectivity for migratory fish (Greater Thames
Estuary Fish Migration Roadmap). Building on this GIS platform, we are in the process of
evolving it to become a Roadmap to Climate Resilience by including data to identify habitat
enhancement and creation opportunity areas, and opportunities for social benefits, and to
visualise climate resilience benefits derived from the river and estuary.

We are looking for an enthusiastic and detail-oriented person with marine/estuarine/climate
science and GIS knowledge to build up on the existing GIS data base and develop the Roadmap to
Climate Resilience GIS platform that will include all enhancement needs, development
opportunity areas and climate resilience data and will act as a one-stop shop for stakeholders
and decision makers. The final user-friendly platform should:

• Enable a more integrated and targeted approach for riverside planning and development that
  also contributes to climate resilience;
• Enable a strategic and whole system approach ensuring that habitat enhancement happens
  where it is needed with full stakeholder and public buy-in rather than opportunistically;
• Enable opportunities for using the platform for public engagement which could lead to
  enhanced stewardship through climate and ocean literacy.

This project is funded by Highways England through Lower Thames Crossing until April 2025.

Also, there will be opportunities to support other coastal habitat restoration and riverside
planning projects such as the Joint Thames Strategies (JTS) Refresh, Transforming the Thames
(led by the Zoological Society of London), Your Tidal Thames (catchment partnership co-hosted
by Thames21 and TEP), Thames Evolving Foreshore (led by Thames21) and the Thames Catchment
Community Eel Project (led by the Thames Rivers Trust).

Job summary 

Main Responsibilities and Accountabilities  

Project Management

• Project manage and deliver the Roadmap to Climate Resilience.
• Manage all GIS and data activities in support of other TEP and partner projects as needed.
• Keep ESRI and other data platforms and licences up to date.
• Lead on project initiation and planning tasks, co-developing the Project Initiation
  Documents (PIDs) and key performance indicators (KPIs) for project outcomes and benefits,
  outputs, risk, cost, and timelines.
• Working within the TEP monday.com project management platform with the TEP Team.
• Ensure delivery of the project strategy, deliverables, and detailed milestones, using a
  coherent project management framework, ensuring that outcomes are delivered on time and to
  budget.
• Contribute to the evolution and improvement of TEP’s Project Management Framework and
  systems.
• Monitor, control, and evaluate progress against agreed performance targets, measuring the
  effectiveness of interventions, identifying, and managing risk, assumptions, issues, and
  dependencies.
• Support the Programme Team on updating and reporting to key stakeholders, and funders.
• Work closely with other TEP staff and support them in their roles and projects as
  necessary.

Stakeholder Engagement and Management 

• Engage, manage, and develop relationships with partners/stakeholders/clients across the
  public, private, and third sectors to enable participatory project planning and execution.
• Work with the TEP Programme Director and Communications Director to create and deliver a
  Stakeholder Engagement and Communications Plan.
• Lead on to the project’s publicity and marketing campaigns.
• Represent the project and TEP at meetings, conferences, and events.

Monitoring, controlling, and evaluation

• Monitor, control, and evaluate progress against agreed performance targets, measuring the
  effectiveness of interventions, identifying, and managing risk, assumptions, issues, and
  dependencies.
• Lead on reporting to the senior management, key stakeholders, funders and the TEP Board of
  Trustees.
• Lead on development and evolution of TEP’s data policies and be the responsible person for
  monitoring and ensuring the policy is adhered to by all TEP team members and delivery partners

Contract Management 

• Support Senior staff on contract procurement and help manage relationships and work with
  sub- contractors to ensure timely and high-quality delivery of outputs.
• Develop a contract template for data sharing agreement with partners and lead on securing
  data partnerships as needed.

Financial Management 

• Work with the Finance Manager for effective budgeting, monitoring and financial
  performance, ensuring funding is spent on time and as agreed with the funder and partners.
• Assist in securing and claiming grants and external funding where required.

Communication 

• Work with the TEP’s Communications Director to create a Stakeholder Engagement and
  Communications Plan.
• Lead on/contribute to publicity and marketing campaigns.
• Represent the project and TEP at meetings, conferences, and events.
• Work closely with other TEP staff and support them in their roles and projects as
  necessary.

Business Development 

• Work closely with Senior and Executive staff to support and input into TEP business
  development and day-to-day operations, as necessary.
• Some weekend and out of hours work is required for both TEP and JTS events. Time in lieu
  can be awarded.

Best practice and Integrity 

• Ensure professional best practice and compliance with relevant regulations, systems, and
  procedures.

Person Specifications: Knowledge, Skills, and Qualifications 

Essential:

• Knowledge of Thames Estuary and marine/estuarine/coastal environments.
• Knowledge of climate science.
• Knowledge of data science.
• Thorough knowledge of data management and statistical analysis particularly in the marine
  environment (estuarine).
• Experience of developing and delivering GIS and data management projects and content.
• Proficiency in GIS software (e.g. ArcGIS, QGIS, R Studio) and spatial analysis techniques.
• Experience with database management systems and data integration.
• Self-reliant IT skills, in particular Microsoft Office Packages and coding knowledge (HTML,
  CSS, and JavaScript).
• Working with stakeholders and members of the public.
• Strong attention to detail and confidentiality.
• Excellent personal and interpersonal skills, enabling effective team working relationships
  and contribute to a positive work environment.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills to deal with a wide range of people.
• Articulate and clear presentation skills.
• Able to present ideas effectively and provide information to key stakeholders where
  necessary.
• Influencing – able to gain an audience for your work and persuade external bodies to
  provide support.
• Organisational Awareness – understands the mission of Thames Estuary Partnership projects
  and partnership programmes and how this role contributes to its aims.
• Confidence in working in a busy, multi-faceted environment with highly skilled individuals
• Ability to work efficiently and effectively under pressure while paying attention to detail
  and be flexible to tackle tasks with enthusiasm and follow through to completion i.e. can
  achieve results.
• Demonstrate initiative and take ownership of tasks.
• The ability to think innovatively and to use resources creatively.
• Ability to find solutions to operational problems that may arise and resolve them in an
  efficient and effective way.
• A willingness to learn about, engage with and support our efforts to become a more diverse,
  inclusive, and equitable organisation.
• An enthusiastic, flexible, and positive approach.

Desirable:

• Hold or be working towards a recognised Project Management Qualification and demonstrate
  evidence of ongoing Continual Professional Development (CPD) in your career.
• Experience of managing complex relationships and developing participatory and cooperative
  practises with diverse partners/stakeholders/clients.
• Experience of working with local government and public sector organisations, understanding
  their processes, capacity constraints and priorities.
• Knowledge of the challenges associated with constantly changing horizons
• Knowledge and experience of working on urban or rural estuarine and/or coastal management.
• Knowledge of climate and flood risk adaptation in tidal and riverside/coastal environments.
• Knowledge of machine learning techniques and tools.

Qualifications:

• Relevant degree and/or professional qualification or relevant work experience of 5 years or
  more.

Benefits:

The Thames Estuary Partnership (TEP) is a dynamic organisation covering a wide range of themes
that interact with, influence and challenge the Thames and its communities. Our aim is to
enable an integrated approach to management and development of the Thames between Chelsea
Bridge to the tidal limit at Shoeburyness, Essex and Sheerness, Kent. Our projects are
co-designed with partners to find solutions to challenges voiced by our stakeholders and based
on environmental, social and economic drivers in combination. This may be to fill a gap
knowledge or co-create and pilot innovative solutions to process and practice. We have 5000
stakeholders in our network and work with and across all sectors. We create engaging events
such as webinars, conferences, walks and talks, boat trips and communications including a
successful podcast with international reach. We are part of a national network of Coastal and
Estuary Partnerships via the Coastal Partnerships Network (CPN) which is currently led by TEP’s
Technical Director.

TEP is registered charity hosted by University College London (UCL) and as such there are a
range of benefits we enjoy as University Associate staff. Some of these include a central
London office near Russell Square and Euston, access to scientific journals online, and
numerous events and lectures of interest across disciplines. There is the potential to deliver
work relevant university lectures and take part in active research projects. TEP staff enjoy 28
days plus bank holidays, in addition to UCL closure days over Easter and Christmas. We enjoy
hybrid working with 2-3 days in the office and the rest working from home. Office days can be
agreed to fit with our collaborative work and your lifestyle.

Look at our website to learn a bit more about the work we do at the Thames Estuary Partnership
www.thamesestuarypartnership.org. 

Application Process:

This job post will close on 27 October 23:59. Interviews will be held in two stages. The first
stage will be an online interview. The second will be in person at the TEP Office in London. It
is expected that the interviews will take place between 4 and 22 November. However, we will
review applications on a rolling basis and the position may be awarded in advance of the
closing date.

Please send your CV with a covering letter to [email protected]